Workshop: Leadership In The Global Context

During this workshop, we learned the foundations of a leader and how those traits can be transferred into the Global realm. I define leadership as taking the initiative to get the job done, by leading others in the same direction as you. What I learned from the workshop, is that to be an effective leader you have to understand yourself; to lead and guide others. When I can identify positive and negative qualities within myself, I am better apt to maneuver with others. I learned that a good way to learn about yourself and others is through social perspective-taking. Social perspective-taking is the active process of understanding how others view the world. Being able to understand another perspective allows me to better understand myself and others. If I am never challenged in my thinking, I am withholding myself from growing. For example, this semester I took a religious class that is different from my own. From this class, I was able to gain an awareness of different attitudes of another religion but also able to compare aspects that were the same.

Gaining perspective is especially important in the global context, because the difference may extend from just skin color. Global perspective-taking is about incorporating culture, religion, personality, and language into how you interact with people. This thinking starts when you allow yourself to get outside of your comfort zone. I will continue to challenge myself by asking the right questions.

This workshop also highlighted the value that diversity brings. The speaker brought up the statistic that “Sweden is one of the safest countries in the world.” Hearing this I immediately thought “oh Sweden probably has a perfect government ” When the greatest reason for its overwhelming “peace” is because of its significant lack of diversity. Less diversity equals fewer differences. Which means fewer problems that could challenge someone's way of thinking. Not taking things at face values allows me to critically think. Having this skill can help me to identify multiple sources of problems and become a more effective problem solver. Ultimately making me a better leader.