Crucibles for leadership - Essay Example

? Crucibles for Leadership I write this essay in order to explain some of my personal experiences that evolved certain ideological developments and modified my personality in the academic and social life models. I hope this essay will help me identify and justify the role of the crucible experience as to how it has influenced my personal maintenance style, behavior models, thoughts and assumptions about the social surroundings. From the life that stretches to a long way so far behind me, I cannot single out a few distinctive examples to prove the influential effects of events or encounters in my life, because I strongly believe that the term crucible itself is defined as a compilation of past experiences to the best of a teaching effect. In that angle of view, I may be allowed to explain the feelings I surpassed and the knowledge I read in connection with this empirical record as a relative study of the cases of other people as well. From the long road of life I have walked so far, I claimed many leanings that proved promising while not ignoring the impacts of some of the personal choices I made wrongly. The need for analyzing the events and circumstances I have come across in a scientific manner is necessary for framing a crucible experience note for the reference of my trials on personality development and essentially, for the improvement of leadership qualities. Before I enter the details of my experience, I would like to define the term as I understand from certain readings. According to a definition given by some researchers, “Crucible are more like trials or test that corner individuals and force them to answer questions about who they are and what is really important to them” (Thomas 5). Based on this definition, I believe in the aspect that leadership is a rather vast subject of learning beyond the teachings from experts and the lectures from scholars. As such there can be more of learning from the lessons of life than those are rendered by academic trainings or spiritual teachings. It seems to be a creative field of observation where and individual has to involve in certain situations, explore their importance and then extract ideas meant for the corrective measures needed for the positive maintenance of his philosophical as well as social outlook. Leadership origins as a part of empirical studies based on the gravity of experiences faced by people during their struggles for excellence, and sometimes, enormous efforts they put in as trials to come out of the deadlocks at some stages of life. Everyone in this world, either deliberately or passively is subject to stand at the receiving end of such experiences that stops their successful run sometimes. The period of such trail varies as the individuals and the situations vary. Also, they all have something to do with the greatest negotiator, time. What all one could focus during the excruciating life experiences at different stages and circumstances would be lessons hiding inside them; and only a watchful observer can deal with the best exploration strategies to fish out the wisdom that lies in the process of unlocking such situations. It was during my second year in the college that I experienced a miserable tenure of suffocating disappointment. Considering the reputation of the college and the competition I had to face to obtain the admission, I must thank God for keeping me there for the course. I had a merit certification from the state level school sports championship in swimming and it helped me achieve grace marks to outsmart a few contestants to my rank. During the first three months, I participated in all the community programs and grabbed the attention of the principal who directed me to join the college disciplinary group. We were six members from students to be part of the twenty-five member executive body headed by the college physical education head. The first semester was coming to an end and the college was getting ready with the talks related to hosting an inter-university sports meet. I was overjoyed as I knew my credentials would surely find me some respectable position in the steering committee. When the list was prepared by the principal personally, he allotted me the role of head of the award’s committee. Days passed and the time of delight finally arrived. Thousands of students from different colleges arrived at the spot to verify the perfection of the arrangements on behalf of their favorite performers. The ordeal I had to face was from a seemingly discriminative approach of the program convener, who shifted me from the prestigious position in the warding committee to a rather inferior catering service committee without any reason. This was a shock beyond my bearable limit so I approached the principal but in vein. He informed me that the matter had gone beyond his hands by then. Instantaneously provoked, I felt like stepping down from the committee and approached the physical education head, who was the convener but he was violent and asked me to stay where I was allotted or be ready to face expulsion from the college. My place was inside a large kitchen, supervising the activities while ensuring the quality of food making. For the first few hours I felt like being lost in a strange ambience, but I gradually started loving the men at work. Their division of labor, random orders of the head cook, and the amusing tones of young boys who engaged in the cutting work. Some men carried bags of vegetables and pulses while women arranged spices and other provisions required for the culinary work. Then I felt I had something to learn from their noisy but disciplined work strategy. It was a different experience altogether. The curses I had in my mind for the convener for removing from the earlier task eventually disappeared and I realized that I was put to learn some managerial qualities within the new task. The stay at the kitchen was inspiring to me by the end of my successful supervision till the common lunch. I was really proud to stand gazing at the active men who served the diners with enthusiasm while I was silently appreciating my role in the making of the grand lunch. The expressions on the faces of the guests and the energy delivered by the stewards reflected the effectiveness of the leadership I found from my duty as a supervisor. It was risky, for a little change in the taste of any dish would affect the hosting prestige of the entire unit. As observed in Thomas, leadership development is not confined to existing management systems but the essence of evolving leaders lies in the significance of a person’s exposure to valuable, crucible experiences (185). Not all the people are willing to take the advantages lying in the opportunities that come across in various forms. Some of them may stand hard against expectations or even pose crucial challenges on the question of very survival of the individual. In such situations, the amount of reasoning applied by the person works as a decisive factor to determine his scope of success in the outcome. The next day was expectedly fine as I had built a rapport with the crew and made in my mind a list of things I should do for the next day. Everyone was curious to discuss the previous day’s experience and the successful culinary performance under the head cooks leadership. I was tuned to feeling of a little jealousy by the rhythmic beauty of their unison and obedience to their master chef. It was when I thought why I should not be a choice for their respect or why I should not be the one their master respects. It worked well. From the moment I realized the worth of being a leader, I designed a graphical note of actions involved in managing a group with their implications of time. It was a new revelation for me at such a young age to recognize the esteem in being a leader. Moreover, the inspiration behind such transformation was indeed, the shame I conceived from the demotion levied by my leader. Hence, a leader’s negative gestures could turn out to be a virtue if they are effectively utilized without spending time on cursing the momentary bad luck. I also realized that the absence of impositions of conservative thoughts effectively works behind the success of an emerging leader. According to an observation by Wyma, when a person is endorsed with the right to command himself with some prescriptive judgments of the actions to be undertaken, the result is reflective of the success indicating the participation of self-styled mechanisms of managing situations beyond people (14-16). According to this observation, leadership traits are one’s own potentially developed skills to explore the possibilities from a number of alternatives to find the best suited position for self actualization needs. I felt the condition I was undergoing was akin to that of a choice given to a hungry man to divulge his appetite for nutritious values. The greatest revelation I could witness was the emerging of unprecedented leadership styles coming up in my mind. A certain proportion of the task for the third day was well planned as I wanted to appreciate each simple thing done by everyone in the crew. Most of the time what they feared their leader intentionally ignored was carefully monitored and correctively handled by the little expertise I gained from the two-day stay with the team. I can say that catering is more than an art; it involves quantitative sciences and systematic application of dense knowledge. What motivated me most was the integrity maintained by the chef, who was not exactly a well educated, smart-spoken professional; however, his very presence was effective of igniting the team spirit among the subordinate workers. For some time, I felt I was being driven to the favor of his styles of managing people and events at the same time without giving space for stress. This art was the finest of those I could expect to develop as part of my leadership skills. As it is observed from the influence of crucibles, leadership is the overall ability of a manager to take apt decisions and execute it with the help of others on the basis of an established common purpose for the motivation of the entire group. Thus what I learned from the chef’s role was delegation of duties proportionate to the interest and efficiency of the members while demanding their labor without creating a stressful ambience. In other words, I can say that I learned to build an atmosphere where the importance of interpersonal relationships is not overcome by stress. It is not astounding to see employees giving out their full potential for the productive objectives in such an organized group where individuals are given respect to their role identities. At the end of the third day, I was more amused to learn some detailed tactics of managing people from the chef. His answers were simple; he said motivating others is leading by example. He asked me if I was sure he had done his part well, and mine was a positive node. Crucible experience was thus a new point of view - learn to work and work to learn. Nobody in the world is able to handle the pressure with the absence of confidence which derives from within. Searching for assistance is immature when the leader within oneself is not given an opportunity to rise and act upon the demands of the situation. The help of situations may not always be visible to every pair of naked eyes. Fortunate chances are more miniscule than microorganisms; they appear only to the lenses of the best deserving observer who has immaculate patience to see the result of his actions. At this juncture, I would like to recollect the lines I read about crucible leadership. I have read in Bennis and Thomas the experience of Sidney Harman who turned his factory into a student-driven campus that promoted and encouraged leadership in marketing (1-8). The crucible he encountered from the managers and staff enlightened him to find new horizons of business ideas. From this note, it can be observed that most basic principles one can obtain from crucibles are the skills such as shared involvement, authoritative voice based on experience, integrity to emerging unity and the ability to adapt to situational requirements. These are the virtues derived from the process one initiates to bring progressive changes from within the adverse conditions. In my case, the course didn’t last long. Things got a surprise change on the fourth day when I was called to the committee office by the convener himself. He was all praise for the wonderful leadership I exhibited at the given position. He explained that there was a continuous monitoring system that observed my integrity to the challenges and the innovative ideas I applied to organize the work for saving time and space. They also watched how the expenses were cut down in the three days while the number of guests remained the same. I was glad to receive the positive appraisal from the leader; however, I dedicated all my success to the role of the chef who had actually influenced my temperaments from the first day itself. Thus I came to a classified thought that it is not the physical positions but the effectiveness of the presence of the person that gives him value and authority to his commands. At the end of the day, I was really happy to humbly refuse the call from the committee that was waiting for me with the prior offer to head the awarding jury. From this crucible experience, I can say I struggled, I survived and I delivered the best I could and admittedly, I feel honored to say that leaders are not taught, neither trained, but they are developed through the processes of finding the prosperity hiding behind adversities. Works Cited Bennis, Warren G and Thomas, Robert J. “Crucibles of leadership”. Harvard Business Review. Thomas, Robert J. Crucibles of leadership: how to learn from experience to become a great leader. Harvard Business Press, 2008. Wyma, Keith, D. Crucible of reason: intentional action, practical rationality, and weakness of will. Rowman & Littlefield, 2004. Read More