Week 2: Thoughts on various "Leadership"

Aside from this LILTDY course, I'm taking IR classes in this semester and I came up with the thoughts related to "Leadership" in one of them. Today, I would like to write about it and that is about "after all, Leadership is a methodology and therefore, what matters most is HOW we use them"



In the class about "IR of Latin America", I met with the political concept of "Populism". Just in brief explanation, it's a type of politics that particularly focuses on getting popular support. In that sense, it seems same as Democracy but different in terms of the nuance which the word itself has. Although "Democracy" generally entails the "positive" image, "Populism", in many cases, entails the "negative" image. That's because, firstly, since it too much focuses on the support of people, their policies are in most cases inefficient, such as dole-out policy. Secondly, and more importantly, it's because Populism use emotional tactics rather than convincing, rational tactics. It appears as a mass use of Rhetorics by the politicians. Some people say that Populism is similar to Sedition.

In my opinion, Populism, is one of the forms of Leadership in the sense that it works pretty well to manage the community and the people there. Putting aside the discussion about right or wrong, leaders of Totalitarian can also be said that they were using Leadership. And I think particularly, Populism very much fits to the context of the discussion about Leadership since looking at the political back ground of Latin America, personal relationship between the leader of certain group (small, regional or local level) and the members are the strongest tie compared to other relationships such as within the social classes or legal relationships. 

Taking this into account, I think we should not forget that Leadership is not the something that is always good. (I think people have positive image to the word Leadership rather than negative one.) After all, it's just a discipline of methods that can be used to lead groups. Therefore, as same as other cases where we learn any methodology, the most important point is to think HOW we use it.

To me, tactics of Leaderships should accompany the respect to the ownerships of the members. In that sense, to me, Populism is not a good form of Leadership even though it works "well" in unifying the group. Why? One obvious reason is...because I just feel that I prefer being treated like that! Well, let's be more practical. So, to be realistic, in fact respecting the ownership of members contributes to the dynamics of that group. It's kind of a same logic as to assert that the Capitalism has more potential of prosperity than the Communism, in whose system Government controls all. Better to left the room for independence than trying to control all.

Week 2: Chapter 1 "Vision and Quick Victories"

"Never lose sight of the ultimate goal, and focus energy on short-term objectives."

There are people who are good at talking about great big vision (such as politicians). On the other hand, there are people who are good at effectively managing the urgent situation. Shackleton tells us in his story that in order to serve as a good leader, we need to have both skills. 

In chapter 1, he first tells us that the leaders have to face the situation immediately with the flexible decision and should set a "New Mark" which is appropriate to that current situation. 

What I thought first when I read this was that "Well...I think I've always been doing this in my personal life."
I mean, I didn't feel that this tactic is something new or unique. 

Putting this more in detail, let me deal with a concrete example.
Whenever I make "big" decision in my lifetime, such as which university to go or which future job to go, simultaneously I set sets of small goals to design the way to go. I do this just because I myself feel anxiety if there is no concrete and easily achievable short-term goal in front of me. Just letting the big dream keep sounds "impossible" to me.

So, what I found here is that the skill works well to individual can also works well to manage team. 

Actually, thinking twice, it might be quite obvious since teams are composed of individuals. May be therefore, leaders are the people who are required to be most aware of these effective tactics for individuals and to particularly encourage the use of it within their group. 

Ah! So that make sense to me. We never use the word "Boss" in our class nor we see that word in our book. That's because, we are talking about the people who "lead" that group, who "move first to encourage others". We are not talking about the people who just sit in the chair and act like a commander. 

But the one more thing I thought here is that, even though we know it's important to make decisive decision, it's...kind of scary thing to do.

If it's the case of your own, thing is not so complicated. 

In fact, I haven't felt so anxious when I make my decision over my life. 
I'm now in ICU and definitely feeling that there is no other university that fits better to me other than ICU, but the decision to come to ICU was not made straight forward.
I changed my destination during my study for the entrance exam. That was actually not due to the failure of my exam at my first try but because I lost my sight. I suddenly noticed that I couldn't find the "reason" why I'm studying for that uni. (May be reflecting back that days, I think I was just drifted in the flow...for almost all friends around me, the only way to go is the way to that uni.) 
So, alongside my study, I read books, explored various webpages to find what I really want to do. And finally, I find my future way into ICU. (I'll cut off here, since I think I can't stop talking about this "shift" if I step into more details...there were so many things I thought then, and without that invaluable time, I probably was not the one who I am today.) 
Whole throughout that "shift", I didn't really feel so much anxiety. I mean, yes there was a "moment" of anxiety, but in whole, rather I was feeling the sort of certitude that I'm on the right way.

And this is not the case when we're in the group, I think. That's probably because, your decisive decision as a leader will affect all other members. You are responsible for others' future. To be responsible for others future itself is such a huge burden and also, may be you or at least I, am afraid of being accused when the thing went bad.

Serving as a convenor at my comm, I gradually came to feel that burden. In early, I was just excited and full of passion. But as facing several...not several, "tremendous" problems, I found the rise of the longing for the end of my job as a convenor in my mind. Still now, today, I continuously have that feeling.

It is,

a little more than a little,

...stressful, to be honest. 

Week 1: Believe in yourself - power posing can really change us.

So, our class of LITDY started from handshakes and this week, we've come through several readings and videos on "Interpersonal Communication".

Power posing can give others credible impressions of us.Power posing can in fact lead us to better performance of ourselves.

("Strike a Powerful Pose" / "Amy Cuddy Power Posing on TED")

When I first got this message from the text, I really felt "Yes, exactly it's true." since I immediately came up with my personal experience of doing debate. 

I belong to Debating Society and there, we do "parliamentary debate", which is one of the styles of debate. There, you have to make 7 minutes speech with having only 15 to 30 minutes of preparation time. (The theme of debate and your position, either "Government (=Affirmative)" or "Opposition (=Negative)" will only be disclosed 15 to 30 minutes before the round.) 

Just few days after the entrance ceremony of ICU, I was making my very first speech at the club. Actually, that "speech" was merely about 1 minutes or so. That is first of all, of course because of my poor english skill but more than that, that poor performance was because of I being so afraid and nervous of just standing in front of people that my mind went blank when I put papers on the hustings and looked up. The only thing I could do then was just read the sentences on the paper (which Senpai almost made all).

Ever since that embarrassing moment, I tried to improve both my English skill AND skill of public speech. I first tried to pretend that I'm feeling confident or tried to acquire the manner that looks credible to judges, such as standing straight up and do not walk around, do not shake hands so much, do not stare off...etc.

These are all, as you know, "power posing"

For me, these tactics of practicing went pretty much well and now, more than one and a half years since my first speech, I really enjoy making my speech seeing the faces of audience and even feel that 7 minutes are too short!

As for this experience, the message from the text sound real to me and also, I very much sympathized with the message from Amy Cuddy in her TED talk:

Yes, if we fake it till we make it, and continue, then we can finally become ourselves, that we first thought impossible to become:)

First post: Self introduction

Hi, everyone! I'm so excited at the moment of the launch of this "LILTDY" class. I hope I can learn a lot from this class and also of course, hope to make friends with you all.

Now, to begin with, let me start by introducing myself.

"Where are you from?"
This is probably a topical question to begin one's introduction but actually, answering this is a bit hard for me. Why? It's because...

- I was born in Seoul, Korea
- soon came to Japan and raised up in Saitama till I became 2nd grade at elementary school
- started going to an international school in Seoul for about one and a half year
- came back to Japan and started to live in Tokyo

You see, it's so complicated that I think I can spend almost one hour talking JUST about my life road till today!lol
So, for this background, I can speak Korean too other than Japanese and English.

Other than my history, as for my personal info, I'm currently working on hosting international debating tournament called "ICU Tournament (ICUT)" as a convenor at ICUDS (Debating Society). What a coincidence, actually our classmate Mai, also works in Org Comm of ICUT so if you are interested in debate or ICUT or whatever, just talk to us!

That's all for today.

For the next post, I've got to go over the heavy reading....alas!