New Leadership Model - Essay Example

Field Work Roll No: Teacher: 6th April Field Work Leadership has always attracted me because of its required traits and skills. I got a chance to create and teach an experiential leadership class while working at Kripalu’s Semester Intensive College Program. This step was quite inspirational for me and I was motivated to go back to school level in order to create a leadership model and a curriculum that could be used on a broader level. While working (as a life coach and teacher) with over 70 young adults at Kripalu, I began to understand the struggles and confusion that this generation suffered from (to be discussed later). Over the four-month semester of working with these students every day, I saw the transformation that each student went through, with yoga as his foundation. It became apparent to me that the current state of affairs is not effective for a large population of young adults -- past leadership needs to be changed. With the use of yoga and yoga philosophy, I saw profound effects on these students Transformation begins at one’s own end. The world can be transformed by transforming oneself. Leadership is all about transformation and change. The Tantras (scriptures of Yoga), claim that this is a time of Kali Yuga — an era of greed, destruction, ignorance and suffering; however, one can find personal liberation through discipline of yoga (cite--Feurstein). I believe that our deepest call that comes from inside is to grow more and more into our authentic self — this is the work of a leader — and constitutes the redefinition of past leadership models. We are all called to leadership. Leaders consider this life precious and are thus willing to act deliberately in service to life. Moreover, leadership is a journey into the depths of what it means to be a human. Leadership is about being fully expressed, about being called to one’s greatness and about having the courage to act in ways that are in alignment with one’s highest self. The world relies on each of us to pay heed to the call of our hearts. There is a divine unfolding of life to hear one’s personal calling and the path of yoga can provide the tools to answer this call, and to live a life of possibility, passion and integrity. By liberating one’s own heart and stepping fully into their authenticity, one can be inspirational for others to do the same — this is the new way of leadership. Through this highly experiential leadership class, which would include lectures, readings, videos, group works, movement and expressive arts, students will be able to: Understand a new and powerful leadership model that can be used for both, personal and professional purposes. Listen to the call of the heart and yoga can help to follow the call and respond in appropriate manner. Discover what it means to live an authentic life and be responsible for the impact of living authentically. See life clearly, without fear, fantasy and distortion. Take the courageous inward journey and discover the leader and leadership traits within oneself. New Leadership Model Because of my own personal journey as a young adult with these questions in mind that have inspired human beings since the beginning of time, I knew that I wanted to help other young adults. In 2007, when I began working at Kripalu’s Semester Intensive Program, I began observing and working with these emerging adults and gathering data on how yoga philosophy can support them as emerging leaders. During my time at Kripalu, I had the opportunity to observe two classes for two semesters over a period of two years. The Semester Intensive Program was an evolutionary education program that focused on holistic education. Over the two-semester period, I observed two separate classes. In the first year, there were 36 students in total, out of which 11 were male ranging from 18 to 25 years of age while in the second year, there were 31 students, out of which 6 were male ranging from 18 to 23 years of age. The observations that I made were from both classes. Though there were differences in students, these are the points that stood out that lead me to this thesis. In addition, out of total 67 students, 90 % were cousins, the socio-economic varied, but 80 % belonged to the middle class. I worked as a coach with my students and gave them coaching privately in order to facilitate them with privacy and openness. As a coach, I taught weekly yoga classes and leadership skills in detail. I arranged a weekly peer-mentor group meeting, which was a big opportunity for students to share their experiences openly, I also taught them optional art, music and exercise classes. In first semester, I preferred living in the community of these students, which gave me a chance to observe and learn more about them specially when they are living outside of the classroom and coaching environment. The students participated in classes where they received college credit. The classes were offered healthy living, effective communication, yoga philosophy and practice, meaningful work and right livelihood, transformation of the self and community building class (common class). Students were from different areas but they lived like sole community, they were distributed in small groups, where they worked together to earn respect for the institution they lived in. They participated in camping trips, took all of their morning meditation and afternoon yoga sessions together. There visited faculty that taught them intensively on topics such as Yoga Philosophy, Buddhism, Shamanism, Ayurveda and Relationships. Harvard University has been assigned the task to carryout research on these students and also to visualize the impact of yoga practice on their personalities. However, their research work is still under progress and yet to be finalized. After receiving conclusion on the topic, we will be able to exactly know the impact of training classes on students. The rest of the paper discusses in length the common themes, I noticed while working with these students at Kripalu. When I was young student like them, I always used to think about the purpose of the life. It was very important for me to know real purpose of the life because I knew since my childhood that life do have some purpose. This sort of mindset always compelled me to listen to the call of my heart and understand the real purpose of my life. I noticed same thing in these young students, true desire to find out meaning and purpose in life. There was an undeniable desire that life must have some meanings. Overall, these students seemed to know their role as adults but it seemed to me that still they were not grown up to levels to shoulder a spiritual responsibility. There was a lack of understanding to move in the right direction to seek the purpose of life and then to fulfill that purpose. There was a lot of fear and excitement; they were filled with questions that have been with humans since the beginning of time. These are the common questions which everybody comes across in the life like, who am i, why I am here, wherefrom I came here, what is the life hereafter. I noticed this eagerness to participate in life, a desire to do and be something. There were a lot many difficulties in the way to give them right path, which can ultimately satisfy their feelings. There was also a difficulty of being honest with each other, while moving towards sole goal with unity and determination. They seemed to be confused about their identity and origin, trying for different things, finding new ways to understand sexual preferences. Whether they were meat eaters or vegetarian, they always took care of their values. They were still confused and tensed as they had a great amount of choices and options about the life. They were a bit reluctant to take decisions and live the life as per their spiritual teachings. Environmental changing, really wanted to know meaning of life in depth. They had an idea, that everything has got a purpose. I also observed following in both classes. Meaningful work and Livelihood They desired different work than their parents, there seemed to be a tug of war between apathy and passion. Many of the students realized that they do not have a solid relationship with money, nor did they know how they would leave the house after graduation, but they knew, they have to leave their parents. Many of them had desire to create jobs that had passion and meaning (such as health counselors, environmental jobs, social justice work, etc).It was always difficult for them to take a start. Healthy living Many students out of them were interested in healthy food, healthy lifestyle and yoga practice. But also wanted to experiment drugs. They wanted to have healthy and meaningful relations and their needs fulfilled. I used a lot of time in teaching them about relations. They were hungry for this information. Of course, there were still many students who were happy to have meaningless relationship, they just wanted to have fun, but the overall findings were that these young adults wanted to have careful relationship, but also wanted their independence and freedom to know their identity. Effective Communication. There seemed to be a struggle for being honest. Students were taught in detail about how to communicate. At first, it was difficult for them to speak truth but slowly they started speaking truth. Push and pull technique was used. When they would get into small groups and tell one another how they were “pushed away” by either that person or how they were “pulled to” that person. This was a beautiful exercise, where at first; there was a lot of fear, but soon after they were so eager to do this and to give feedback. Most of them possessed the rigor of having the tough conversations. However, some of them did not have the willingness and preferred to enjoy the situation rather than indulging in the conversation. It took a month to make them feel comfortable with each other to have this authentic conversation. Without facing hard conversation, no one was ready to understand real conversation I think the initial resistance to being authentic with one another was still there since school time. However, once they began these authentic conversations it was like opening “Pandora’s box”. They wanted to consistently have these conversations, because what they were learning was how their liberation was caught up in each other. Students were so excited about personal developments. They were constantly being triggered emotionally by each other. Transformation of Self This was a class, where students spent time in learning about their past and wrote their autobiographies, how can we begin again with our story of life. Many of them were stuck up in their past, thinking how their life was affected by their families. For many of them (that did not have childhood trauma) it seems as if they were seeing how their past affected their present. Then they began to see life with fear or fantasy. Many of them had a feeling of being stuck up in life. They wanted to be with their friends and families and also wanted to step into their adulthood and were anxious to make life meaningful. . Still a large number of students were fighting for perfection in life. The desire of “making life right” seemed to be a major conflict in what they wanted to do and be and what they thought they should do and be. Yoga Philosophy and Practice Class There was a deep, deep desire to discover their spiritual beliefs. There questions were provocative and showed their hunger for knowledge, They wanted to have spiritual identity, from shaving their heads to endless array of discussions, such as “am i a mediator, am I a yogi. It seemed as if there way of getting closer to authenticity was by trying different things to see how to grow in a field for identity. Common class This was a class to focus on community living and also to learn about one another. Basically, this was a leadership class, which I taught a lot.. Here was a chance for them to use their voice for conveying their feelings. leadership model was very helpful in promoting the ideas of community living, leadership and relationship. Leadership Class This class was based on the Bhagavad Gita and the sutras (what the remainder of this thesis is about). During this class, they learnt the yogic Leadership Model (Fig. 3) and at the end of the semester, they created a YouTube project. In that project, they described that how the model was useful for them. They had to show commitment to the project assigned even during tough problems, to show that they are good leaders and can act skillfully to support their project. What I also learnt was that young people are bloodhounds. They do not feel that they have many role models to look up. They see current leaders as liars and manipulators. The leadership model gives them the necessary tools to discover the leader within themselves and also enables them to know about how to continue to evolve as a leader. Three biggest challenges I noticed were, identity, relationship, and sustainability. They were Inspired by, new tools of leadership, effective communication, spirituality and healthy living etc. They truly were in love with each other because they had the opportunity to really see each other. Frequent interaction made their relations more intimate with each other. Teaching what they were learning During the middle of the semester there was family day, when they shared, what they learnt. One could see pride on their faces as a group. It also left great affects on the family/friends life and they actually observed change in life. I saw these young adults asking for space to use new leadership tools to have powerful impact on the world. I saw the change and the seeds, which were sowed, have started producing fruits in the shape of leaders, who can withstand the challenges of the world. Though they were living in this international community, they felt much supported and that they had a place to practice their tools. They were concerned that how they are going to be back in the world, not knowing about space for them in the “real world”. They had to make efforts to live a healthy life with family/friends. I feel that this leadership model gives young adults a framework to add significance in their youth age, so they can feel inspired, spiritually fed, and can exercise leadership skills. I do believe that there is a great chance for our young leaders to create a world, that we are all looking for. This is why this thesis is so important to help emerging adults to claim their leadership role as authentic agents of transformation. Read More