I used to call the students that I work with my team or my students, but I don’t anymore. Surface level, there is nothing wrong with that. It is super normal to claim ownership over something you are a part of, especially if that something is a group of people that you hired. That group is yours because you chose them – they wouldn’t exist in a team without your leadership and management. However, when you hold a magnifying glass up to calling a group of students yours or your team, it can actually be problematic to claim ownership over them.
Not Objects – Real People and Real Power Dynamics:
We as humans use the word “my” to express possession over something. For example, I would say “that’s my coffee” which would tell you not to drink it because it belongs to me (and hopefully you’re not going around drinking strangers’ coffee). By saying that coffee is mine, I am stating ownership over it – it belongs to me, therefore I have a right to it (a right to drink it). Student staff are not objects like coffee is. You do not have ownership over them or a right to them just because you hired them. By claiming they are on your team, you are subconsciously telling them that you have a right to them and have power over them as an employee. Let’s be honest, as supervisors, we do have power over the staff we supervise and that power dynamic often shows up in accountability conversations and the discipline process. By constantly saying that RAs you supervise are on your team, you may be unintentionally reminding them of the pre-existing power you have over them as their supervisor. Bringing attention to a power dynamic can make some students bristle and want to push back against you more (anti-authoritarian personalities), while others may shut down completely from engaging with you. Stating that student staff are on your team can quickly turn a “I hired you into this position and I can remove you just as easily” perception.
Misplaced Loyalty:
You may have hired an RA for a specific community, but regardless of building placement, RAs are hired as employees of the department. As employees of the department, they are held to the same expectations and standards as their peers, like collaborating with other teams or other professional staff members. Claiming RAs as “your team” can send a message that their loyalty or allegiance should be to you as a leader, rather than the department’s overall mission. Loyalty to a single person (you) can become a challenge when that person (you!!) leaves the department. What happens when a new supervisor joins the community or when an RA is transferred to support a departmental need? Even if you are still present in the department, claiming an RA as “yours” could also lead to them struggling to work with other pro-staff in an on-call situation or with someone who is covering your community while you are out. This misplaced loyalty to you could lead to an RA not being able to fully develop in the role because they don’t want to leave you even if a different community could help with their personal and professional development. Misplaced loyalty could also cause harm to residents if the RA only trusts one person to ask for help or support rather than utilizing all of the resources available to them. An RA may be under your leadership, but they don’t belong to you.
From Owner to Leader:
Instead of saying a group of student staff are on “my team,” I have started to call the group “the students that I GET the opportunity to work with” (which, granted, is a mouthful and more complicated than just saying “my team”). Once I made this change, my relationship with those students completely shifted. By stating that I get the opportunity to work with THEM, I communicated to those students that I was invested in them as people. This shift turned me into a leader amongst the group rather than an owner of it because I wasn’t trying to claim the team as my own, I was trying to be an active participant as well. Shifting your language to frame your work with students as an opportunity also starts to break down power dynamics in a relationship that inherently has one because they are able to see you as a part of the team rather than an outsider. Once I reframed working with RAs as an opportunity, I noticed the RAs started to be more open to changes I brought up and developed trust in me as a leader. The shift in language helped to shift the students’ perspective of my role and power in relation to them, which in turn shifted our relationship as a team.
Still need convincing?
We know that language matters. The way we speak to and about students has an impact on them, whether they are aware of it or not. If you continue to claim students as part of “your team,” they will continue to disengage and subconsciously (or consciously!) think that they are not valued as an individual. If you STILL think this is a radical language change that you don’t want to make, then I hope that you are prepared to claim every single mistake and failure that “your team” makes as your own personal mistake and failure too.
You may have hired students onto a team that you supervise, but those students don’t belong to you. You have to be the game changer when it comes to changing relationship and power dynamics in a supervisory relationship and your first step can be through changing the way you talk about the RAs you supervise.
