Above is a reflective essay about training new staff members at my current job. I work at a group home where four ladies with disabilities live. My job entails helping these ladies through everyday routines and community activities. Training new staff members can be a difficult task because when you're working in a group home with four different ladies who have four different routines, it can be difficult for the new staff member to take it all in. This is why I train in the way that I do. I try to tell the new staff member a little general information about each of the ladies before going into detail about each individual routine. I believe this step and working with my other co-workers to do the training are both very important steps in making sure the new staff member is not only trained properly, but also feels comfortable. This reflective essay helps me to achieve level 3 of Values and level 2 of Teams. Values level 3: “Evaluates effective and ineffective leadership styles within group contexts” and Teams level 2: “Practices group member skills and abilities to work together toward a common goal.” I have observed how my other co-workers train and how I was trained when I started, and I used those experiences to find a leadership style that I thought would be most effective. I also used training styles that I have seen and experienced in the past that I did not think were beneficial to training and decided not to use those techniques. Some of the techniques I found were not beneficial were doing things like telling a trainee a client’s whole schedule at once or training them on more than one client at once. I found that it is the best to only train on one lady at a time and to not overwhelm them by talking through their routine as you go. It’s also important to make them feel comfortable asking questions and check in on them often to ask if they need clarification on anything. I always make it very clear that all the staff are here to help them and to not hesitate with any questions because it is very tough to learn everything. Not only that, but I also was able to reflect on my own leadership styles and how my style of leadership reflects onto my training. I am an authentic leader, so while I am training, I tend to be very excited about what I am talking about because I am passionate about my job. I think this is helpful as a trainer because my outgoing/extroverted personality can make the new staff feel more comfortable and less shy. It's also helpful because when I show my passion for the job it can help to make the new staff also feel excited about the job. When I was trained at my job, the co-worker who trained me was excited and connected well with each of the ladies, this made me excited for the job. This was an effective leadership style in my opinion, but I have seen some ineffective styles as well. As I talked about above, it is ineffective to overwhelm the new trainee with too much information at once (Values, level 3). In the future, I will continue to lead with passion and be an extrovert, but I need to learn to not be too outgoing as to hinder the thoughts of others. Every day at work each staff member is assigned a lady to work with and this is decided by each of us. We choose depending on who we believe will work best with which lady on that particular day. For example, if one lady has an outing, we decide who would be best fit to go on the outing with that lady and who would be better staying at the house to get more tasks done. This helps us to make sure everyone is playing to their strengths and it makes the shifts go by faster and much smoother. Sometimes the roles can be a bad thing if not assigned correctly. For example, if someone is having a bad day, it would be a bad idea to have them with a client who is maybe also having a bad day. We work together as a team to pick who is best fit to work with who. By doing this, we are working together towards the common goal of having the best shift with the least amount of issues possible (Teams, level 2). Overall, roles are a very big part of my job and it helps all the staff and clients have a better and more smooth day. In the future, I will continue to use roles when working on school projects and at work, but I need to work on knowing which role I will be best at in each situation.