Does all leadership come from loving three things: humanity, learning, and honor?
Spend 30 minutes writing about the person in your life (someone you know personally) that you would say has shown the most and best leadership in their course of their life. How young were they when they first started showing leadership? In addition to describing the specific leadership behaviors that this person has show, you may want to include information about their education and upbringing, their physical appearance and style of dress (insofar as you believe it influences their leadership), and anything else about them that may explain how they came to show leadership so well
There are a few people that come to mind when I think of someone who exemplifies leadership throughout the course of their life. But one person in particular stands out, and that would be my father. I would say I live a fairly comfortable life, but I know my fathers upbringing was a bit different from mine. I remember him telling me that him and his two siblings all shared one bed at one point of his childhood. My father grew up in Miami, as did I, but he lived in the more so neglected areas of the city. The parts of town where gang affiliation and gun violence was at a high rate. I remember he told a very detailed story about what actually happened during his childhood, this was about six years ago if I had to guess, unfortunately I don’t remember much. What I do remember is my dad making the right choices to better his life. I would say this was around the age of twenty. My father did drop out of high school but I don’t think that hindered him in any way looking back. He matured and joined a church where he met my mom, and older sister. He got married to my mother and shortly after I came along. A few years later he started his own business, it was small but it was something he grew so passionately for. He always tells me that his family was his drive and determination to do well and provide for us, and he did. Him and my mother gave my sister and I an amazing childhood filled with joy and amazing experiences. One of the main reasons why I view my father as a leader is because I feel like it takes a certain mindset to be able to turn your back away from a cruel lifestyle and want better for not only yourself but for others. Not only do I view my father as a leader but I view him as a mentor as well. He guides me in the right direction, he’s always so quick to ask me about my schooling, although he didn’t finish high school himself I think he presses the importance of education onto me. Thankfully with age his physical appearance did get better, my father loved camo cargo shorts, he still wears cargo shorts time to time but definitely not as much as he did in the past. As he matured so did his physical appearance.
Finally, in your sketch explain what areas of life you believe their leadership would be most effective, e.g., in a boardroom, a classroom, a sports field, or state house
I believe that my fathers leadership will be most effective for me with anything that has to do with social skills, or anything pertaining to business or entrepreneurship. My father is amazing when it comes to talking to others, he’s definitely a people person and can adapt to an group of people. I think that’s a great quality for a leader to possess as it demonstrates their ability to lead any particular group of people. It shows that you don’t have to limit yourself to things or people that you’ve been exposed to. As I mentioned earlier my father is a business owner, and being a business owner you have to have a savvy mind, and I feel like he can definitely help me in that field as he has grown his company to be very successful and I do have an interest in exploring certain ventures.
What is a problem that you would like to have phronēsis (wisdom, forethought, or “knowing how this is going to go”) in solving? This could be any kind of problem–environmental, economic, societal, political, scientific. What is your plan for cultivating phronēsis? How will you establish your reputation for phronēsis, so that others will take you seriously?
A problem that I would like to have phronēsis for would be this upcoming election. I feel like because of the circumstances and events that occurred this year (specifically the coronavirus pandemic) that this election may not go as smoothly as others had in the past. I think we all are aware of the fact that we might not even have an elected president on election day this year due to the various ways of voting. We may not know for weeks or months on end, so I feel like this is a scenario in which we all wish we could rely on phronēsis.
Identify three times in your life when your feeling of phthonos interfered with your ability to lead, e.g., on a sports team, a student group, a group of coworkers, or even within your family. If you can’t think of three times, you’re not thinking hard enough! Were you able to overcome these feelings in the moment or at least afterward? Now imagine three situations in the coming weeks when you might feel phthonos toward someone such that it interferes with your leadership. What can you do to overcome these feelings next time they arise? How can the groups you’re involved in do a better job of minimizing feelings of phthonos to ensure that everyone is able to activate the best within themselves? You might think of this in terms of policies or just overall culture.
There has been a quite recent instance where phthonos has interfered with my ability to lead. Back in July my job invited me back to work after being furloughed because of the pandemic. Once I returned my job title was for a different position, and I wasn’t properly trained, it was more so them teaching me as I went along. And for that I find myself making minor mistakes at work because I wasn’t properly trained on the task or was given false information. Because of this I have found myself in unappealing conversations with my managers for things that weren’t under my control. I just find the entire situation unfair and if they want things done a certain way, they should train their employees as such. Ever since these situations occurred I would say its an on and off thing, everyday I go into work I don’t really know what to expect or even how the day will go. I do feel like voicing my concerns to my managers will help ease the anxiety and stress.
A second scenario would be group projects. I’ve had my fair share of group projects in the past, but one thing that I’m noticing is that there’s always that one person or even multiple people in a group project who either A. don’t bother to participate or B. barely help at all. Leaving all the slack to one person or others. Its an unfair situation because its just more work on my part. Currently I’m in a group for a project for my African American studies class and so far nobody is participating, which is leading me to think that I once again will be doing all the work. I feel instead of sitting back and taking all the slack I can be more vocal about the situation, maybe tell my professor there are no active group members and asked to be placed in a different group. Or reach out to the group members, and if I get no response I can make it clear to my professor who did and did not participate in the project. As it really isn’t fair for someone to get an amazing project grade for something they didn’t participate in.
Lastly, this one may seem so insignificant to others and for other people they might understand where I’m coming from. When I get home from a long day of work the last thing I want to see is a sink filled with dishes. I’m the type of person that cannot cook in a messy environment, so when I see dishes I feel the need to wash them. It really does effect my ability to lead because it really disrupts my mood. I think when all get off work we just want to go home and relax and not have to worry about completing even more work. I think with this scenario I can voice my frustrations with my household and tell them to wash out their dish after they finish it, that way there wont be any dishes to have to worry about.
