Saturday, March 22, 2008

Primer's Council at 4am

A little of this, a little of that. I find a blog rather nice for expressing my thoughts, as screwed as they might be. Don't worry, this is not a rant. I think.

Rather, its sort of another discussion on Leadership. Lots to say about it really, one of which is (somewhat) emo.

Basically today for BB we had Primer's Council, in which all the high and mighty leaders of the Primers gather (which, strangely enough, was most of us) to speak and discuss their committees. As Official Steering Secretary and Unofficial Secretary-of-Everything (I might be exaggerating though, I'm not Sec for a few committees), I was basically typing my way into finger spasm throughout the meeting.

Still, a few things brought up caught my attention. What little I attention I had to give, of course. Still, they made me think somewhat...

Little on what Russ said. In Steering we have "3 Leaders and 1 Slave". No prizes for guessing who he was refering to. Apparently, this is cause alot of them are "very strong willed", meaning they butt heads alot. Which means very little gets done, sadly.

The Emo side of this is that I think (actually, I know. He told me himself) that I am the "Slave". This has several implications, chief of which was tied in to something else the Captain had said.

Apparently, he sees in our cohort an "incredible potential for leadership" and once again tied to the "stubborness...lots of internal conflicts". I am rather tempted to start shouting "Hurrah! Take that Leadership Programs!", but somehow all this does is make me feel dejected.

Cause I kinda feel like a Slave. I really don't want to lead, I just want to get things done. And that usually means people use me to get things done since a) Leaders Delegate and b) Slaves Work. I'm starting to wonder how much do I actually fit in with the cohort, and whether my current "I'll handle it" attitude is really that much of a positive thing...

I'm not sure if he realises how much that statement hurt me. I'm not sure I realise it too, hence the strangely light tone of this post (I think).

Another thing I thought about in Leadership is that, while there are no "perfect leaderships", there are "best-suited leaderships", by which each person has their own leadership style. BB is trying to promote "Servant Leadership", yet some of the people within the company seem to be doing anything but such.

Perhaps some people within this world are more suited to the "Pushy Leadership" style, by which they become so focused on their goals their very prescence is like a vacuum cleaner. (i.e. they are so dense that they consume themselves and become black holes xD). Or rather, they are focused and slightly closed-minded, but this makes them extremely stable and somewhat inspiring, especially if said person has charisma or ability to supplement it.

So what we have here are people who drift with the tide (free and such) and anchors, who hold them down. While some may resent this sudden imposing of restraint on their freedom, more and more I feel that most of the world actually enjoys "being controlled". Simply put, a Leader is someone who can what his Followers feel secure.

This can be done through many ways. Being certain, being sure; being supportive, always there. Being unimposing to his friends, yet fearsome to his foes. Being popular, being powerful, being rich.

All these grant a sort of "stability" to the life of the leader and the lives of the people around them. Which falls me back to the point: Is a leader merely a stubborn man, abeit a charismatic one?

Certainly some have excellent ideas. Yet if they have not the stubborness to pursue it, they would not have reached so far...

Perhaps we as students and philosophers(somewhat) should focus less on identifying our doubts and more on our ideas? Sometimes hard-headed stubborness is all you need to get things done. To quote Crawshaw:

"You just need to [i]sound[/i] like you know what's going on."

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