Lubna Alli

It’s day two here in bella Italia! Day one we talked about culture and today we’re talking about leadership. What a perfect way to ease into a course whose title (Cross Cultural Perspectives on Leadership) implies a focus on these two subject matters.

Lead. Leader. Leadership. What defines a good leader is something that I’ve always struggled with, especially while in office serving as Student Council President in my last year of high school, not too long ago. This real life scenario of mine sits as my grounds of reference when discussing what it means to be a good leader and to have defining leadership skills.

I had the privilege of leading a council of 12 members who were diverse in every way possible. We’re talking diverse in personalities, cultural backgrounds, work ethic, values, and leadership styles. Looking back, and even reflecting on what was mentioned about leadership in Gretch’s reading, there are definitely things I would do differently if given the opportunity to lead the council again.

Gretch stresses three main important parts in the reading, one of which is that the person is distinct from the individual. When leading a group of individuals who are so diverse, I believe that this is something that requires keen attention so not to rub anyone the wrong way. This is definitely something that I did not seem to grasp very well at the onset of my term. As the year progressed, and as I got to know each council member on an individual basis, I began to realize how to conduct meetings differently.

Meetings were a point of weakness within my council. There was always so much built up tension between council members that at meetings key things like participation, honesty and honouring your commitments were things that we struggled with. Aside from a one hour weekly meeting, the bulk of our communication took place through technology.

This is what leads me to Gretch’s other key point, being that I am now theorizing that it had an impact on our council dynamic. Gretch supposes that technology is outpacing society. This is key information in the leadership world because the more information you have, the more power you have. The implication for the leader (being myself in this situation) is that they are not the source of power. It shifts the power from the leader to the employee (being my council members in this situation) and gives the employee the upper hand. With this kind of power so easily accessible, it gives the employee the opportunity to disregard tasks, rules and instructions delegated by the leader. And this is also where the issue of three dimensional democracy and hiring management come into play. Employee satisfaction is very important because, known as employee motivation, happy employees are productive employees.

If ever given the opportunity to lead a group of people again, be it through something as minor as leading them to the Piazza del Campo or as major as leading a team through an important work assignment, I would be ready to give it another shot. Thanks to Gretch & the prior experience I have leading a team, I am now aware of a few changes I would need to make in order to produce optimal results in a team dynamic.

Eager,

Lubna