Project: Critical Reflection - Leadership & Organizational Behavior

1. Emilio Moreno
A01451252
March 23, 2021
Project: Critical Reflection
I’ve had many leadership events and scenarios throughout my life. But this one has been
the one that had taught me the most and reflecting back to it, I learned and gained knowledge in
this situational leadership event I faced back in August of 2019 where I got a job at Del Cerro
Tennis Club located in San Diego, California. I’ve been playing tennis for 20 years and I wanted
to experience a job and working in this sporting area that I greatly appreciate. Del Cerro Tennis
Club hired me as the Head Tennis Professional of the club since they were in need of one with a
complete background in tennis like mine. Before this job I’ve had labor experience back in my
hometown Mexicali, Baja California in my dad’s companies, therefore I had decent experience
working for someone and the responsibilities that need to be taken into full consideration in a
job.
I was only 2 months in my job and was the newest worker of them all at the club, but
they had high expectations of me. Pressure or fear were not factors that could affect my work
ethic and my performance on and off the tennis court. I identify myself as an extravert person
which I know is a trait that most predicts leadership emergence, but this didn’t mean that I could
be the best leader in given situations; but it gave a touch of confidence to me in my workplace.
As soon as I was hired, I analyzed how things worked out in the club and quickly identify the
leaders in the club which were the owner, director of the club and the manager. These people
showed a vast of leadership in the 2 months I’ve been working in the club. They showed
honesty, self-confidence, were visionaries, strong communication, active listening and
innovation. I was very motivated and happy to work here due to the environment of the
workplace and how workers carried around day by day; the energy and attitudes were always
positive.
The leadership event I was exposed to was at almost 3 months of working at Del Cerro
Tennis Club was when we were in charge of hosting one of the most important professional
tennis tournaments of the United States. My bosses who were the owner of the club, director and
the manager had left San Diego a day before the tournament in order to bring professional
stringers from Miami, Florida. These stringers are electronic machines that are used to string
tennis racquets and we were going to provide the service of stringing racquets to the professional
tennis players who came to compete in our big tournament. Before my superiors left, they put me
in charge of everything until they came back from Florida. They trusted me due to the fact that I
was a follower who was high in competence and high in commitment. The most appropriate style
for me as a follower was “delegating”, the leaders of the Del Cerro Tennis Club trusted me to
take care of things without a lot of oversight from them. This made feel very proud and confident
about myself; everything was running smoothly before the tournament started and taking into
consideration that my superiors were not here yet, therefore, I was calm arranging tasks that
needed to be finished by the following day. The day finally finished, and I was done with pretty
much every duty that I was responsible for, but I had a weird feeling of not hearing back from
my superiors asking me if everything was set and ready for the big day tomorrow. I didn’t pay

2. too much attention to it, so I headed back home to get some sleep and rest for our big tournament
the following day.
My leadership initiatives started when I was up at 6:00 am bright and early, ready to head
to the inauguration of our tennis tournament. It was then when I got a call from the owner of the
club saying they were stuck at the airport and that their flight got cancelled for the day. They
weren’t going to make it to the head start of the tournament but that was the minor problem. The
biggest issue in this situation was that they had the stringers, and we weren’t going to be able to
provide the stringing service in the first day of the tournament; this wasn’t professional from us
and we were going to look not prepared. My superiors were trying to find instant solutions to this
issue, but it was at this moment when I became a leader and took initiatives. First off, I stopped
panicking and complaining about how were going to dig out of this hole. Then, I started
contacting almost every tennis club in San Diego which it was where we were located. I
contacted about 15 clubs and all of them had stringers, but they wouldn’t just simply lend it to us
since were club rivals. These tennis clubs were asking me for a renting fee in order to use their
stringers and this had me so mad in the inside, but I controlled myself. I realized that the clock
was ticking, and we were running out of time. 1 hour away from the inauguration of the
tournament and the first tennis matches, also without my superiors knowing the initiatives I was
acting upon on, I decided to rent 5 string machines from 5 different clubs with my own money.
By the time that these got delivered to me at the club the tournament had just started, and
professional tennis players began to drop of their racquets to me and our staff to string them; I
made the decision right on time.
By that time, I’ve had completely forgotten that my superiors were still stuck at the
airport since I was very busy stringing racquets, directing the tournament, and scheduling the
matches. By mid-day I got a call from the owner of the club which was my most important
superior and the first thing he said to me was “As soon as I land in San Diego, I’m going to pick
you up from the tournament when “Day 1” is completely finished and we’re going to get dinner.
You’re getting promoted, I want you to run every tournament for me now and I’m making you
director of the club/manager”. These words to me got very emotional because for the first time in
my life I felt like I took a very important initiative in order to become a leader. This reflection
about this specific situational leadership allowed me to see the skills and the talents I hold within
me to be the greatest leader. I learned that with confidence, communication and initiative
everything can be done, and things can go your way. We can’t hold fear within us if we want to
succeed, sometimes we need make quick smart decisions without any permission in order to
impact the organization or company you’re working for in a positive way. Finally, I also learned,
and it can be concluded that you need to stuck out the most in a workplace by performing in a
unique way that differentiates you from the others in order to create a significant impact to your
organization.