How do you want others to describe you as a leader? What ...

[Pages:4]Nicholas Freda Honor 401H On Perception of Your Leadership

How do you want others to describe you as a leader? What role does your personality play into this description?

When we think about leadership and the legacy a leader leaves behind, it's easy to think about it from the prospective of an obituary reader. The way that society, peers, and friends view a leader is a great way that they're remembered, and there's something to be said for the warm feeling of respect you get when others compliment your leadership. While it would probably be better for the world at large if leaders were willing to be selfless and not worry about the spotlight, the truth of the matter is that leaders have to remember that they're being watched. This can be as simple as having a public website or social media profile or could extend to scrutiny and a near- or complete invasion of privacy.

I've talked at length in both my blog posts as well as my past essays about my commitment to passing my leadership on, and I think that's the component of my leadership that I want most remembered. A lot of people know me from different times and experiences in our lives, but I want to remain committed to building my leadership in a way that people remember me positively. From taking the time to help others to developing passion and knowledge in up and coming students, I want to be remembered as a positive force for good and not just someone who achieved success.

Success, in fact, I would argue is a detriment to the memory of many leaders. It's especially present in worlds where financial success is valued because so often we look at leaders by how much money they've made themselves or shareholders. While I can't speak for them, I don't think that's how those leaders want to be remembered, and it seems fairly transparent based on the donation and giving habits of so many financial giants. Although that allows for wonderful demonstrations of philanthropy, it also opens up the weakness of greed which can pollute and influence the goals of future leaders. I think that's what has led me to wanting the following characteristics to be what define me and what others remember me as:

Visionary Compassionate Responsible

Although I selected these traits today, I know that my ideas about leadership can change over time. I'm fairly confident that these will remain constants, and so I can discuss them here. With regards to each, I think I've had a taste of how I've embodied these traits but also how I hope to continue to

improve in these areas to be an even better leader. My personality is a fundamental component of how I am a leader and how I lead, and so these traits mesh well with my personal goals and ideals. Each of these traits plays a valuable role in different aspects of my life and leadership, and I don't think that they could be skipped for other traits.

These traits do trace back to my personal long-term goal however, of continuing to help teach and develop leaders of the future. In doing so, I want to be described and remembered in a way such that people's interpretation and perception lead them to spread that message. To that end, I've chosen not to list traits that I consider to be within the realm of ethics and morals, as viewed by a reasonably prudent person. "Honesty", "Integrity", and "Morality" are important, but lessons that I genuinely believe belong in a household environment if at all possible. They delve into the complexities of the "gray" that the Presidential Leadership Academy is so fond of discussing and examining, and my thought is that these are best described and discussed in the safety of a family. That being said, all have value and I hope that I'm viewed as an ethical and moral leader, these traits just aren't the ones that I feel should be used to describe me primarily. Ideally, all leaders would have these traits and we wouldn't have to worry about them, but that's not the world we live in today.

So, getting to the first of the three traits ? vision and being described as a visionary. I've been told that I'm a visionary of sorts for well over half of my life, in large part due to the amount of reading I did as a young child. That reading led me to dream of grand scenarios and of a world that I could have a hand in creating. From a young age, my environment was structured in a way that fostered that creativity, and my personality played a huge role in my initial interest in shaping and changing the world. This would be one area where I'd want to be described as a leader because I think the movements and projects that I've created and introduced are valuable reminders that even students with little money and power can still effect great change.

While I'm not the founder of a startup nor a professed admirer of students who drop out to follow their own dreams, I think it's important that if I'm going to be viewed as a leader that I continue to provide positive motivation for future generations. Whether it's a high school student who wants to create a volunteer program to help the environment or a college student who's looking to redefine college a capella, I think that there are many attainable goals that require vision to go after. Just because you're young doesn't mean that you can't have hopes for a better world and positive end results. It just means that the steps need to be smaller and more measured when risk is involved.

The second of the three traits, compassion is one that seemingly vanished from many leaders' minds around the turn of the century. Perpetuated by financial interests and a strong economic market, a lot of the compassion in business was left behind. There was no love lost, of course, when the economy recessed, and the situation we're in today is one where I feel like we need to highlight leaders who demonstrate this trait. Again, as a largely binary trait (acknowledging that someone is or is not compassionate) this is one that I feel needs to be demonstrated through action and leadership not just discussion. I'm in a position where I get to teach children and young adults, and reminding them to be compassionate to their peers, even if they don't fully know or understand their motivations.

Looking beyond compassion as a binary trait, it's necessary to realize that without compassion (and the accompanying emotions such as friendship, empathy, and the like) that success becomes very shallow. While that's not something I think people can easily describe through looking at their leaders, it is important to realize that we as leaders need to bring compassion to the forefront of our personalities in order for it to show through. Leading with compassion may not have some of the shortcuts that merciless action does, but that doesn't mean that it doesn't have value. Furthermore, I think that after experiencing that type of leadership first- and second-hand in college, I realize that it will rarely pay off in the long run.

The third of the traits, responsibility, is the one that I deal with the most frequently and which is most often used to define my work in my non-academic spaces. From serving on administrative boards to being selected as the youngest Worlds Head Judge in history, I've been given many opportunities where my responsibilities exceed that of my peers. It's important for me to demonstrate that I handle that responsibility and can use it effectively. When I think of how I want people to describe me in the context of my side projects, I want to be remembered as someone they could count on to be responsible. This is largely due to the fact that I think there are many irresponsible individuals running amok in society today, and especially when meeting new people, I want to have positive referrals and influence flowing with me, not against me.

The only way for others to view you as responsible is by being responsible, and this creates a bit of a conundrum when considering how to go about generating it. Just like jobs, "you need to have been responsible to get responsibility..." but how do you go about getting that in the first place? Ultimately, responsibility is all about trust. One of the ways that I've been fortunate is that my vision and my compassion have helped me to build trust so that I could take on challenges.

In essence, these three traits are the way I want to be described because they create a positive feedback loop when considered in full. If you have compassion, you can build trust. With vision, you can demonstrate that you're able to do more. With these, you can gain responsibility, giving you the opportunity to fulfill your vision while showing compassion and continuing to build rapport and starting the cycle of progress and advancement all over again. There are countless individuals in business and academia alike that are trying to go through this cycle but lack these components, and if nothing else, I hope that my leadership and personality are able to make my path to success evident so that others may learn and follow in the benefits.

My personality plays a role in all of these traits because my personality has shaped who I am as a leader. When I first started taking leadership roles, I tailored myself to what I perceived would make me a better leader. The truth I've learned over the past decade or so is that that's simply not necessary if you practice, demonstrate, and embody positive traits. Although it's not one of my three top words I'd like people to use to describe me, I think that being genuine is highly undervalued in today's society. My personal goal is to continue to embody the traits I see as so positive, with the hope that I'm able to continue influencing people to learn and practice their own positive traits.

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