Leadership Lesson: guys & girls are different!

On Thursday afternoon, I said goodbye to the outgoing student council who I served with for the past year. This council team had only one guy, while the rest of us were girls. Props to Aaron for putting up with us and our girly conversations all year long!

As I said goodbye to the outgoing council, I said hello to the new student council who I will be working with for the next year. Now this team is all guys, except for me and another member. 

For two days, our new council retreated as we trained for our new roles. During our retreat however, the other female member was absent. So, it was me and a few guys. Immediately, I began to notice the difference of going from a dominantly female team to a dominantly male team. I first noticed this difference when the guys wanted to stop at a bike store! lol. After conversing about the Boy Scouts and browsing tin mugs, bikes and lighters I realized I was with a bunch of guys and no longer with my ladies! aaaaaaaaaaa!!!!!!

So, I just wanted to share the things I learned while being on team with all guys for the past 2 days. Now, these things that I learned are not general facts about men and women. Rather, these are my observations of the differences of being on a mainly female team to now being on a mainly male team. Here goes:

• Guys are quick at making decisions! I began facilitating our first meeting by speaking about the vision/them of this coming school year. I anticipated this meeting would go for a couple hours (minimum). To my surprise, the meeting went an hour long! We made quite a bit of significant decisions during this meeting and it surprised me at how quick the guys were at making these decisions. Each one didn't really elaborate on their decision; they simply decided and stated it. This quick decision-making surprised me but made me happy because we got an early lunch :)
• Guys don't snack as often as girls. Last year, I remember that we had salty and sweet snacks galore! And let me tell you that most of those snack were eaten! Making decisions, talking business also meant comfort foods! mmmmm! For the past 2 days however, only a few of the snacks were opened and only a bag of gold fishes was finished. I asked the guys why they weren't eating the snacks. They simply answered "we ate big hearty meals". Ohhh man...we ate hearty meals last year too yet we consumed those snacks let me tell you that!
• Guys like to take initiative. I noticed that most of the time, when we were about to begin or conclude with prayer, before I asked someone to pray, one of the guys would volunteer himself or he would just begin praying.
• Guys like to protect. What I mean by protect is that they like to take care. These past 2 days, on the retreat, I saw the guys really act like gentlemen. No ladies, chivalry isn't dead. And no ladies, I'm not all about being too proud or independent to have doors opened for me. So, during the retreat, I kinda felt taken care of. Not that the guys were waiting on me hand and foot, but once in a while, they'd open a door for me, speak for me, or carry something for me. This was really nice!

I think I'm going to like being on this team! lol. I'm learning a lot so far... my main lesson so far is: guys and girls are different! lol. How obvious this fact is- yet how little do we remember this!

P.S. If anyone has any advice on how to be in a leadership (presidential) position with a dominantly male team, I would be more than grateful to receive it! I'd like this to be a good experience for us couple girls on the team and the guys.