Acumen Leadership Workshop: Leadership is a choice
I have been struggling with motivating myself lately. I am a perfectionist by nature and I am extremely hard on myself too often. It’s difficult to talk about my anxiety, but I must continue to write about it because it has truly been an eye opening experience. Selfishly, I want to reflect on my progress on self healing at the end of the year.
Today, I begin my journey in a more structured personal growth. I signed up for Seth Godin’s Udemy course on Leadership, where I will learn how I can instil change in my day to day.
Every lesson in the course has a leadership journal portion, where I’m supposed to take the time to pause and reflect on that topic. I’m quite excited about this, although a little uneasy by the amount of vulnerability. But, as I’ve learned in the last 6 months of feeling trapped, I need to just go for it.
Prompt Questions
Instead of pointing to a leader, outline a moment when someone you respect engaged in leadership.
I can definitively say that my awesome person in crime, Joe, is a good example of a leader.
One, his level of self awareness has greatly inspired me. I’ve always been a detached person. I grew up that way and I taught myself to be very careful about who I let in. We were both insensitive in the beginning. Over time, we realized that we share similar experiences. He calls me out when I do questionable things and I’ve learned to internalize my decisions. Sometimes I’m right and other times I’m wrong. Through him, I’ve become more thoughtful in the way I act and speak. He’s very real to everyone he talks to.
Two, he covers my blind spots and everyone he respects. In university, I was always more interested in student organizations. My overall performance in my business management degree are alright, but they weren’t my forté. Joe knows a lot about the business side of things; my strength is in strategy and design. I trust his feedback and I know the people he works with do as well. It’s kind of crazy to see someone who is pretty good at influencing people and yet remain steady in his path of winning.
Next, Describe a moment when you chose to lead. How is it different from the rest of the time, when you are merely managing?
I was pretty active in my university’s student orgs, more specifically in Performing Arts Cluster, which was composed of 4 different orgs that had varying core competencies. I decided to take a secretarial role in the council in my sophomore year. Mian, the cluster head, was in her senior year. She is brilliant. She constantly pushed me and the president of the orgs we worked with to strive for the best. She was a little crazy but very deliberate in her actions. She taught me how to lead, among other things. We created a brand awareness campaign so that the entire student body can come watch the four organizations perform together. It was stressful but it was 100% fulfilling.
I became head the year after that and the new secretary and I took that campaign and made it bigger. I let my team shine in their respective areas of expertise. It warms my heart thinking about them now. It was a collaborative effort, and I think that’s why it feels so good.
Do you agree that leadership is a choice?
Yes. I mean, it’s a thankless job. I respect people who step up to the challenge and fight for what’s right (sounds cheesy, I know). It’s a choice to co-create with others.
Leadership is about making a change. A change that might not work. If you do the work alone, you are an artist. If you get other people to do it with you, you are a leader. Going forward, then, what is the change you are trying to make?
I must become a sponge again. I want to analyze connections and patterns more religiously. I want to be able to recognize how a system operates and to understand how effective communication works. The outcome, I hope, is that I grow as a person and sequentially inspire others in some way. My biggest fear is that being in proximity of all the horrible amount of opinions and in the midst of a growing affinity for complacency, I will be completely discouraged to fight.
Seth Godin is, of course, an inspiration. He’s written some of the most actionable stuff on personal and professional growth, in my opinion. I like that he’s candid and genuine in his approach.
I know that I still babble too much, that I’m not concise in the way I speak. I also realized that I stutter a lot when I’m trying to get my point across, which I think is a side effect of being a true nervous newt. I’m working towards being strong in my convictions. It’s crazy hard, but I want to be able to communicate my ideas in an effective manner.
