1. The author and a colleague were put in charge of leading an important religious ritual when the event coordinators had to leave unexpectedly. 2. They did not feel prepared or empowered to take charge, as they were used to just following orders. However, they managed to direct the rest of the event successfully due to feeling responsible for the group's reputation. 3. The author learned the importance of empowering and instructing all people horizontally rather than just vertically, so that everyone feels comfortable taking on new leadership roles when needed.

1. Critical Reflection
Topic: An attempt to challenge yourself as a leader, or implement a unique strength. This can be
an event or situation that happened during the class or recently. Ideally, use the concepts from
class to challenge yourself in some way, and then write about the outcome.
1. What happened?
As it was usual in every holy week since I got into High school, I used to go to missions in
rural zones with the apostolic group of my school. It was a common practice in catholic
schools aiming to bring the opportunity of sharing and organizing activities and catholic
rituals with people with different economic possibilities.During this week we were
separated into smaller groups so we could cover all the communities. The teams were
planned so all can have a coordinator (Experimented missioner), an assistant of
coordinator (Experimented missioner) and a leader for each catequesis group (Groups of
different age; Kids, Teens, Adults ). The Leaders used to follow the indications of the
coordinators and assistants, because usually they tend to prepare everything. The
problem occurred when we were in the middle of the traditional foot lavatory on Holy
Thursday, when an emergency with one of the missionaries happened and the
coordinator and the assistant had to leave the event leaving me and another colleague in
charge of the ritual. We didn't feel autonomy enough to do it, there was all the town
reunited in the church waiting for us to continue, but neither my friend nor I felt
empowered or trained to do so.
2. Why did this happen? (Consider all possible factors, including the people and the
situation)
We were so used to receiving orders, and we never felt motivated to be in charge of
organizing the event voluntarily that we actually didn't know how to act. The stressful
motivation came when we felt the responsibility of the group's reputation in front of the
believers was so high that we ended up directing the rest of the event successfully.
3. What class concepts are relevant to this situation? (Mention at least one concept from
class and how they can be used to interpret the situation.)
We weren't autonomous enough to be in charge of emerging situations. This was due to
the lack of instruction and empowerment we received previous to the missions.

2. 4. What did you learn from this? (Broader lessons that might apply to other situations or
problems.)
We learned that it was necessary to instruct people horizontally instead of vertically, this
way everybody would feel comfortable being in charge of new activities and would be
excellent to create interest in all sectors during missions.
Evaluation
1. Did they describe what happened?
For example, did they write a short narrative that gave you enough information to
understand the background for their reflection?
2. Did they describe the results?
For example, did they discuss the positive or negative outcomes of the narrative?
3. Did they describe why this happened?
For example, did they discuss what were the events that led this situation? Did they
describe how the outcomes directly resulted from the events in the narrative? Do you
have a sense that this person could predict if this situation could happen again, because
on their understanding of why it happened?
4. Did they refer to specific concepts we discussed in class?
Consider the key terms that you have read about, such as procedural justice, or
organizational citizenship behavior. Did they use those terms in their analysis? Did they
attempt to think about the implications for the theory we discussed for their situation?
5. Did they have a clear lesson they extracted from their analysis?
Did they explain how this situation supports their interpretation? Do you feel that, after
reading their narrative and analysis, you could use their example to explain an important
leadership concept to someone else?