Ok, I knew it would be hard to keep up with this and that's the reality that has been confronting me in the last few weeks. I'm really behind in my reading right now, but maybe I can hammer out a short post to get everyone caught up on what's been happening here...
First of all, there have been a lot of parties and social things going on. We had the Safari masquerade at Club Zebra, the international festival in downtown Karlskrona, the celebration of the Chinese Moon festival, Kati, Sophia and Larissa's housewarming, and probably a couple more that have already turned into a blur. There have been multiple birthdays every week as well... all of these events are really great so I hate to miss any of them, although keeping up with the social calendar gets pretty overwhelming.
I have been taking lots of pictures, but here again time is not my friend. I like to shoot them in RAW format because it gives a lot of control over the exposures later on, but this means they have to be converted before I can post them online, a process which takes some time and effort. Those I have posted are from the Club Zebra party.
Last weekend I went to Stockholm for 2 days with Amanda, Kati, Carlotta and Maurita. We rented a Volvo wagon and drove up on Friday afternoon, returning on Sunday. Elsa, Zach, Ece, Sophia and Sonia came in another car. We stayed at a hostel in Gamla Stan, the old part of the city, and explored the town and the museums during the day. We also went out to eat a few times and checked out a few bars. The weather was great- cold but sunny- and it was a terrific trip on the whole.
I got to see my friend Alexis who I met in Costa Rica this past spring- she is studying in Stockholm and we met up for the day and went to the Vasa museum. The Vasa is a 17th century ship that sank on its maiden voyage which was raised almost intact and restored for display. It is huge, ancient, and covered with amazing wood carvings and decoration. It was one of the highlights of the trip for me and well worth the price of admission- hopefully I will get to take some family members there if the
y come to visit.Last week we blew through the Economics part of our course and then had a great lecture by Mark Everard, science director of TNS in the UK. This week we have had lectures by Goran Carlstedt, former head of Volva and Ikea. He talked about organizational learning and had so many great ideas and stories to share. The quality of the guest presenters in the presenters in the MSLS program is amazing. It's not everyday that you get to meet such inspiring people, and we have a lot of access to them as well, with lots of opportunities to ask questions and get into discussions.
Right now I am working on
a group project on the Marine Stewardship Council, a tool for auditing and certifying sustainably harvested seafood. I also have quite a lot of reading to do... a couple of chapters in our text book as well as a number of articles.We had a leadership essay to write last week... a non-graded assignment meant to help us explore our own idea of what leadership is and what it means to us. I'll post mine here for those who are interested. I enjoyed writing it and it really did help me organize some of my thoughts on the subject.
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Those who strive to be leaders need to develop in three main areas, encompassing motivational skills, integrity, and vision. Taken separately, they might each be worthy of admiration, but it is only when all three are able to complement each other that we see the kind of leadership that will be remembered by coming generations.
The first area encompasses the set of skills necessary to motivate and organize people to work towards the leader's goal. These skills can take many forms and have many components, but by themselves are not enough to constitute true leadership. The populist who knows how to endear himself to the people and the dictator who rules by fear may have these skills, but often lead their followers into disaster.
The kind of leaders we admire have also developed in another area, helping them not only to lead, but to lead in the right direction. A great leader must excel in the area of integrity and personal ethics, based on self-knowledge and empathy. These qualities reinforce a leader's ability to motivate and inspire people, giving him or her a power beyond that wielded by any despot.
The third and most important area is the one which separates the truly great leaders from those of average abilities, who are often buffeted here and there by the winds of popular opinion despite being in command. The greatest leaders are eventually able to overcome the obstacles put in their way by remaining focused on their ultimate goal, which is informed by their ethics and principles. They have the ability to create a vision of the future based on a broad, systemic perspective, allowing them to inspire their followers to an extraordinary degree. The leader who has this quality will both be able to find a path to achieve his or her vision and to resist those who seek to diminish it. One thinks of Gandhi's commitment to non-violence, or Martin Luther King's determination that no one should be judged by the color of their skin.
To return to the first area, good leaders are skilled at motivating and inspiring others. They accomplish this through appealing to people's better qualities and their idealism. They understand the hopes, fears, and aspirations of those they seek to lead, and they know how to use this understanding to make people care about an issue and want to get involved. Without such skills, even someone who possesses an outstanding vision or impeccable ethics will have little success in getting others to adopt his or her ideas.
It is essential that a leader should be a good communicator, both in writing and speaking. Of the two, skill in public speaking is more important, because speech is the fastest way to reach the greatest number of people, and because it conveys emotion and inspiration in a much more immediate way than written words. The personal charisma of a leader is also a factor, but the best leaders will not rely on this too much or allow it to become the support of their ego. Most people have a natural distrust of those whom they suspect love themselves too well.
An effective leader builds trust among his or her followers by putting trust in them, and knows better than to try to be involved in all the details of a process. Instead, he or she is able to recognize talent, assemble groups of skilled and passionate people, get them excited about a shared vision, and then get out of the way. Credit for successes is given to the team rather than being appropriated by the leader. In this way, members of the team feel that each success is their own, and are even more motivated to continue. Lao Tzu said that “As for the best leaders, the people do not notice their existence.” The people think that they are themselves responsible for their successes, because the leader gives them all of the credit.
How does a leader motivate and inspire people? By setting an example through his or her own personal integrity and behavior. It is very important for a leader to appear consistent in their actions, so that we see they are guided by principles and ethical considerations. We want to know exactly what they stand for and that their future decisions will be compatible with those they have made in the past. The leader who has a deep self-knowledge and a well-developed system of values will alone be able to achieve consistency in actions. He or she will project confidence as a result of relying on a guiding set of principles, and this will be evident when examining the pattern of actions taken. Possessing a strong ethical framework also helps a leader to keep his or her humility intact, and avoid the corrupting influence of power. It will also give him or her the courage to tackle big, seemingly intractable problems, because they can be approached from a broader perspective.
This brings us to the necessity of having a vision. A vision is based on principles, but it is not principles alone. It is the result of applying principles to a an overwhelming problem and envisioning a potential solution that can be communicated to other people. John Kenneth Galbraith said, "All of the great leaders have had one characteristic in common: it was the willingness to confront unequivocally the major anxiety of their people in their time.”
Principles supply the courage to tackle the big problems and show the general direction to take towards solving them, but it is also necessary to have a system perspective. Leaders are people who can see the big picture; who are able to pull the important patterns out of the details. They can't eliminate the complexity of a problem, but they have the ability to recognize the important elements of the pattern and to see how they can be used to create change.
The importance of being able to form a coherent vision of the future cannot be overstated. It is a leader's vision which enables him to communicate the desired goal to his or her followers. While the ultimate solution to a given problem may have many dimensions, having a vision allows the goal to communicated in an immediate, emotional way, which is essential for inspiring people to action. A compelling vision is like Alexander the Great's sword, cutting through the Gordian knot of complexity to show people a simple, clear path forward. It reinforces the leader's other skills and makes them easier to implement. Having a vision also allows a leader to be flexible and adapt to changing circumstances along the way. If it is well defined and articulated, it will be possible to step out of the way and let experts handle the details. Because they have understood the vision, they are clear on what needs to be achieved, and the leader can guide their efforts without being over-involved in them.
Each of these areas, skills, integrity and vision, reinforces the others and makes them stronger and more effective. They should not be thought of a separate domains to be developed independently, but as complementary abilities which build on each other through reiterative processes of improvement. As each is perfected, the others will become more refined as well, and more capable of solving problems and generating positive change.
