Developing the Hero Within
As we grow up, we are all exposed to heroes who save the world. Superman saves Metropolis. Batman saves Gotham. Captain Planet brings pollution down to zero. And Wonder Woman saves us from Villainy Incorporated. No matter who you were, I’m sure that at one point within your childhood, you came across a hero in one way or another. You may even have spent time making up your own hero, or looking up to a real life hero like your aunt, uncle, teach or mentor.
The fact is, heroes have given us some sense of moral direction. They’ve allowed us to assess our own ethical compass to distinguish right from wrong. We developed a sense of compassion against dispassion. Whether it was playing with our own dolls or actions figures or role playing with friends, the iconic position of the hero has helped us to develop introductory leadership qualities that help us navigate societal dynamics.
For the past eight years as a professional in higher education, I’ve had the privilege of continuously learning leadership theories and supporting students through their own leadership exploration. I’ve found commonality between my own exploration and that of the student’s experience, and that of the role of heroes. The overall mission has always been to continuously find ways to better the individual with the hopes to better the surrounding environment. Whether it was me reading a book about leadership, a student discovering the type of leader they can become, or Captain America learning of his new abilities, the end results were to making a positive impact on the immediate surroundings.
But, what if I told you, you have a hero within yourself? So often, we look toward someone else who may help to mentor us through hardships and critical thinking. We continuously ask our parents for advice. We ask an aunt and uncle what they did when they had the same problems. We ask our mentors what others have done in our fields. But, what about asking yourself, “how would you handle this?”
Let’s be very clear here, we must make the distinction between asking someone else what they would do, and asking others for help. The first asks for guidance, while the second asks for assistance. The first you would ask to learn from others, the second your would ask once you’ve learned from yourself. Learning from yourself is called self-leadership and allows us to reflect on our own capacity to manage our internal resilience and external confidence. This allows us to match our external realities with our international vision for ourselves as leaders.
Now, about this hero within — how do we cultivate this and how can we use it for good? How can we truly begin to find this hero that is sitting inside yourself? I would submit to you that we each of our different heroes within. Dr. Carol S. Pearson explains to us there are twelve archetypes that can help each one of us tell our individual stories — stories that can help us to explore our own leadership capacities and become individual agents for positive change.
I’d like to take this opportunity to explore the twelve archetypes in this series, and how each one allows us to tell our individual stories — stories of how we truly are our own hero and how we don’t need to look any further beyond ourselves for inspiration and motivation to become agents of change.
Looking outside of ourselves, we can find solace in a hero that serves humanity. We can find inspiration and feel good about the change that results. We love to hear stories of the young homeless student who graduated as valedictorian of their class and now is off to college with a full ride scholarship. We grow fond of the teacher who is recognized for their inspiration and the impact they’ve had on the students they teach, all while making $30,000 and paying out of pocket to help buy class supplies for their students. But what about you? What about the hero inside of you, that you can lean on? Let’s explore that.
