Day 5 – a lesson on Leadership

People are always intrigued by the unknown, and we are always to curious about figuring out more about ourselves. This explains the increasing popularity of personality tests and quizzes, and even astrology. But yet, many of us remain clueless about ourselves, and there begins our perpetual quest of understanding ourselves. Today we had the opportunity to do that, during the leadership segment of the trip.

I must say, the seniors and teachers in charge of the leadership segment did a great job in planning this. It was effective, engaging and meaningful.

We started out the session by going around to shake hands and introduce ourselves. There and then, we were taught our first lesson. A lesson on Confidence.

A firm handshake and maintaining eye-contact is important when establishing a good first impression. Be it a boss, a colleague, or potential employer, a good handshake reveals a lot about your character. You want to be confident, or at least appear to be. I think I had not much trouble with that, despite being a reserved and shy person by nature. Well, from my years of performing experience, I truly believe in the phrase – “fake it until you make it.”

After that icebreaker, we went straight into the race. I am going to skip the details of the amazing race, but instead reflect on what I gained from this experience.

The seniors shared their thoughts and I gathered new insights about what makes a good leader. Good leadership is not just taking the lead, but also knowing when to be a supportive team player. Good leaders have the ability to reach out to others, to coax others to come out as leaders, realizing their potential. The leadership race also made me more aware of my leadership style. There are some good things, but also some I need to work on.

I am a good leader because:

1. I am proactive and I like to take the first initiative. I am vocal (only when necessary), and I step up to take charge. I found myself delegating roles and making the final decisions after gathering responses from my team members.

2. I recognize the strengths of my team members, and myself. For example, I knew that I was bad with directions so I delegated the job to someone else. Also, I did not feel like I was the one carrying the team, as I felt like we all played an equal role with our individual strenghts.

3. I am motivated and competitive. I took this race seriously, and wanted to finish this as quick as possible (we even resorted to running on the streets for a while).

Things I need to work on:

1. I need to step back sometimes to give others more opportunities to lead. Motivate or create opportunities for other people with potential.

2. I got excited and did not take time management into account. Pay attention on details, and not just the big picture.

3. I need to be less competitive. (chill!)

Be less competitive… Is competitiveness bad? People sometimes misunderstand my competitiveness as my need to win. Then again, who doesn’t like to win? But honestly, I dare say winning is not the most important to me. In such circumstances I am only driven to give my best, so as to be able to look back and have no regrets. To be able to live with myself, knowing that I could not have done any better at that time. Having an element of competition also spices things up and makes things fun. If everyone were to be chill and slack off, these activities wouldn’t be as meaningful, won’t it?

So..is there a need to justify my competitive nature…? I believe (or hope) that in my pursuit of achievement I haven’t hurt anyone, for I still believe that the well-being of the team is still most important.

I felt like I had a responsibility to keep the morale of my group up during the leadership race. At first, I thought this would not easy, as my group comprised of naturally mild and docile members. They each have strengths of their own, but from the past few days of working with them, they haven’t been particularly loud or unreserved. Despite my initial worries of not being able to hype my team up, I was pleasantly surprised to find my team members just as enthusiastic about this challenge as me. It is extremely important for the group to be on the same wavelength. With this in check, I felt like our team worked well together without any disagreements or unhappiness. We had a good mix of leaders, those who are action takers and decision makers, and leaders who are good supporters. Conclusion: The leadership amazing race was indeed, pretty amazing.

After the leadership amazing race, our group split up as some of us wanted to shop while the rest of us wanted to visit the well-known “Grand Canyon” of Chiang Mai. The Grand Canyon is a popular spot for sightseers, and adrenaline junkies to try out cliff jumping from different heights.

When we arrived at the Grand Canyon, my excitement wore off when I was faced with the terrifying height of the ginormous cliff. I was torn between my love for spontaneity and my fear of adverse consequences. However, being a #YOLO adrenaline junkie, I was still game on jumping an 18 feet tall cliff.

I had second thoughts while hiking up the cliff, but since it took me so much trouble to get up there, I thought, I might as well just. Jump. My body trembled and my legs shook weakly as I peeked to see beyond the cliff.

I cast aside my fears and took a leap of faith (literally). and it. Felt. Exhilarating.

The feeling is indescribable. My soul felt like it left my body for a split second (like what you usually see in Tom & Jerry cartoon illustrations).I felt amazing refreshed, and invigorated after the jump. Its different from the kind of refreshment you get from a vacation, or from chugging a glass of water after a workout. It felt like liberation.

Perhaps, this is a timely reminder for me to have courage, which is not the absence of fear, but rather the ability to move and act beyond fear.

Janice Leong