Yeah Yeah Lead!

Each word in this statement has a lot of meaning, as well as the whole phrase. Through this course, I have learned a lot about leadership, but one very apparent aspect of leadership is that it just doesn’t come from those in leadership positions. Every member of a group, from the highest president or CEO to the lowest dishwasher can be a leader. That leads to one meaning of that phrase, which is that everyone has the potential for leadership and should be concerned with it because of that potential. Let me break it down word by word.

In “Power and Leadership” the sources and reasons why each person can be a leader are highlighted. These are French and Raven’s Sources of Individual Power, which range from “Legitimate Power” which comes from a person actually holding a formal position to “Referent Power” which is gained by being friendly and liked. Just because a person does not hold a position therefore does not mean that they still can’t display leadership, because I think that leadership stems from power. Just think about it, how many times have you done something because a friend has told you to, and they don’t hold any official position of authority in your life.

A leader is nothing without power. Even in forms of leadership such as servant leadership where the leader isn’t seen as one who is striving for power, the leader needs power so that they can achieve their goals. To understand leadership, one needs to understand what power is, and how it can be used effectively.

In the case of leadership, power is the ability to influence others. Being a leader means that others follow you, and having others follow you means that they have been influenced to do so. This brings me to another point about the phrase “leadership is everyone’s business” that I have also always thought from my own experiences. A leader is made by their followers.

The best kind of leader is one who includes their followers and is open to them. That way they can get the whole force of their group behind something, as well as get that ever-sought-after shared vision. A lot of examples were given in “Power and Leadership” of businesses and models where everyone is included and there is a low power dispersion. These tended to be the most successful ones because everyone was committed and felt as if they had a personal hand in the success of the business.

I don’t think I’ve ever been shocked into believing something as much as this point. I have been on my dance team, Genesis, for three years now, and I because the leader of the group in my second year. In my first year the leaders of the group were very intimidating and close minded. Even so we did very well as a team, though there was a lot of discontent with how we were ran. When I became the leader I thought that I would do things the same way, so that we could be just as successful. But, being a subordinate the year before I knew what it was like to be under a strong leader, and my tyrant ways only lasted about three days. I encouraged everyone to pitch ideas and let everyone in on decisions, and next thing we knew we turned into one of the best and most committed teams on the South Asian dance circuit. The success that we had gotten under the first leaders looked like nothing compared to what we had achieved.

It is a weird feeling to measure our success though. Not only did we get trophies but we became a much tighter group of friends, which is the real success that I was looking for. But, no matter what a leader or group considers their goal, success in that goal is what they are trying to achieve. That is why leadership is a business, because like a business they are trying to be as successful as they can be.

Using all of their techniques and leadership skills won’t get a leader to success, though, but combining leadership with “everyone” will. Everyone in the group needs to do their part, because just like a business a group depends on everyone from the leader to the newest, lowest member. This brings me to corruption, which is the ticket to failure. A corrupt leader is only concerned with gaining power for themselves, and loses the group. I’ve never heard of anyone being corrupt and being as great as someone who had been inclusive and group minded.

So that’s it: leadership is everyone’s business. Which I would like to sum up into another sentence: A leader can be everyone, but a leader also needs everyone.

                When I first learned that we were going to read Outcasts United for class, I was not thrilled at all. I barely glanced at the book my freshman class was assigned to read, and I definitely wasn’t interested in hearing about this year’s story. I assumed it would be some cliché story, which might have been made up anyways (something I assumed based on what I knew of past freshmen books).

                But, once I had gotten through the second chapter I found that I couldn’t put the book down. Not only is the overall story of The Fugees amazing, but each individual kid’s as well. Outcasts United is inspiring and interesting, and I can’t wait to hear Luma speak next week.

                There are many examples of this book that relate to the Social Change Model of Leadership. One of the main ideas of the model is that a leader is not a person that holds a position or is the main head of a group, but is simply a person that drives change in a positive direction. One such person is Kanue, who showcases this when Luma cancelled the U-15 season because she felt that the players didn’t care. Kanue is one of the hardest working and most dedicated players, so when Luma cancelled the season he was also one of the most devastated. He approached Luma and convinced her to hold tryouts for a new team and went door to door in Clarkston to convince people to come. During tryouts he even gave a guiding voice by yelling out encouragement and tips to the others that were trying out.

                By doing this he highlights many values from the social change model, but I think the most apparent are his demonstration of commitment and controversy with civility. The way in which he talked to Luma and convinced her to hold tryouts, as well as the way that he acted during the season seemed very mature to me, which is why he handles controversy with civility. At such a young age it is easy to back down or handle the situation with a bad handle on emotion, but instead he essentially stands up to Luma and is mature and civil enough to get the change that he thought was best.

                Luma herself also exemplifies the model. One such time is when the Fugees were just starting off, and there was tension between players. The two best players on the oldest team, the Liberian Darlington Ziaty and the Iraqi Peshawa Hamad, began to compete for Luma’s attention as well as separate the team because of their ethnicities and languages.  Luma responded to this by only speaking in English to players, even though she was fluent in Arabic, and giving Darlington and Peshawa the ultimatum to work together or be kicked off the team. The result is that the team united, and Darlington and Peshawa became a strong attacking combination.

                Collaboration is a very important part of social change, because it is very apparent that not everyone will have the same views on everything. But by capitalizing on the strengths of different people an even stronger combination can be made. Luma understood this and made the players understand that through collaboration they can become a better team. By only speaking in English, she also made each player equal, and didn’t make it seems as if she had favorites. Therefore everyone was more committed to contributing to the group values.

                The main example of social change was when Luma decided to start The Fugees. When she first approached the kids playing on the field by one of her favorite Arabic convenience stores  she got to know them by continuing to stop by. After a while she realized that by putting the team together she would not only being helping the community but herself. She had always had bouts of homesickness and soccer was a great way for her to battle it. But by creating the team she was able to create a community for these kids as well as keep them out of trouble. A positive influence was very important to Luma, which was seen in her rule to have short hair. She associated long hair with gangs and trouble, and wanted the kids to be as far from it as possible. This sense of community and positive change is very important to the model.

                Luma’s approach to leadership is very interesting and inspiring. She pushes for the kids to overcome the differences between themselves and unite to the common goal of playing soccer. But she is very strict and commands respect throughout the team. She make sure that the team knows that she is in charge and is always decisive. But she also makes it known that she cares a lot about the team and sticks to her values. Luma tries her best to treat each kid equally, but she gives each kid attention, whether positive or negative. For example, she drives Jeremiah to practice because she knows his dedication to the team, but she also lets Prince go because he won’t cut his hair. By doing so she makes sure that the players not only get to play but also learn and develop as people.

                Personally I found the drive of each kid most inspiring. I can see how Luma has the maturity and capability to start a team like this, but it has to be difficult for the young kids to do some of the things they have. Even small things like Jeremiah coming to the first day of practice with only one shoe, or the team getting teased because they are refugees add to this. I think that the true story of the book is not the story of the team, because they are strong and under the watch of Luma. Instead, the true inspiration comes from the underdog story of each player, because they had to face individual conflicts that I don’t think even most adults could overcome.

There’s nothing more fun than people watching. I’ve realized I spend a lot of time do it, from the times when I cross the oval, to the times (the very few times) that I get distracted in class, to the times when I am sitting in Thompson library and people walk up and down the stairs. It’s pretty obvious that you can learn a lot from observing people, but the guidelines for observing student organizations from Emotionally Intelligent Leadership was very helpful in honing down what I should be looking for.

                The organization that I plan to do my project on doesn’t hold regular conventional meetings, so I observed an executive board meeting for another organization that I used to be involved in as a general member. This organization is interesting because it is an umbrella organization for South Asian organizations. In other words it helps other South Asian organizations, by helping organize an event or moderating between two conflicting organizations for example. This made the meeting very interesting because they seemed extremely focused on this purpose, but I will touch on that more later.

                The meeting was held in the organization’s office in the csls, and all of the members sat around a table in their room. There were the typical board members that you would expect from an organization (president, vice president, treasurer, secretary, etc.) but one of the past presidents who had helped found the organization but has now graduated also came. I asked one of the members after the meeting, and he actually comes to all of the meetings. So though there is a president to the organization it was pretty hard to figure out who was actually running the meeting. The president would bring up a topic from the agenda and the board would discuss it, and then the former president would then give his thoughts on the topic and it would be discussed again. The current president seemed pretty relieved that the old president was there though, because he did provide a lot of insight from his experience.  The former president did put a lot of effort into emphasizing that the reason that he was there was just to provide his thoughts, and that the decisions made were entirely up to the board and the new president, though for the most part they followed his recommendations.

                Much of what they discussed was about the purpose of the organization. As an umbrella organization it seemed as though they were trying to define what they actually do and stick to that purpose. It was clear that they help other South Asian groups (which they wanted to stress by saying that the organizations were actually above them) but they didn’t really know what guidelines they would follow when they provided help. That’s where the old president seemed to be very useful, because he had an experience for almost every instance that they could think of. By the end of the meeting the consensus seemed as though they would take each case that they would provide help as an individual and do what they could for that specific organization or issue. They would then gauge their success based on the event thrown.

                This organization does not throw events of its own, so they have a very small member base. They are in the process of selecting freshmen representatives so they talked about why they have such a small group. They only wanted people that would want to be very involved, so there would be a lack of apathy among the group. And it appeared to be that way. Everyone in the meeting was engaged and interested in what was going on, and everyone took the purpose of the group seriously. Everyone in the group was involved in other South Asian organizations, so they all had different points to make and had different views which at times led to a bit of tension but usually made the discussion worthwhile.

                I think that the organization is doing a good job of helping South Asian organizations. They have been approached or have offered help to many small and new organizations, which is right along the lines of what they wanted to do. The one concern that I had about how well the organization is doing is that they seemed skeptical of some of the bigger organizations that fall “above” their umbrella so there seemed to be almost a sense of competition between all of the groups. Other than that though I would say they are right on track with what they wanted to do.

                Ohio State is huge. And I mean 56,064 undergraduate students huge. We have all heard about how easy it is to get lost among the crowds and classes, but with all of the students involved even being a member of an organization most likely isn’t enough to keep you out of the dark. Sometimes whole organizations become pushed back just because of the sheer amount of groups on campus. I think a few insights on how to solve this problem as a leader can be found in the student development theories that we read about. What struck me about the theories was the focus on the individual, and how he is unique.

                This concept of the individual is a two way street for leaders. Not only do they have to recognize their own development (who wants to follow a leader who doesn’t keep growing?) but they should see their own organization as an individual and focus on its development, too. I talked about this a little in my last post, but I am a firm believer that an organization should have shared goals and that the leader should follow what the organization is looking to do.

                The article on shared visions by Marty Jacobs had a lot of thoughts on how to get to this goals, and I think that Marty Jacobs hit the nail on the head when he said, “Without a shared vision, the force of the status quo will prevail in an organization.” In other words, an organization without a vision will just go with the flow, and won’t develop into something amazing. I agree with him when he says that this vision is more or less a collection of the personal visions of each member, which also calls into play the development of each member so that they all have something worth sharing.  

                Getting everyone’s ideas incorporated into this vision is maybe the most motivating thing a group can do, because everyone feels incorporated into the group and feels that personal connection. In the same article by Marty Jacobs he talks about the differences between compliance and commitment, and the subtlety between them. A committed, developing group is what makes the group great.

                So how do you get this way?

                That’s where student development theory comes in. One concept that I saw over and over again in this article is that students must be considered as unique individuals, along with the theory that a student’s environment and personal motivation are keys to their success. I thought that it was interesting that many years ago education was personalized and not only taught what we might consider an education today along with values. Then there was a shift to a more “large group” feeling, and now we are in a sort of mix of the two. Kind of like a best of both worlds situation. There group feeling is provided by the size of the university, and all of the opportunities that come from that. Though as the article states, the size of the university can also decrease development with redundancy.

                But the personalization? That’s where we come in. As leaders and members of SLA I think that we can really use the ideas of student development theory in facilitations. I’ve noticed that facilitations seem to be at their best when I am leading them in a unbiased manner, and I think that the thoughts given by the article about facilitations brings together a lot of ideas that will really help me become a better facilitator. What I wanted to get at though is how I’ve noticed that once things get going in a facilitation and I take a step back, that’s when the growth really occurs.

                Evans says it best when he states, “Development is not simply a maturation process, but requires stimulation through challenge and support.” The experiential learning cycle (which is that people learn best through experience and analyzing what had happened for themselves) is an important aspect of development, because it is how you develop.

                So as a facilitator (and leader) I would take a step back and let your organization develop and experience for itself, while you do the same for yourself.