ETHICS

When I was a kid I never questioned anything of what my mom told me. Whenever she said something was “right” or  “wrong” I trusted and believed her utterly because after all I thought how could my mom ever be wrong. Lets just say since then things have changed. The one thing I’ll always appreciate though, is how she always stressed the difference between doing what is most commonly regarded as “the right and good thing to do” and what is most commonly regarded as “ the bad or wrong action to take”. She always emphasized never to lie, cheat, steal, and to avoid harming others at all costs. I always grew up with the golden rule “Do what you would want others to do to you”. My mom taught me never to lie; yet she never told me the gray areas of this rule. As a result, this caused me to tell people exactly what I thought of them and to what degree even when it was not particularly favorable. I remember a particular situation where my mom and I went to a meeting with my third grade teacher and she asked me how I was liking the class. Well, lets just say I didn’t have anything nice to say. My mom punished me soon after saying that I could not talk so bluntly to my teacher and tell her that I hated the class and critiqued her teaching skills but rather I should try to focus on the positive points she had. Nevertheless, she understood that I had not gotten that sugarcoating and lying were not the same thing and that sometimes it is better to say something nice or not say anything at all. The idea of personal beliefs and opinions again caused me trouble in fifth grade when I was in swimming class and the teacher was showing all of us how to dive. However, as a result of my mom constantly telling me all these stories of how people had dived into pools and broken their neck, or become paraplegic or suffered some sort of accident I refused to dive, causing my teacher to find me disrespectful and sending me to the principles office. My mom came in and talked to him about why she believed that kids shouldn’t dive into pools and as a result they agreed to disagree. Through these experiences and others, I have learned that although people may not agree with your beliefs, morals, ethics, etc it is key for people to be able to respect different perspectives.  I learned also through several awkward encounters that it is essential also to stay away from taboo topics such as sex, religion, politics, and instead keep to neutral topics like the weather. Ultimately I believe that as long as people have a generally similar idea of what is right and what is wrong (i.e,not kill others, hurt others, or to not steal) and instead try to respect other peoples culture, religion, family beliefs everyone should be able to respect and live harmoniously together, because after all no two people are exactly alike.

Social Justice

In today’s society passing judgment and having opinions toward certain people or groups of people is a way of life and often times is inevitable. This can be seen in the media, group gatherings, education, and even through the government and public positions that believe there to be a need to keep a certain stereotype and reject others. Nevertheless, I have always thought if you have nothing nice to say why say anything at all? Through the activity that we did in class where we self-categorized ourselves on how we perceived the “labels” that define each and every one of us, I found it a bit stressful since I felt like I was in constant scrutiny and being judged by my peers, granted I was also unconsciously judging and making assumptions myself; nevertheless I found it to be intimidating. When trying to think of the actions, hobbies, and clubs I was in and how that defined who I was, it made me think of the stereotypes that go along with those certain activities I take part in. As I got into the circle to acknowledge my personal identification with being a painter, I thought maybe people never thought of me as creative, artistic, or unique and would laugh. However, at the same time I found the whole process of sharing who I was with other people liberating and comforting since I was able to see what other peoples interests were as well and maybe who I could possibly identify with. I found this interesting especially when comparing ascribed identity to social group membership, and how this activity would cause other people to be surprised by some people and reconfirm the assumptions of others (ascribed identity). However, I also liked the fact that this also could show people the difficulties others struggled with and made them more sensitive to the challenges they went through on a daily basis (being mentally or physically challenged, being a minority, etc). I enjoyed the activity where we became more conscious of the misuse and derogative connotation of words that many of us use often since it really allowed me to become more conscious and aware of what they actually derive from and mean. This exercise made me think of when I hear the word “spick” or “wetback” and the negative connotation it has for Latin’s, and for me since I am half Latin. It reminded me of the anger and frustration I felt when hearing this word and how others really do not understand how this word pains and angers the group being attacked to hear. I ultimately really enjoyed this activity of learning about types of identities, effects of oppression and derogation words since it has made me more aware of how others perceive me and made me more conscious of how I express myself verbally and which words I use especially when thinking that the particular word does not even mean what I intended and hurts other people in the process.

Multicultural Leadership

Multicultural leadership now more than ever is a fundamental part of everyone’s life. It has become a great part of my life and other people’s lives due to the fact that it has allowed for several beliefs, customs, and traditions to be able to reside within one community and be able to prosper now more than ever before. It has allowed several countries including the United States to become melting pots of multiple diverse cultures and open to different ways of living. I for one being half Guatemalan and half Czechoslovakian know I have definitely adopted traditions from both heritages and it has made me a much more dynamic and culturally sensitive individual. It has allowed me to adopt the Latin hospitality known as “mi casa es tu casa” which I believe  has made me much more open, friendly, and willing to share with people. I notice that whenever someone says my food looks good, I always offer them some, or if I am out eating and another person does not have money I always share with them. Consequently, the European aspect of me has made me a rather more independent and strategic individual, and thus more frugal with my money and what I like to spend it on. My multicultural nationality has also allowed me to relate to people on different levels since I believe that it has made me a more accepting and less ethnocentric individual due to my combination of nationalities. The idea of multicultural leadership is also great as it encourages us to shift from focusing on each one of us as individuals to people as a collective unit (I to we). I particularly like the idea of sankofa since it focuses on learning from our past and applying it to our future in order to avoid committing the same mistakes. I for one use the concept of sankofa in almost every area of my life; however the one that sticks out for me the most is probably when trying to avoid getting hurt. When I was five years old I was walking to school and I didn’t have my shoes tied, one of my friends started playing tag with me and I started running and stepped on one of my untied shoes laces and as a result I broke my two front teeth, since then I have had a fixation with tying my shoes laces in order to avoid that from ever happening again. Overall, I feel like the core principles of culture and the merging of multicultural values and acceptance of other people’s core values make people greater leaders since it allows them to relate to a greater amount of people and be culturally aware of differences between one culture and another. I think that if we all tried to learn a lot more about one another’s culture and develop more cultural sensitivity we would all be that much closer to becoming great leaders. After all, this world is full of diversity and we are not alone.

Vision and Mission

When thinking about an objective or a goal that a group or entity wants to accomplish, it seems only natural that you would want to devise a short summary that sums up what are the important elements and values of an organization, company, or even a team.  However, it seems so challenging to be concise, clear, and descriptive all at the same time and with so little space to recap what you mean. I feel like the only way a mission statement can be written and the process can be accomplished is through passion.  I feel like a mission statement has to embody and really summarize who you or the company really thinks and knows they are. A rough draft of a mission statement for myself would be something like:

“Always know where you’re going but never forget where you’ve been. Be fearless but wise, be daring but not carless, be exciting and strategic, and most of all listen and trust but always verify.”

However, when you take into consideration the mission statements that companies write, many of the times they focus more on touching on several points and thus become to general, such as the case of McDonalds. As a result, this many times works against their advantage rather than towards it, since they are unable to establish a clear or sometimes accurate perception of what the companies mission exactly is.

Similarly, when a company creates a vision statement this can too happen since it can be too broad or sometimes too specific and end up a disaster. Nevertheless a vision statement does differ from a mission statement in that it motivates the leader (CEO), allows the leader to realize and understand the support he or she has behind them, and also helps in creating new bonds between the individuals in the company. This is extremely important since I feel like it allows people to establish a relationship; it builds customer loyalty, forms bonds, and allows familiarity with the customer to arise.

I feel like if I would attempt to write a vision statement it would sound something like this:

I am at my best when I am inspired, motivated, and have my whole heart in the game.

I love to help people, explore, and come out of my comfort zone. I try to find new and exciting opportunities and experiences in everyday life and enjoy making people listening, being attentive and nurturing. I believe I can do anything I set my mind to and plane to learn several languages and travel the world. I think my life's journey will be indescribable. I will be a person who will have learned everything I could, and taught everything I have known. However, My most important future contribution to others will be to help others and myself become better versions of ourselves and better people for the world.

Ultimately I think that if you are able to clearly define and understand who you are as a person, what your values, morals, and ethics are and what you want to get out of life, your mission and vision of life will be that much easier to set. However, the part that challenges us all is being able to find that one thing that sets us apart from everyone else.

Toxic Leadership

For some, leadership can be seen solely as a way of control. A way to be able to reveal their true nature and desire to seek an environment where they can be dominant, arrogant, and able to satisfy their own enormous egos. These toxic leaders often can be seen as intentionally hurting others with their egocentric decisions, and/or unintentionally injuring others through displaying reckless actions and carelessness. I for one have experienced both types of toxic leaders.

The first time I encountered an intentionally toxic leader was when my former friend and I were doing a presentation together that was intended to educate people about safety. Nevertheless, she ended up going on a trip the weekend before it was due, which resulted in me doing the whole pre-planning/, project myself. However, this was not the actual issue that bothered me, what really showed me the toxicity and lack of leadership she had was the fact that the day we were presenting she took control of the presentation entirely and then proceeded to say that she had “slaved endless hours” over the research, that I had consequently done. By doing so, the teacher removed points from my grade and gave her a higher grade due to her self-enhancing actions that cost me a lower grade than her; needless to say we no longer are friends.

The second experience I had was with an unintentionally toxic leader who was my boss. Although she was a nice individual, I believe she was not suited for her job. The reason I say this is due to the fact that she did not know how to go through inventory, check supplies, nor manage the employees and often gave into peoples demands in order to be the “liked” manager rather than the good or competent one. As a result, this caused a lot of miscounts during inventory and resulted in hundreds of dollars being lost/stolen in merchandise. However, although my boss did display the signs of a toxic leader, I felt like the unintentional toxicity was not as grave as the intentional since she did not intend on people actually getting hurt but rather simply wanted to be liked/accepted.

Nevertheless, in both situations where you either have someone who is deliberately trying to injure others in order to get ahead (intentional) or is so incompetent that they drag other people down with them (unintentional) both have significant consequences that can ruin interrelationships and working environments and ultimately sabotage the goal or company that is trying to be improved and achieved. Ultimately, I found this reading interesting since it did not only give you a theoretical idea of toxic leaders but went into depth with the characteristics and behavioral issues toxic leaders possess, and gave you tips on how to improve the situation you are in or at least cope with these inevitable individuals who you will meet at some point or another in your lifetime. 

Followership

When grouping people into who falls under the “follower” category and who falls into the “leader” category I feel like this is a task that at times can be rather challenging. Especially when considering that many of the traits that are usually coined to describe a leader can many times be characteristics that can be seen in an active follower. Although I fee like it is true that leaders tend to be more inclined to propose a goal or a solution, and promote a new idea, I do believe that neither a leader nor a follower can stand alone. This is especially true when you think about how many individuals it takes to really execute a large project effectively and how being able to take direction is equally if not more important of a skill than being able to direct. However, one must take into consideration the type of followers that a leader at one point or another will work with and how this will affect the productivity level and effectiveness of the work based on the type of follower he or she is.

Unfortunately, as a result of several group activities I have done throughout my schooling I have met great contributors as teammates and individuals who do the absolute minimum to slide by. In one of my projects I remember it was a subject that was not my strong suit and I wanted to go the extra mile in order to show the teacher that I was at least making an effort to understand the ideas being taught. However, this was easier said than done when I ended up being paired up with two other individuals who wanted to do the absolute minimum. This is what I would take to be the isolates, the people who rely on others to do the work. Fortunately, although I was not able to accomplish as much as I hoped, I was lucky enough that the project did not end up a disaster considering the fact that I had to take it upon myself to do all of the work. However, it did make me realize that in life there are those who try their best to succeed and then their are others who just do not really care and just want to scrape by.

However, in another project I did, I luckily was placed with people who were really motivated, and enthusiastic about the topic. They wanted to meet about 3-4 times a week to work on the project in order to get it to the level of perfection. These people I admired, because while I wanted to do a good job I felt like they were very intense and at times overly devoted to perfecting the project. Even though I would consider them more of leaders in this circumstance (given the fact that they knew a lot about the subject and were very knowledgeable) I felt like these people could be grouped into diehards. Ultimately my experiences with followers and leaders made me realize something, there are circumstances where there is a clear line between who is a follower and who is a leader but many times this line is unidentifiable since I feel like we all possess qualities that make us both good followers and good leaders. 

Process Theory

I always thought that the idea behind the process theory was just the steps someone had to take independently and intuitively in order to reach a decision. However, after reading both the Relational Leadership Model and the Strategies for Change, I feel like the process theory concept involves quite a lot more than just yourself. What I found particularly surprising about the Relational Leadership Model was the importance this theory places on relationships and how people interact with one another in order to promote positive change or execute a goal proactively.

This reading was especially good since it showed how relationships and interactions many times are more important than skill or expertise when it comes to execution. I say this because in previous experiences I had based my decisions on working with people on who was the most capable and proficient at the task needed to be completed rather than who I would work well with and would be able to share different points of view with. This especially became a problem when the people I had chosen to work with had very different points of view from mine and due to their self-proclaimed expertise in the area were very stubborn, uncooperative, and only accepted their ideas/opinions and refused to see someone else’s perspective or possible suggestions. Thus, unfortunately due to our extreme differences in both perspectives and attitudes, the project was executed poorly due to miscommunication and I realized that it would have been better to work with people who were more open minded and inclusive rather than arrogant and one-track minded even if they had not had as much knowledge of the project.

This idea of working in a group productively also reminded me of the Strategies for Change Model since it promotes the idea to be willing to “let go of the old and safe ways of doing things”(351). However, the element that I liked most about this model was that it did not only focus on the political or large scale change (governmental) but also on smaller scales such as being able to make a change in a persons life, or a students life. This model I felt could especially be something that I could apply to my life since it teaches you not only how to work on a goal to change a political resolution, or an environmental problem but also how to better yourself and make productive changes in your own life. I for one saw the seven characteristics of real change leaders (commitment, initiative, motivation, etc) to be applicable even in my personal goals such as losing weight, being better at the piano or building more houses for habitat for humanity than had been done the previous year, since it made me think of how I as an individual needed to improve and how I could work more effectively with society, a group and myself in order to make these goals happen. Ultimately I really liked the Strategies for Change model since I felt like it didn’t only apply to leaders but to every segment of the population since it focused on the interdependency of group values, individual values and society/community values and how if these work effectively together it can create great change in society.