Heed the Call: An Advocacy Campaign

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TASK GROUP CASE STUDY

It is said that two heads are better than one. The more people involved in a specific job, the easier it is to accomplish a job, with the assurance of meeting the expected deadline and assuring the quality of work and an outstanding individual performance of every team player. These are the objectives of every task group. It is established or created in order to accomplish something very important, with a leader, a co-leader and the members of the team. In short, a group of skillful and talented individuals, geared towards doing an extraordinary job.

A social worker’s role is not simply a leader, a colleague or a co-worker. He or she also assumes the responsibility of being a brother or a sister to every teammate, a mother or a father, a trusted friend and a confidant in times of trials or difficulties related to one’s family or work. The position is diverse and unique because it allows you to perform roles outside the bounds of your job description and challenges you to meet expected targets and hit planned objectives for the benefit of the communities in your areas of responsibility.

To be able for a leader or a member to prepare for a task group, he or she must understand the nature of the job and the expectations to be met or addressed. If a task group leader or a member does not put his heart into what he will be doing, better not commit oneself because it will just yield unfavorable results.

Another very important point to remember in preparing for a task group is taking good care of one’s health. Since you are tasked to help in the delivery of basic social services, you should make it possible to be around anytime your teammates need you to perform an errand or substitute for someone who will not be able to make it during a daily routine in the field or in the office. It may seem that you are not allowed to get sick because there are a lot of people expecting you to report to work and perform your regular duties and responsibilities.

The job really requires a lot of time, including  your commitment and dedication to serve your fellow man and your country. When you are in the public service, even your personal and family affairs are sometimes set aside, just to attend to a very important affair in the community.

In addition, a social worker or a subordinate should not only express sympathy over individuals in the community who needed help but also exercise empathy. To be able to do your job effectively and efficiently, you must put yourself in their situation so that you will be able to understand what and how they feel about their predicament.

The very reason why social workers call for an emergency meeting is for the group to discuss very important agenda related to their work. This is the time for leaders or subordinates to participate in a healthy discussion so that they will be able to discharge their duties to the community properly.

Attending a  meeting should be understood as part of your job. Positive comments are given in order to give inspiration and encouragement to workers or employees in any field of work. At the same time, negative feedbacks should be taken as a challenge and not as something that will destroy relationships within the group. There are a lot of ways on how people interpret what they see or hear within the workplace; and sometimes, destructive criticisms may build walls instead of friendships. The group leader should and must make sure that he or she doesn’t start the conflict, otherwise, the group will be in the brink of a disaster.

The first step in settling a conflict is calling on both parties involved. They must be brought to a  closed door venue where they will face each other together with their group leader. In times like this, they should be reminded to be civil in their dealings with each other. Foul language should be discouraged during the deliberation, so as not to ignite a heated argument or discussion. The leader must take into consideration  hearing or listening to both parties. While someone is talking, it is encouraged not to butt in or interrupt because it will just create confusion in the process of settling the problem. Every member should be reminded that he is given his time to talk and interrupting would be a sign of disrespect.

In this situation, the leader should and must be impartial or fair to both aggrieved parties. After every member has spoken, it is now time for the leader to exercise his power as their adviser. Every adviser must make sure that he says the right word at the right time in order that solutions in solving the conflict would be possible. It is called processing people and ideas to come up with a better solution in resolving minor and major conflicts.

 It takes a lot of skill or talent in handling people’s conflict within a group or an organization. In order to ensure commitment, the leader plays as a role model to every subordinate under his supervision. He or she should not only emulate good moral values and character to his subordinates but also walking the talk, meaning doing sincerely what he is saying.

This will serve as a positive energy to the subordinates and will surely motivate people in the office or in the field to do their very best, anytime and anywhere; thereby, improving work performance and professionalism. All of these will also improve the task group’s overall job rating and evaluation since everybody has done their best to achieve certain goals.

Lastly, the leader should and must place a boundary between him and his subordinates, Familiarity breeds contempt, as a practical saying goes. The leader may sympathize or empathize with what is happening to one of his subordinates, but, this should not disregard respect to authority and commitment and dedication to the job. The leader must ensure that there is no hidden agenda in exercising his duties and responsibilities so as not to destroy the image of the organization and impair the objectives of what the task group should reach or attain.