Reply To: Exercise 13: Your Models for Leadership and Emotions
by Jim Jenkins
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Exercise 13 What is Leadership, what are emotions
Essay 1: What is leadership?
1. How have my views of leadership changed over the course of the exercises so far?
I have a new depth of understanding about fundamental principles that I haven’t fully appreciated previously, am working to put into practice and am excited about how it will elevate my ability to influence and make a positive difference.
I now do think of leadership more as performance art than just scientific principles and looking back, recognize just how much my limiting beliefs have held me back. I now think of it in terms of life long practice and a form of my Ikigai (The Japanese reason for living)
I am much more appreciative of the emotional element of leadership, both how my emotional state affects others positively and negatively and how emotions are at the core of highly effective leadership.
2. What leadership experiences have I had so far?
Over the course of my life I’ve had many formal and influencer leadership experiences with youth groups, community Associations, industry and social clubs, trade associations and company people leadership.
I’ve created learning organizations and high performing teams, I’ve brought people through reorganizations and take overs, hired and fired people, created visions and inspired a few.
I’ve come to realize I’ve tended to discount much of my hard earned leadership experience and I need to leverage that much more.
3. Who are my leadership role models? In no particular order.
• Winston Churchill: Grit and determination
• Barak Obama: inspiring and uplifting communicator
• Jane Fonda: Fight to be heard for what is right
• Colin Powell: A smooth as glass leader such that you don’t know you are being led.
• My father: Drive, intuition and networker
• Christiana Figueres: Co-Founder, Global Optimism and Paris Agreement achievement
• Robert Swan: Explorer with a global mindset
• Martin Luther King Jr.: so many elements of the above
• Cassius Clay: Making something of himself against all odds
• George Washington: Father of so much innovation, vision and a country
• JFK: vision, inspiring speaker, artful politician
• Napolean Bonaparte: brilliant general who could see things differently than others and an example of blind spots that can do you in.
• Florian Graichen: GM Forests to Bio-based Products at Scion
• Tali Sharot: director of the Affective Brain Lab, changing beliefs neuroscience
4. What do I consider to be success or failure in leadership? Good or bad
• Ability to look at the bigger picture and see things that others don’t
• Willingness to accept failure and learn from it
• Intuition and courage to take a leap of faith
• Communicator and relationship builder
• Emotional restraint
• Single mindedness, Blind spots
• Thinking is I about you and not people
• Failure to read the room and pickup on the vi
Essay 2: What are emotions?
1. What is motivation?
Motivation is an internal state where we want a change from what is in ourself or our environment to something different. It creates the drive and direction needed to take action to sustain ourself physically, mentally, psychologically. Maslow’s hierarchy of needs for example.
Intrinsic motivation pertains to things you want to change based on your beliefs, emotions, values. Extrinsic motivation pertains to influences from your environment. There are other types of motivation.
2. What are emotions?
Emotions are reactions that we experience in response to events or situations. The type of emotion a person experiences depends on the circumstance that triggers the emotion. For instance, a person experiences joy when they receive good news and fear when they are threatened.
Emotions have a strong influence on our daily lives. We make decisions based on whether we are happy, angry, sad, bored, or frustrated. We also choose activities and hobbies based on the emotions they incite. Understanding emotions can help us navigate life with greater ease and stability.
3. What is self-awareness?
Your ability to notice your feelings, your physical sensations, your reactions, your habits, your behaviors, what you like, what you don’t like and why, and your thoughts, paying attention in your life, why you respond to certain things in certain ways, being honest with yourself about the difference between what you say and think you are doing and what you are really doing/behaving, being authentic (your true self).
4. How do they manifest in my life?
Emotions, motivation and self-awareness are my life, influencing how I think, feel and act. How well I notice and understand them determines the kind of live I have, how well I achieve my dreams and overcome my setbacks and limitations. They affect each other. For example if I have strong negative emotions about a fact of my life, that could generate a high level of motivation for me to make a change for the better. How self-aware I am about that emotion will determine how successful I am in resolving my issue.