This week we discussed what a leader is, and what qualities make effective leaders. It was interesting because I had never really sat down and determined what a leader was. I think we often think of leaders as people who literally lead a group of people.
But a leader is a person who leads, commands, or inspires a group, organization, or country.
Obviously, it makes sense that a leader would also be someone who inspires a group of people. Those are the leaders who are absolutely leading by example. They may not be traditionally leading someone or running a country, but are leaders simply by being innovators in their field.
We had a really interesting team activity this week where this concept of what a leader is really came into play. We were given this this list of leaders and told to come to a consensus as a team about which of these people were leaders and why.
| Mohamed | Abe Lincoln | Buddha | Jim Jones | Florence Nightingale |
| Moses | Albert Einstein | Solomon | Hitler | Oscar Pistorius |
| Martin Luther King Jr. | Franklin D. Roosevelt | John F. Kennedy | Henry Ford | Rosa Parks |
| Oprah Winfrey | Thomas Jefferson | Lee Iacocca | Dahlia Lama | Neil Armstrong |
| Ronald Reagan | Robert Baden-Powell | Tony Romo | Albert Schweitzer | Florence Griffith Joyner |
As our team began to look at the legacies of some of these people, we realized some of them had done some pretty awful things, including genocide and murder. And yet, we also concluded that all of these people were leaders. We realized that being a "good" person is not a requirement for being a "good" leader. Hitler was an effective leader, and yet he committed mass genocide against Jews and other groups of people who did not meet his standards of the perfect race, including homosexuals.
We also looked at characteristics of good leaders.
I've always known that I wanted to be a good leader, but this week really helped to to outline what a good leader is. Sure, before I could say "oh yeah, X is a good leader," but could I really define why? I'm not sure I could have.
I think that after completing the activities for this week, I look at leaders through a different lens. A leader is not just someone who is in charge. A leader is not just a manager.
A leader is someone who inspires others. A leader is someone who builds up their team and truly cares about each team member. A leader is someone who directs and guides their team towards a common goal.
We were also able to watch the movie Ender's Game this week, which I think highlights some great examples of effective leadership, as well as "good" leadership. I wasn't surprised to discover that the book the film was based on is listed as recommended reading for many branches of the United States Armed Forces.
One lesson that seems to be popular from the book/movie is that the "enemy's gate is down."
In this situation, Ender's adaptability was what made him a good leader. He was able to adapt to situations that often stumped the other kids. Here, Ender notices that when placed in zero gravity, many of the kids still act as though gravity exists--as though up and down are still relevant and must be obeyed. However, Ender reorients himself to ignore what should be "up" or should be "down," and rather chooses his own points to orient himself.
"It was impossible to tell, looking at the perfectly square doors, which way had been up. And it didn't matter. For now Ender had found the orientation that made sense. The enemy's gate was down. The object of the game was to fall toward the enemy's home."
As a leader, it will be important for me to be able to adapt to the whatever situation may arise. Sometimes, you have to look at things a different way. You have to set aside what you previously thought (what if up isn't really up?), or were conditioned to think, and consider the problem from another angle. Perhaps down isn't down. Perhaps the enemy's gate is down. Perhaps I was looking at this the wrong way, and there is a solution that wasn't obvious to me before.
Another thing that came from this movie was the idea of being a compassionate and trusting leader. If you don't have compassion for those you lead, or you don't trust them to complete their achievements, you won't be a very effective leader. You have to build relationships with those you lead and make an effort to show them that you respect them as a person.
The material this week was honestly quite enjoyable for me. It challenged me to think about leadership in a way that I had never really bothered to think of leadership before, and really cemented the type of leader I want to be.
I want to be an effective leader, but I also want to be a good leader.
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