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Business & Leadership

Learning to lead,

by learning to listen.

ASDAN BUSINESS SIMULATION

Three roles. One evolving idea of leadership.

A journey from first-time team leader to semifinal champion — and then to mentor.

IN THE ROOM / DISCUSSION, COLLABORATION & EXCHANGE

SHANG MA · SELECTED EXPERIENCE

First competition

Learning from a setback

Semifinal champion

Rebuilding how we work

Team mentor

Helping others find their way

Growth reflection

What I carry forward

01 / FIRST COMPETITION · GRADE 9

A strong team.

yet crushed on their first mission..

I brought together a team I believed could win. We had people for the poster, operations and presentation — but having roles on paper was not the same as working together.

Focused on operating decisions, I missed conflicts in our schedule. I tried to keep every decision in my own hands. The result was last place overall.

01.1 / PREPARING THE PRESENTATION WITH MY TEAM

THE RESULT

Last place overall.

Best Auction Award.

WHAT I HAD TO RECOGNIZE

The problem was not a lack of effort.

I had not given my team enough trust.

After the competition, I reviewed our planning, communication and operating decisions. I began to see delegation as a responsibility of leadership.

02 / SEMIFINAL CHAMPION · GRADE 10

A better system.

A shared victory.

I returned with clearer responsibilities, a stronger understanding of operations, and a different way of working with people.

02.1 / COMMUNICATION BEFORE THE NEXT DECISION

02.2 / THE SEMIFINAL CHAMPIONSHIP TROPHY

1st

OPERATING DECISIONS

1st

ROADSHOW & EXHIBITION

Champion

OVERALL SEMIFINAL RESULT

A MOMENT THAT MATTERED

When two deadlines collided,

I listened before acting.

Our roadshow and exhibition preparations overlapped. I spoke with both leads and found the shared bottleneck: missing materials. I reassigned a teammate to procurement so both groups could keep moving.

03 / TEAM MENTOR · GRADE 11

From making decisions

to helping others lead.

When a new team entered the competition, I shared both the failure and the win. I organized what I had learned about operations into a framework they could use for themselves.

When they brought me a problem, we worked back to its underlying logic — so the next decision could be theirs.

THE TEAM I MENTORED FINISHED RUNNER-UP.

Share the whole story

Make the mistakes as useful as the success.

Find the underlying logic

Ask what drives the problem before choosing an answer.

Build independent judgment

Give the team a framework they can apply.

04 / GROWTH REFLECTION

Leadership became less about

having every answer, and more about

helping a team find its own.