Being a Leader Interaction 2

This weekend the UMBC softball team went to Boston to play our second conference series. I was to room with another upperclassman and a freshmen. In the world of sports the rookie, or freshmen, takes in the brunt of manual work and jokes. I have found that people dont really respond well to this technique. Year after year however if there is a job that needs to be done the call of "freshmen...do___" is almost inevitable. Uperclassmen are given first choice for pretty much everything and the freshmen have last choice. The beauty is that nobody remains a freshmen forever. That is the typical hierarchy of collegiate athletics. This weekend there were three people in the room, two full beds and a cot. Naturally the two upperclassmen (myself included) would have the full beds and the freshman the cot. When we got to the room, the other upperclassman took one full bed already, leaving another bed and the cot vacent. I looked at the freshman and used the principle from chapter 4 of HTWFIP, "nobody likes to take orders." I could have just said "seniority, i have the bed, so you take the cot." I chose however to take the Dale Carnegie approach and said "oh man these cots are really short and my feet will probably hang off, would you mind if I slept on the bed?" She said, "nope its all yours." I think she really appreciated the lack of dictatorship.