All About Trust

By: Nora Kish

I’m the kind of person that hates group projects. I hate having to rely on other people to do good enough jobs on their parts and how the summation of those parts will ultimately make up MY grade. I think it really just comes down to my inability to let go sometimes and trust people to do well.

The past few months I’ve been working as Project Manager for the Liberal Arts Career Week. It’s safe to say that Career Week is definitely one giant group project, much like any project in a work environment is. Being dubbed “Project Manager” put me in a serious predicament – I HAD to let go and learn to trust my fellow interns.

In the beginning, I tried to do everything myself; I thought I could and I thought I wanted to. I soon discovered that neither of those thoughts was true. Reality slapped me in the face and I realized that I absolutely could not complete such a large project all on my own and that I definitely did not want to try. My fellow interns were and still are an invaluable resource and I knew I needed to tap into them.

Project managing Career Week has really taught me how to delegate tasks and be more at ease with other people working on the same project with me. I’ve held various leadership roles in the past, but none were quite like the one I currently hold and none ever demanded the same level of needing to delegate. 

As our tireless efforts for Career Week start to come to a close, I can reflect on what I’ve learned throughout the project. I learned not only to let go of control, I learned to trust others’ abilities to perform and to perform well. But, more importantly, I’ve learned to trust myself more. Project managing Career Week has reaffirmed in me beliefs that had been beaten down from a previous position I held: I am capable, I am competent, I am a hard worker, and I can do a great work when I put my mind to it. Now, Career Week is less than two weeks away and seeing all of our hard work come to fruition lets me know that I put my trust in the right places.