HOW WAS BELLA'S EXPEDITION EXPERIENCE?

"The PURPOSE of life, after all, is to LIVE IT, to TASTE experience to the utmost, to REACH OUT eagerly and without fear for NEWER and RISCHER experience."

- Eleanor Roosevelt

LEADERSHIP

According to the NOLS & Leadership ROLES;

Active Followership. In my opinion, as I noticed during the sea expedition, participants actively engaged in pre-expedition discussions about planning, strategy, and debriefs. This includes discussions about route planning, safety protocols, and resource allocation. During these discussions, Active Followership is demonstrated through active listening, providing constructive input, and collaboratively working towards informed decisions. Once the expedition begins, participants exhibit Active Followership by listening and following the leader's orders and guidelines, such as navigation plans and safety protocols. For example, while crossing the channel, the group keeps the formation tight and compact while also paddling quickly to get across the channel as per the leader's instructions, reflecting Active Followership and contributing to the overall safety and success of the expedition.

BEHAVIOURS

Strongly Demonstrated

According to the NOLS 7 leadership skills, the element of "Tolerance for Adversity and Uncertainty" was strongly demonstrated during the sea expedition. This skill emphasizes the ability to turn challenging situations into opportunities, see choices as workable options, and endure or even enjoy hard work and challenges.During the sea expedition, the majority of us hadn't been kayaking for close to a year, and many had never been on such a long sea expedition. Thankful for the training session before the expedition but some of us felt that we were still slightly ill-equipped with how rusty we were, we grit our teeth and pushed on. Adding on, there were double kayaks thus it provided us with the opportunity to help each other and also to be able to push each other further.

Lacking Behaviours

During the expedition, there was a lack of important judgment and decision-making, as highlighted by the NOLS 7 leadership skills. The group didn't think about all the experiences and resources available, especially not using the strengths and knowledge of each person to solve problems. The principles of involving everyone in decision-making, giving choices with acceptable outcomes, and questioning norms were not fully followed. To make future expeditions better, it's crucial to create a decision-making environment that includes everyone, appreciates, and uses the different skills and views of all group members.

COMPLIMENTS
&
IMPROVEMENTS

COMPLIMENTS

A positive expedition behaviour I have noticed would be the group's cooperation with the leaders. It includes the group's active participation in discussions, cooperation with leaders, constructive feedback, effective task completion, and adherence to established standards. These actions highlighted a strong sense of teamwork, and respect with and for each other making the expedition all the more enjoyable.

IMPROVEMENTS

The identified negative expedition behaviour is the group's lack of initiative, adopting a passive "participant mode" during the expedition, where individuals wait for instructions rather than taking the lead. The suggested improvement involves cultivating greater self-awareness and encouraging being more proactive. An example I can provide would be to ask to go set up the equipment, and tents or simply help out with distributing the food. Despite the fun we had, being proactive would have made the expedition become more efficient.