Day 5: Leadership

Day 5, 8 January 2016.

Our subgroup during the amazing race 🙂

 

The highlight for today would definitely be the leadership section! I felt that it was efficiently planned and executed. There were no wasted moments throughout the event. Explanations were also clear and to the point. Some activities were also quite interesting. Especially the part where everyone wrote down two traits they think good leaders have and everyone needed to pick two traits that they felt they possess. It proved that everyone’s schema of good leaders were different.

However this activity alone probed my thoughts. Is leadership something that is dependent more on the skills and traits of the leader (What an individual possessed)? Or more on the situation (Which is what other people think make good leaders in the case of this activity)?

I believe that different people are good at leading in different type of situations so everyone should learn how to lead in case they come across a situation where they are the best type of leader under those circumstances. This is why I was very happy to see a leadership workshop being held in this trip. I am very confident in my USP peers that most, if not all of them would be able to become good leaders as long as the situation complements their leadership style.

The tricky part is how to conduct the workshop. Leadership is a useful and necessary skill to learn but hard to effectively impart onto other people. Personally, I did not learn a lot more than what I already know about leadership during the workshop. Good leaders, good followers, traits that leaders should possess etc. I believe most of the people in USP already know about this as well. In my opinion, practice is even more important in order to nurture leadership skills.

After further contemplation, my stand is that leadership is something that is dependent on both the leader as well as the situation. However, one can only know what sort of situation he or she is suited to lead in through practice. If one knows about the theories and knowledge about leadership but doesn’t step up and take the initiative to practice it, how will one become a better leader? This is why I think that leadership is something attained more from practice as opposed to being theoretically learnt.

One of my favourite leadership quotes come from Harry Potter: “Those who, like you, have leadership thrust upon them, and take up the mantle because they must, and find to their own surprise that they wear it well.” If I were to reflect on how the leadership workshop was conducted, I think I would’ve liked to see a segment where specific people in the group are tasked to be the leader. Everyone should be given a chance to actually be the formal leader in order to practice what they have learnt. Also, they might actually discover that they can “wear the mantle” well. It might give them the boost of confidence to step up more and lead when the situation calls for it as opposed to silently supporting the group from the back which can be seen as leadership as well, but everyone should at least experience how it is like to lead the group from the very front. This way, they will be in a position where the decisions they make will guide the team in a particular direction as opposed to supporting the team towards the goal from behind.

After the leadership section, it was a final reflection to end off the night and it really was the last night of the trip already. Reflecting back on the past 5 days made me realise how much I truly learnt. Not just about heritage but myself as a person. What my thoughts were when I learnt new things. How fortunate I really am compared to people in less developed countries.

That night, we had one last group meeting at night where no work was discussed at all. Everyone just wanted to hang out with each other and have a nice talk. This definitely isn’t the norm for people who’ve just met for 5 days but I wouldn’t have it any other way. We talked till the wee hours of the night as we had nothing on tomorrow except the flight back. I’ve extremely attached to this group of people who’ve been so nice, so capable, so accommodating and so fun to be with. I actually dread the notion that 12 hours later, I would be back in Singapore and not in this amazing environment any more. I predict a severe case of post-trip withdrawal symptoms. 🙁