Leaders?!
As I said yesterday, I had my oral exam earlier today. Please don't even bother asking me how it went. As always, things didn't go as I had planned it to. I mean, of all things, I didn't expect myself to stumble upon plural conjugations as well as the basic command words such as 'what' and 'how'. Lucky for me it went by pretty quickly that it ended before I even realized it. Well at least I got hold of a decent conversation with Luay Hasan, the other Arabic lecturer before my exam started since I got there earlier than expected.
The rest of my afternoon was spent on biting away my Subway while watching a new episode of The Apprentice UK followed by another show about the preparation Venice undergo through last year when the Pope came to visit, then just before the sun sets for the day I managed to finish one more documentary about Britain's monarchy, highlighting the era of its Queens. As the night falls, I realized that I had not only wasted my time watching all of these unnecessary documentaries for nothing more than to keep my head at bay after going through today and the day day before, I also gain some general knowledge on leadership.
As I thought back about all these 3 shows I've watched this entire evening, they all share the same theme throughout; leadership. Though the stage may vary among them, since one showcases a more corporate and business leadership approach while the second show more or less showed me the respect that people has to the Pope as the great leader of the Catholic church. On the other hand, the third show surely portrays the monarchs as being the leader of Britain, one of the big players in our world today.
Being a leader is not an easy task simply because it involves working with people. Humans are not easy to work with, that may taste a bit bitter yet it is a universal truth, so like or not we all just have to learn to accept it. You may disagree with such an absurd claim, besides if I dare to say that it is true then I am implying that I am not easy to work with. In a way, yes. Why? Well because humans are so complex that in order for a leader to be successful in running a group of randomly assigned individuals, first of all he/she has to somehow get the much needed respect from them all before any tasks can be done to perfection.
Respect is not easy to come by, it has to be earned. His/her caliber as a leader will be constantly be challenged along the way, be it directly coming from a fellow group member or through a series of bumps the group are running into, in short crisis management.
Then one begins to ask him/herself, how does one actually create or build a good leader? More importantly, what type of a leader is best suited to be the captain of one's ship? These are the questions lingering in my head right now. From what I've heard, people kept on chanting that experience is by far the most effective 'guru' for it. I supposed they are right; the more we are exposed to different things, the more ready and prepared we are to adapt to changes. Not only that, lets not forget that our groupmates are humans too. Good leaders are also those who are not merely good at what they do for a given task, but one which is able to structure and maintain his/her group's composure while at it. Communicate well, plus ensuring that the right person is assigned to do the right job are a couple of widely known secrets to achieving the team's ultimate goal.
All of this can easily be found in any business studies texts all over the world. But the biggest question of all is to ask ourselves, are we a good leader? When an opportunity presents itself, will we take it by the hand and stand up to be the one who'll be navigating the ship? Let's not forget, a good captain should always be prepared to sunk with his own ship. I'll let you ponder on it. Good night~
I leave the rest to you.......
The rest of my afternoon was spent on biting away my Subway while watching a new episode of The Apprentice UK followed by another show about the preparation Venice undergo through last year when the Pope came to visit, then just before the sun sets for the day I managed to finish one more documentary about Britain's monarchy, highlighting the era of its Queens. As the night falls, I realized that I had not only wasted my time watching all of these unnecessary documentaries for nothing more than to keep my head at bay after going through today and the day day before, I also gain some general knowledge on leadership.
As I thought back about all these 3 shows I've watched this entire evening, they all share the same theme throughout; leadership. Though the stage may vary among them, since one showcases a more corporate and business leadership approach while the second show more or less showed me the respect that people has to the Pope as the great leader of the Catholic church. On the other hand, the third show surely portrays the monarchs as being the leader of Britain, one of the big players in our world today.
Being a leader is not an easy task simply because it involves working with people. Humans are not easy to work with, that may taste a bit bitter yet it is a universal truth, so like or not we all just have to learn to accept it. You may disagree with such an absurd claim, besides if I dare to say that it is true then I am implying that I am not easy to work with. In a way, yes. Why? Well because humans are so complex that in order for a leader to be successful in running a group of randomly assigned individuals, first of all he/she has to somehow get the much needed respect from them all before any tasks can be done to perfection.
Respect is not easy to come by, it has to be earned. His/her caliber as a leader will be constantly be challenged along the way, be it directly coming from a fellow group member or through a series of bumps the group are running into, in short crisis management.
Then one begins to ask him/herself, how does one actually create or build a good leader? More importantly, what type of a leader is best suited to be the captain of one's ship? These are the questions lingering in my head right now. From what I've heard, people kept on chanting that experience is by far the most effective 'guru' for it. I supposed they are right; the more we are exposed to different things, the more ready and prepared we are to adapt to changes. Not only that, lets not forget that our groupmates are humans too. Good leaders are also those who are not merely good at what they do for a given task, but one which is able to structure and maintain his/her group's composure while at it. Communicate well, plus ensuring that the right person is assigned to do the right job are a couple of widely known secrets to achieving the team's ultimate goal.
All of this can easily be found in any business studies texts all over the world. But the biggest question of all is to ask ourselves, are we a good leader? When an opportunity presents itself, will we take it by the hand and stand up to be the one who'll be navigating the ship? Let's not forget, a good captain should always be prepared to sunk with his own ship. I'll let you ponder on it. Good night~
I leave the rest to you.......
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ReplyDeleteTrue. If you want to read about leadership, I would suggest John C. Maxwell's 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership. It contains a lot of example that really clarifies the things we need to be a leader. Last but not least, knowing without action is a waste of our brain space. I think we can start with a battle plan on how to grow as leaders.
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