The 'pump'......

Winding down,

Thank you once again for joining me as we digress and my knowledge becomes your updates is coming to a close. This week we learned about empowerment and how it involves the leader in particular and how it affects a person or a group of people. This concept can clearly be defined as, “giving power to someone thus resulting in a greater sense of confidence/self esteem and ability to do a task”. If done with a ‘good heart’ and attitude this can go a long way resulting in nothing less than optimistic group contributions to better each one. However, there is one thing people need to know that will use this skill effectively and that is whoever is doing the ‘empowering’ of the other person they need to know what that certain person is good at. For example, this applies to my past life when I was on the wrestling and football team starting out as a freshman. There would be team leaders that encouraged others including myself on the team and in wrestling if he knew I had a clear shot at working a move which I was good at he would call it and I would follow up with it. This benefited the group in points, resulted in a wins for me, and boosted my self-confidence gearing up for the next match.

As well as knowing what empowerment is one needs to know what to believe in order to follow through and this includes:

• That others might be better at something
 That others should have the chance to thrive
 That the fact that others might do something different than you would does not make it bad
 That giving power to others creates an opportunity for you to learn something new

Realizing these factors one can assume it goes ‘hand-in-hand’ with motivation in part which is the next concept. Motivation can be defined as an incentive or move to action. There three different dimensions of motivation including intrinsic, relational, and extrinsic, but for now I will go into depth on the one that I live by and that is extrinsic motivation and the details by which this entails are as follows:

 Tangible rewards (scholarships, awards, prizes, gifts, money)
 Credit towards something (academic credit or completing requirements toward something larger)
 Experience to build your resume
 Opportunity for advancement (promotion, new opportunities)
 Avoiding penalties (fines, loss of privileges)
 Public recognition
 Knowing that someone may return the favor
 Competition with others/to win

The one in which I go by most is competition with others which I dislike losing. This ‘inner drive’ within me has pushed myself to the limit and given me success. I still believe I am humble, but there is nothing better than competing with each other to put your skills to the test. I also know when to motivate others giving them that extra ‘boost’ they need when down. There many ways to apply this to leadership if not stated in the obvious, but the question you can draw is when was the last time you motivated or was motivated by someone?

The sum of who you are.....

Tuning into this week,

We will be exploring ethics and morale and how they seemingly intertwine with each other. Through our assigned reading I noticed the author relied heavily on these two concepts, but it was in the latter that I realized why. Her defined leadership definition was having good ethics and effectiveness essentially. Hitler was mentioned in the reading, but there was speculation as to whether or not he was a ‘leader’ in a sense that under the fore-mentioned Great Man and Trait theories he can be listed as a leader, but under the Behavioral, Situational, and Process he cannot. So we digress keeping this in mind and learning about ethics and morale.

To start off, there are a few definitions including values, morals, ethics, and character. These definitions ‘sum’ up who you are as person and what you live by:

- Values: Freely chosen personal beliefs
- Morals: Relating to right or wrong, commonly thought to be influenced by religion or values
- Ethics: Social rules that govern and limit our conduct, especially the ultimate rules concerning right and wrong
- Character: Who you are

As one can see, paying close attention to morals and ethics they both include similar context. The million dollar question that can be drawn here is, “Is there a universal code of ethics?” This question still relays in my mind as I have yet to come up with a solution. However, what shapes our ethics? These can include, school, family, religion, culture, media, friends, and experiences. I like to consider myself as having decent ethics in terms of working for example. Going into work each day, I say to myself, ‘think about all the people who don’t have jobs’. This alone makes me feel a sense of job security knowing that I will strive to increase my stores sales by relating to the customers needs and working with them to close a deal. This is just one of many rules that I live by on a daily basis.

Focusing on morals, we all have our ways of ‘going through the motions of life’ but some people can take advantage of this in different ways and abuse the system. According to changingminds.org morals can be further defined as “having a greater social element to values and tend to have a very broad acceptance. Morals are far more about good and bad than other values. We thus judge others more strongly on morals than values. A person can be described as immoral, yet there is no word for them not following values”. Note that ethics and morals have been used interchangeably over the years. This relates to everyone as it does to me, yet some of the morals I live by are: ‘Be happy with what you have, life is not fair, be thankful for every new day, and treat others as you would want to be treated’. I am still working on building my self morale and it will always be a continuing process that I am willing to keep up with. How do you value yourself in the above concepts and what will you do to change the bad to good?

Born Identity.....

This just in,

In yet another week of learning about leadership my class and I learned about identity, oppression, and privilege. These concepts break down into our society and though we may not even think for a second about these, they are there. What can you indentify yourself as? An athlete, cat or dog person, out doors, science, book worm, and so on? A common term is ascribed identity which according to our lecture: how others see you or what society may impose on you (this may or may not match with self identity). This concept plays into leadership by the simply fact of it showing others who you are as a person if you are the ‘head of the pack’. I’d like to identify myself as an athlete, conscientious, humble, outdoor person, studious, and the list can go on from there. I take pride in my identity because, and this is the same with all of you reading this, no one has the same identity as you. Though we may envy others from different aspects in this field, but regardless you are you and no one can change that.

Looking at oppression it can be simply stated as “disadvantages or barriers used subtly or by force to keep someone or group in a particular place in society”. Its target is those who do not have a privilege or social power. This social aspect is constructed upon institutions and systems in which this is formed by people and persists beyond the everyday that shapes how people live, grow, and learn, and keeps a community going. Systems within institutions include sexism, racism, ableism, heterosexism, classism, etc…Some of the effects of oppression and in relation to privilege can by categorized by:

 Family
 Societal Norms
 Crime
 Geography
 Media
 Health
 Business
 Government
 Education

Within an article we read the author explained how people of color fit into all of these very categories yet today we feel as though this doesn’t exist. IT does, and soon maybe we will all come to realize this. Everyone is oppressed but some more than others. I feel, myself, is oppressed considering I do not come from an upper- middle class family. I am still blessed nonetheless for being alive, but working harder than those with money ‘always’ in their pockets is a must.

Turning to privilege, this concept grabbed my attention because I have never thought of it this way before. Coming from a different view point privilege is inherent in dominant groups in society. If you are in a dominant group, you get privilege whether you want it or not. If you appear to be in a dominant group (passing), you get some privilege associated with that group. Though having privilege doesn’t make you a bad person. Take for example right handed people; if you walk into a classroom what type of handed scissors are readily available? I personally feel privileged being able to even walk! Or where does the left handed person always have to sit when eating with other friends? It is examples like these that make those feel a little more ‘special’ about themselves.

Where do you stand?

Welcome back and good day,

This blog will be about inclusivity in the context of culture and how it relates to, of course, leadership. According to this weeks lecture “the integrated pattern of human knowledge, belief, and behavior that depends upon the capacity for learning and transmitting knowledge to succeeding generations; the customary beliefs, social forms, and material traits of a racial, religious, or social group”. We generalized and compiled a list of what we thought culture was and included but it turned out most of what we had was something of common knowledge. What we failed to recognize somewhat was the underlying categories of culture including, but not limited to, conception of beauty, eye behavior, facial expressions, and social interaction rate. All of these which can play a huge role in ones culture and can take offense to it done otherwise.

This concept of culture relates to me as well as the United States as a whole because we live in a society filled with mixed cultures, races, religions, and more. What I have yet to understand is to acceptingly take in other cultures and value their ways of life. In doing so, I will be able to expand my knowledge which can better serve others especially in the health care field. A few other interesting concepts we viewed were individualism and collectivism. These two terms indeed weigh in on ‘opposite’ sides of the spectrum in which one is based on self per-se’ and the other is involved with others more socially. These two ways is how our western society is structured essentially. A few key points include:

Individualism

- Stand out from the rest
- Develop own skills and opportunities
- “What’s in it for me?” or “That’s not my job”
- Control
- In charge of own fate
- Competitive
- Strive to be the best

Collectivism

- Interdependent
- Development of group
- Trust
- Collaborative
- What’s best for group?
- Familial

When looking at these concepts I can relate more so to the individualism only because I fit into more of the categories than the other. This is what I have been told is that if you want to get far in life you have to want to, you have to make good choices, want to exceed others in the competition and so forth. Keep in mind though, not one way is better than the other indeed.

As the world continues to grow with people from all cultures and races I have seen more and more multicultural leadership people shape different peoples lives such as our president, again, who broke the racial boundary of having all predominantly Caucasian presidents in the past. There needs to be a well balance of both individualistic and collective ideologies (something I am working on) engrained in our minds because with this, and only this, will the U.S. turn the ways of being ‘self-centered’ and provoke a new way of reaching the common goal to better everyone in the long run. So the question is, where do you stand and what will you do to change your ways?