The Leader Today

Well, I’ve come to the end to what I originally considered to be a journey for leadership. However, I’ve realized that my education in this area hasn’t stopped. I have more to learn, more experiences to come by, and more leaders to observe. I thought I would have learned and changed instantly, but it takes more than a semester to know how to act in the right ways.

Referring back to the classroom, my instructor has laid out some goals that he wanted the students to achieve. I would like to take this opportunity to reveal his goals and describe how well I’ve accomplished those goals. The main goals to be accomplished are being a leader in my own life, being a leader for others, being a better writer, and being able to see leadership and analyze it everywhere.

Being a Leader in My Own Life
I can name five instances in which I was a leader in my own life this semester. In one instance, I tried being a leader at my current place of employment by stepping up and leading a small group of people together to do a small task before closing. Unfortunately, a co-worker eventually didn’t want to work with the team and group unity was dissolved. When I approached the manager about this issue after an incident with this same co-worker, my manager had basically told me I tried to do something with the best intentions, but I did everything incorrectly. Since then, my confidence has shattered, and I felt as though I couldn’t be a leader there.

In another instance in which I applied leadership to my life, I went to my first career fair ever, searching for an internship. However, I didn’t have very high hopes for myself. I received responses from two different places, my current place of employment and another department store. I was rejected by my current place of employment, but my desire to learn how to manage and be molded into something great became an attractive feature for the other company, which offered me an internship this summer.

For a third instance, I may be stretching the leadership concept a bit. I decided to co-host a house party with a good friend of mine. I’m more of the planning and professional kind of hostess, whereas she is the fun-loving kind of hostess. Between the two of us, we worked well to create a fun party with various activities and a relaxed environment. If any problems arose, we handled them efficiently. Our guests also had a great time, too. It was a big success, and a house party is definitely something in which a leader needs to stand up and take care of others.

Since my customer service class last semester, I have taken the time to volunteer at the Clinton County Animal Shelter in Frankfort, and while I don’t have much of the emotional capacity to constantly care for animals awaiting adoption, I try to help out when I can. Sometimes it’s simple tasks like walking the dogs or answering the front desk’s phone, but volunteering has helped shape me into a better customer-oriented leader.

Finally, when it came to this blog assignment, I wanted to try going above and beyond. I wanted to focus on something I could write about easily, but I knew that the subject matter of video games would be a risk. I pushed myself to try and do more than anybody else in the class, and I hoped I succeeded in that. I won’t truly know how successful I was in leading myself through this blog until I receive a grade later on, but I’m hoping for the best.

Be a Leader for Others
Not only was I expected to be leader in my own life, but it’s important to be a leader for others, so here are another five instances of my leadership this semester. Early in the semester, much of the class was taken aback by the confusing and rambling sixteen-page syllabus given to students. After realizing I missed the first assignment, I told myself that I wouldn’t do it again, so I went through the syllabus in-depth, and I reworked the syllabus into a four-page one that I shared with the other students via the Facebook page created.

In another instance, the class had the opportunity to volunteer to be one of the group leaders responsible for some twenty students. Possible group leaders had to be interviewed before ten of them were chosen. However, I didn’t volunteer—I was intimidated, worried, and I felt unprepared to be a leader to my peers. So in this sense, I failed to be a leader for others, and I regret it, because I feel as though I could’ve made a great leader.

When I became a part of a group with an assigned leader, I had several opportunities to help out the group. When it came time to do a group memo, I was one of the few participants that reminded the entire group about the main points from “It’s Your Ship,” and I suggested using those aspects as a starting point. When the date for the exam came up, I was the only individual that provided an in-depth study guide of some sort.

In another class, I’m a part of a six-person group in which we had to do a group presentation and paper. With the help of my group, we narrowed down our subject matters and the topics we needed to discuss. I put together all of the PowerPoint presentation. Since I had done so much work there, I wanted my team to step up and work on the paper. However, they wanted to meet together, and the only time they had available was the date it was due. So, I took it upon myself to do the paper ahead of time and share it with them.

The last situation is very similar to another example of my work for yet another class. I’m part of a two-person group in which we have to do a twenty minute presentation near the end of the semester. While my partner is a good friend of mine, I know that she mistakenly puts her social life before her studies at time and therefore she ends up working of school items last minute. Of course, this happens to just about every student, but I stepped up and made a presentation weeks ahead of the day we were set to present. For me, it wasn’t a chore, because I’m meticulous and a perfectionist when it comes to making them.

Be a Better Writer
My professor probably will not like this, but I’m going to be honest. I’ve most likely failed in this area due to my ignorance of the particular writing rules he prefers. I feel as though I have a decent foundation of writing skills, but that probably means nothing to my instructor or others. So, I will honestly say that I’ve probably failed this goal due to the fact that there wasn’t much professional writing needed for this class, and I failed to look over the expected writing rules.

Be Able to See Leadership Everywhere
In order to be able to see leadership everywhere, students were assigned to write a couple of memos about leadership observed in a film and in an article. The first had to be finished alone, whereas the second assignment was performed in groups. For the individual memo, I succeeded to find leadership in my film, Wreck-It Ralph, which I posted much of it into a blog post. For the group memo, I am unaware of how well we succeeded since it’s been turned in recently. Considering the content of my blog, I know I’m quite capable of seeing leadership everywhere around me.

Kirk Weisler

My class experienced about a five-hour presentation from Kirk Weisler, a friend of our professor and a great motivational speaker. He’s developed his own kind of leadership training program in which he shares his philosophies and stories to several corporate audiences around the world. We learned that only thirty percent of workers are truly engaged in their jobs, and unfortunately, eighty-five percent of a new hire’s motivation takes a hit in the first six months of their new job. I wanted to post here some vital bits of information I noted during his lecture.

Kirk Weisler

What We’re Doing Wrong
Life is passed by people who are too busy, too focused, and too victimized to notice the answers in front of them. Life has become so fast paced today that people cram as much as they can in a shorter amount of time, but trying to do this is illogical. You can’t cram a “marathon” and expect great value or performance. Mr. Weisler revealed that change allows us to grow. That in itself makes individuals more interesting, because there’s no such thing as “boring things”—only boring people.

The Role of the Student
People know that education—scholastically and job-related—is important, but sometimes we pretend it’s not important. Students are meant to be hopeful, humble, open, and willing to try something different. They are learners, but they have to WANT to learn. The person who loves to learn triumphs over the person who’s willing to learn. Should students learn HOW to learn, they will end up with a huge advantage. When somebody decides to be a LIFELONG learner, they will accelerate and magnify their personal growth. Just being hungry to learn is one of the most attractive attributes a person can have.

How to Better Ourselves
Mr. Weisler mentioned several things that we can do to be better people, friends, co-workers, and leaders. We can only better ourselves as far as we want to go. “A tree will grow as tall as much as it possible can.” Here’s a list of a few “mantras” that were mentioned during his lecture:

• Be contagious, especially in laughter, because it tends to spread.
• Be infectious, because it suggests the pleasantly irresistible quality of something.
• We cannot NOT communicate.
• Cheering works. Don’t doubt it.
• You can do hard things.
• Don’t just be. Become. Don’t be a human being. Be a human becoming.

Making it Anywhere
We have to be determined to make the best choice based on the best information we know, so it’s best to give yourself every advantage in as many aspects as possible. However, we have to be patient, since mastery takes a lifetime. In the meantime, we should “fake it until we make it,” which means in Mr. Weisler’s words that we have to act the way we want to become, and eventually we will become the way we act. Our beliefs are constantly on display based on our behavior and choices. So, knowing is never enough, because we know better than we do. So, we need to perform how we want to be perceived correctly the first time.

The Five Languages of Love
My favorite part of Mr. Weisler’s lecture doesn’t have extremely strong ties to leadership, but it’s still interesting enough. If you love somebody, you should tell them. Fortunately, there are various ways we actually express our appreciation for somebody else. Each of us has a primary and a secondary way of expressing our love for one another. In a way, it’s similar to a personality test you would find online or in a magazine. However, you don’t need a test for this one, because you’ll most likely already know the answer. We need to spread a little bit more love in our lives, so it’s great to know that there’s other forms of appreciation that can be expressed. The five languages include:

• words of affirmation – expressing encouragement, love, and support vocally
• gifts – purchasing items while thinking of another and giving them
• time – spending large amounts of time with someone
• physical touch – more usage of hugs, shoulder pats, and others touches
• acts of service – doing something for another individual

Although I haven’t completely grasped and absorbed everything Mr. Weisler talked about, I appreciate the time he spent to visit our campus and speak to us for a long period of time. Mr. Weisler has published two books, “The Dog Poop Initiative” and “The Cookie Thief,” and he manages his blog, T4D, at http://kirkweisler.com/t4d/2013/03/.

One Chance

I would like to take the opportunity to post something that readers can do directly without having to leave the computer. In my class, our professor has stressed how important one chance is. We only get one chance to make an impression, do the right thing, or whatever the case is. That one chance could change so much in our lives, and those chances can create such a monumental imprint in the world.

I have an excellent tool that can combine this concept with my love for video games. On Newgrounds, flash game creator, AwkwardSilenceGames, created a game titled, One Chance, where “Scientist John Pilgrim and his team have accidentally created a pathogen that is killing all living cells on Earth. In the last six remaining in-game days on Earth, the player must make choices about how to spend his last moments. Will he spend time with his family, work on a cure, or go nuts?” This is a game about choices and dealing with them.

To further describe the plot, John Pilgrim is part of a team that discovers a revolutionary cure for cancer, but the celebration is short lived when they realize the cure becomes a gas-based drug that destroys all living things. Players literally only get once chance to save the day. With only six in-game days, players can only choose to do one thing each day– go to work, spend time with the family, be alone, and so on.

One Chance Flash Game

Controls
arrow keys = control character
space bar = interact with objects

Once the game ends, you can’t play it again unless you “cheat” by disallowing cookies to be stored on your computer or clearing all your temporary internet files from your browser. The creator said he wanted to explore the concept of permanency in games, and he wanted players to really thing about their choices, so he designed the game to not be re-playable.

“Guilt and responsibility often go hand-in-hand, but it’s entirely up to people as individuals how they react to their mistakes—whether they decide to do everything they can at the cost of themselves to try and make things right or simply accept things as they are and shrug their shoulders.”

This story is very powerful, interesting, and depressing, and there are several outcomes that players can achieve. I really wanted to post this because it is an extremely striking game with simple graphics but with a huge idea. In the end, how will you spend that one chance?

If the embedded flash video fails to work, this link should open the game:
http://uploads.ungrounded.net/555000/555181_One_Chance_NEWGROUND.swf