My One-year Leadership Journey in HC

If the studying in HC is like a journey as titled, then we have been on our trip for almost one year already. What we not only have experienced here is not just gathering together to learn what leaders are and how to become leaders, even though it is what is written in the official introduction of the UM Honors College, but also have obtained the specific meaning personally, I believe. When this journey just started, we are almost all strangers to each other. As time goes on, we get to know each other, have laughter and tears together and help each other to achieve what seems too hard to be achieved for us. For me, I always have this habit of imaging that I were really old already, and thinking “What have done in my whole life up till now?” I would love to say, there can’t be anything more amazing than this journey. This journey for me is a beautiful view itself. Thank you guys so much for being around me and keep me company to witness all this.

I want to make this opening with some words in my heart. I have been looking back to think about this two years in the University of Macau. What I figured out is pretty overwhelming for me. This semester my academic grade is the worst out of the four I had. I know that I did not work very hard this semester and I could have been doing better. But actually I could not. Before Year 2, I throw myself into the course work of EEE. I spent my leisure time in computer games and stuff and sometimes go out to watch some movies or something, and labeled myself as an “excellent” student with great proud of myself. The pictures of me being angry about myself just because of failing to be the best in some of the tests is still clear in mind. I dislike communicating with the people I am not familiar with or have nothing common in my mind with me, like a lone wolf walking in the campus. The stable steps of this kind of life style stuck and there is no motivation for me to make a difference. I once was confident to believe that I was living a more meaningful life than people around me. I got great grades, and somehow was called a “legend of FST”. How come? I have no idea what I did to be called that.

Then the second year of university life started and as everyone expected, I was chose to enter the Honors College. When I first come to this place, I did not give up my “belief”. The life in Honors College did not affect me that much in the first place actually. I was still determined not to be involved into too much “less important” activities. Up until the 2^nd Retreat, in which I was lucky to be the one picked up for Sky Jumping, was I leading my self-involved life. I felt the eyes focusing on me, the words people had with me, the attention our guys paid to me and the joy that I could bring into this group. When I was watching the photos taken at the time, especially the one that I had in my Sky Jumping costume with Aggie, another lucky girl and all other people in the retreat, I could tell myself that I actually am a part of this group. Then the best experience for me in HC, the HC Talent Show, comes as no one expected. Honestly, it is just our professor’s quick idea mentioned several times in the class at first, which means more or less some assigned task. However, what we went through is much more amazing than we expected, which is really hard to be understood by the professors and the audience, I think. It is the first time for me to be joyful to accomplish something non-academic with a bunch of lovable classmates and get to know them as well during the process ever since I entered the university. Sounds sad, doesn’t it? Well, don’t be, that is not necessary. That is actually what I felt. Fanny, Kim, Aggie, Alisa, Mirror and Hannah, you were all non-familiar to me before, but I would be so happy to see you accidentally in the campus, my dear friends. We tasted confusion, tiredness, endeavor, comfort, surprise and laughter together. It is so unforgettable for me that every time I recalled that, I could not help but smile. We paid, and we succeeded, together all the time, not for money, not for reputation, but just for an object ahead of us. This feeling is so great. However, everything is obtained for a price. But there is no regret for me personally. If I had not tried another way of living, then there would have been no way for me to think about my life status right now and made a difference. Just because I paid less attention to the formulas and textbook content, then I failed in my old values, thus it can be seen how fragile what I was pursuing is. Did I really learn a lot academically during these two years? Not really, I can say. I could have just pasted through my four-year university life falling into pursuing some fictional reputation. However, I made my choice to influence others and let others open to influence me. I still have my dreams. I still want to have all the things I wanted before, but maybe in a very different way. This is what HC has brought me, a new belief, founded on the basis of the crossing of different individual lives including me and people around me. Well, what I treasure the most here? Haha, I would like to say that it is the special bonds we enjoy.

Now, I can finally put down the heavy load put on my shoulders by myself. When I feel no jealous to hear that Tiffany, Victor, Janir and other classmates have past the TOEFL test for their first try while I did not, I realize how much I have grown. It might look too stupid for others, but it is true pleasure for me. As I was in high school, my class teacher taught us a Chinese poem which says “When you are capable to accept failure and success and treat them both in the same way, then my son, you can finally become a human.” Back in high school, this poem meant almost nothing to me, considering that I had no idea about what it was talking about. Now, it finally comes down to me. During our growing up, there are a bunch of people telling us to live your own life without paying too much attention to other people’s opinion, but sadly nothing is that easy as said. It is a difficult task and very hard to be accomplished personally without support, only if one can experience enough in his journey. The process could be tough, but the gain is worth the fight.

After so many years, after I have been trying to be locating myself so many times, I can eventually conclude it as followed: I am just a normal young boy who dares to do something that freaks people out, like speaking out in class or something. I am not smart at all, thus still necessary to learn and work hard to accomplish what I want to obtain. I have a pretty tough spirit to do that, which I am so happy about. The HC life grants me this evaluation for myself. I cannot think of anything better to be appreciated.

For the next two years, I will try to accomplish my dreams left behind for quite a long time. What I have to train for myself is the capability of concentration on separate things in series. This is all personal and I will try to handle it on my own.

If you asked me about how I could possibly influence my classmates in the future journey, well, I would say that what I have got the spirit of accepting both optimism and pessimism. Nowadays, the most serious problem that I have realized is that there are less and less ears there willing to listen to people’s negative feelings. Anger, jealousness, hate, distrust, these feelings are true and are sometimes buried all the time. However, I am not sure whether it is because that people here in Macau are all enjoying such a rich and happy life or something, it seems that most of them cannot understand these feelings. As the so-called “future leaders”, we are supposed to solve a lot of problems. World peace, no hunger and so on, those are all good dreams to fight for, but there are still so many problems around us that can barely even be seen or paid attention to, considered to be too small, too personal or too none-of-my-business-and-why-I-should-care-about. I still remember that in our HC classes this semester, our professor has been trying to tell us to give smiles, to show optimism and to open our heart to the world. In one of the last classes the professor even granted an award called “the best smile” to some our classmates. Wow, I cannot say how stupid that award is. It is like giving an award to “the happiest people” in the world. What is wrong of no smiles? Another thing that is worth to mention is that in another class this semester, the professor was talking about being free to open our heart and without any control I put up my hand and asked about being free to close our heart. I gave an example of parents bothering the children by the forbidden of closing the doors of their rooms. The professor said “Well, I don’t know what your problem is with your parents…” From this detail it can safely be concluded that our professor has no idea what kind of problems that could bother the young, and in his mind these problems could not be serious and apparently not that significant compared to smiling and being optimistic to influence the people positively around us. I would have to say that is only proper for student leaders in campus, but not for the society. A future leader needs the patience to listen to people’s problems and give the sympathies to understand them and comfort people’s hearts, as the Catholic Fathers do. I can tell you guys that sometimes smiling is torturing if there is no happiness that people want to express in their heart. And forcing people to smile could be really cruel. Life is not always full of sunshine and there is darkness everywhere even though it is always tried to be ignored around us. A strong spirit does not just take a path around and avoid the darkness and leave for the sunshine but capable of carrying both of them, revealing the truth of the reason of the darkness and trying to pull the souls out of there, and this spirit is something that we need to learn in our class, not just being optimistic all the time. However, what is really sad is that, this issue has been always ignored in our classes and we have been learning no real solutions to real problems. Simple question, a child is arguing severely with his parent, mother or fathers, or just with his friend, what should we, the future leaders, do to help them out? Any idea where to start?

I have been trying to listen to people’s problems and give them the biggest hand of me, sometimes just to let them feel some support and comfort. This awards me some real friend who could give me a real hand as I were in trouble, and I think that is what leadership means from the very beginning. Being patient to listen to people, warm-hearted to help with the problems is what I am good at and I could influence my classmates in this aspect in their leadership journey, if needed.

I am just that kind of person who would like to say my opinions out loud and that is one of the good spirits of Honors College, right? I am just doing my job, anyway.

The journey of exploring leadership will never end ahead of us and I am all prepared to move on. Good luck, guys and wish you a nice day for every day.

HC Talent Show--Never expect to experience anything like this

Well, the HC talent show has been long gone, but the memories are still hot and clear like that it just happened yesterday. I can still see the days when we were busy discussing the drama script with totally no ideas, the days when laughter was full of the room as we were in rehearsal, the nights when the tired look appeared on the face of everyone of us for the thinking of the details of the play, the nights before the formal rehearsal of the show when we suddenly decided to change the plan totally and everything should be restarted for us, the figuring out the lines, the choice of the background music and the interaction with the audience and so on. It seemed at the first place that this performance is just one of the assignments that the professor gives us. However, as the preparation of our drama going on, it was becoming increasingly clear that this is more than just an ordinary assignment, but more often than not a precious experience for us to get along with each other, the opportunity of which is really hard to obtain from HC classes. During the organization of the play, the pleasure acquired for myself, personally, is really out of my expectation and to tell the truth, I have never been so involved in any activities. Well, what can I say? I, as titled, never expected to experience anything like this before.

To talk about the feeling of me to this show, it cannot be avoided talking about the members of our drama group. I want to start with Fanny. She is responsible to the drama part of the show. This is pretty surprising for me because she seemed so quiet in the classes. It turned out that she is involved a lot into student activities and may have some experience of organizing or something, and not quiet at all, lol~~. It is during and after the show that I find out that she is the kind of person who needs to be known gradually. She is responsible to the drama for almost all aspects, the script and music stuff. One thing that really moves me is that she is so surprised and happy to know that I actually followed her instruction to write down the script after she told me to. I think it is very cute, haha~. Also as a member of the committee she needed to focus on more things than us. Anyway, the drama team could not have made any work done without her passion and responsibility. Surely after this experience, she becomes one of the girls that I admire the most.

Kim, the core member of the drama performance and of the whole show as well, as he suddenly became the person in charge of the general affairs of the show. I don’t know the details, but considering that he is one of the members from the workshop group, the scene of his running here and there for this additional work on him really touched my heart. The enthusiasm of a man to a group reveals that how much he cared about this group and it is always moving to see such a busy figure around us. For the drama, Kim was always very shy, because according to the ordinary arrangement, he played the boyfriend of Fanny. The problem is that he did not seem to like his “girlfriend” at all and was really shy to express it out. Even though this does not meet the requirement of the performance, we can safely conclude that Kim is good man who is not used to flirting with girls, lol~~.

Aggie, the talent of whom is well witnessed on the stage, is the most significant actress in our group. She is the one who gives most of the ideas of the final version of the story that we played. She is the one who was running in front to make the opening of our performance vivid and attractive and the atmosphere exciting. Without her, there is no way that our drama could be such a big success and to some extent, be the most successful part of the entire talent show. The preparation work, like the discussion and other things, took a lot of time of her which should have been used on her homework. I still remember that night that I saw her fall asleep on the sofa in our EAC TV room when I went down to pick up Alisa. Her devotion into this play wins the huge success and she cannot deserve too much compliment.

Mirror, another professional actress in this drama group, shared a lot of ideas about the details of the performance on stage. Her voice is so natural on stage and so are her gestures. I have to say that before this show I thought she is a little bit hard to get accessed, because for some times in the past, I was trying to have a word with her but failed to get the kind of response I expected. But through this play, I learnt that she is also a talking kind of girl and cares a lot about others as well. It is always a pleasure to have a conversation with her, because from my point of view she is very interesting and shares a lot, which is maybe something that one can only enjoy when he gets known to this girl.

For Alisa, haha, as I mentioned in the last HC class in this semester, she has a huge requirement for others to protect her and I strongly agree with the comment that Fanny has for her, how can anyone not like her as he starts working with her? She is just so responsible, so patient and such a gentle girl as well. And her quick reaction to accidental affairs is really admirable, which, by the way, I heard after the show, when Roddick and Fanny mentioned it in the control room. One thing that I might never forget in my life about her is her “unreasonable” huge fear for Aggie’s really lame “taking out her eye” magic. Aggie was almost doing nothing but putting her hands one her eye frame and doing the gesture of digging something out, but Alisa could not help crying out loud for being afraid that Aggie’s eye had been really taken out by herself. We told her again and again that nothing could ever happen, but the sad looking on her face just didn’t go away. I fairly cannot think of anything cuter than that that a girl has ever done in front of me, haha~~. She is a very lovable girl and being together with her is a great joy.

Last but not least, Hannah, another member from workshop group, came and helped us as one of the assistants of magic performance in the first place. Personally, I really appreciate her being here because I could finally find a mainland student who doesn’t understand Cantonese just like me, lol~~. Even though it was a busy period with them as well with all the assignments and stuff, pretty heavy load on them, I can tell, but she still presented almost every time we had a meeting of discussion. It is a great help from you, Hannah, really, maybe more than your own expectation.

For me, this is a wonderful experience in which I learnt a lot. The most important thing I have learnt I think is the real joy of life. I used to be a student buried in the formulas from what I am learning and fight nothing but for my GPA. I didn’t realize it, but my getting tired of this life style is growing increasingly and it is right after the HC talent show proposal was launched that I have finally found out what real joy is about life. This is an age in which individual value is well focused on and respected, but as individuals in this society we are not totally separate from each other. The lives of us interact at certain points on the time axis, and the pleasant moments just flash out of our expectation. The sharing of joy and sorrow, the common goal to accomplish and  the hard time to go through together combine to make the lives of our own colorful and memorable. When we look back to the foot prints we left together in the past time, there will be no regret but pure pleasure fulfilling our heart.

Thank you guys so much for just being around me. You make me happier than I ever expected.

We are and always will be standing together, forever ever. 

A start could be the end, and vice versa.

I remembered that last Wednesday, our professor said that his course for this semester is coming to the end. Well, I have to say that after such a long time, finally, I can find myself able to calmly sit down, trying to think about something that I really like. Just a moment before I was watching the one open course from Harvard, the well-known What is the right thing to do by Michael Sandel. The open courses from Harvard are really rare, I have to say, which just happens to make this courses extraordinary, lol. To be honest, it is so good to feel that I am actually doing stuff for myself, rather than doing things for professors for nothing but grades.

Well, this also explains why I am going to upload this blog after the professor has announced that the semester is coming to the end. I think it is my personality that determines that I prefer to do the work I appreciate and enjoy with no external instructions. I believe that this might piss off a lot of people including my parents. Well, then I have nothing to do with it, because I am not there for them to accept. Maybe it is because of the circumstances that I was brought up that assign me with this thought. I used to live under rules just like other Chinese students do now. I can still remember that when I was in elementary school, our teacher asked us to put our hands behind our back in the name of our preference to focus on the classes, or just for a kind of collective good-looking. What the hell is that? If the class is interesting to be listened to, would the students wander their mind? Who can believe that a boy, who used to be so shy, will act this way when he has come to 20 years old? You can call the “20 years old” as a charm. In fact, it starts when I was in junior. I don’t really want to give details, but the result is pretty interesting. Who can safely conclude that the world is going along a path that they set up? According to my culture, there is no definite end or start. A start could have be the end, while the end could also be a start. Who know? The young is passionate about the mysterious aspect of life. It is of more fun, isn’t it?

I have been so tired of listening to instructions. For so many cases, it is referred to nothing but “boring”. If I don’t cooperate, there is nothing that others can do. I take what means to be important to me, which I will judge for myself, but don’t take granted to think that I am not going to raise my voice.

Tired of being afraid to say no, young boys are moving on.

Frostmourne and the Fallen Prince

  To tell you the truth, I am not that into Warcraft, and I am also a lousy player, but when I learnt about the story of Prince Arthas, I was shocked. Never could I ever possibly imagine that the Prince of Human would slayed his father after his accomplishment of protecting his people from the invasion of the evil enemy--the Undead. Why would this happened? Why would the Prince betray his people after he became the hero of his people? There is something to think about in this story.

   Long long time ago, this human prince was born, with the whole land of human calling his name "Arthas".  His father said proudly that his child is destined to change his kingdom.  As the human prince, Arthas had everything well-prepared for him when he was raised up and he did not have to worry about the future life of himself. The entire human kingdom belongs to him. However, this also means that he belongs to the kingdom and he would be required to take responsibility to his people, protecting them from danger, from the invasion of orc or the ultimate enemy of the world, the undead. Carrying the glory and the sense of responsibility, the prince is led to pursue the justice and  honor. He was trained day by day to strengthen his body  and his belief, to become a powerful man that the kingdom can rely on when it comes to war. The prince did not let his father and  his men down, leading the human forces to defeat the orc and fasten the foundation of the kingdom. With great expectation and honor from the people and his family, Prince Arthas has no other choices. He, for life time, must denote his blood to this country, where he was witnessed to grow up to become the king of hero.

  However, the destiny made a big joke, laughing loudly at the whole royal family for their lack of wisdom, their enormous failure in the education to Prince Arthas. The test came but nobody could foresee the end of this disaster. The undead forces invaded the land. The Prince stood out and lead his soldiers to fight against this evil power. But as no one could tell, a pitfall was undergoing. The undead forces polluted the food in the warehouse of the kingdom and the people who ate the food could be transformed into the undead . To prevent the undead from growing increasingly stronger, the prince decided to make purification to the cities polluted by virus, killing all the human in the city who had eaten the polluted food. The polluted population was very big and his teacher could not agree with him to this brutal slaughter, but the prince was determined that he would do anything to stop the undead and protect his people. He argued to his teacher that it was the only way to stop the enhancement of the undead, but his teacher reminded him of that slaughter and revenge would blind his mind of reason and made him the same with his enemy. Arthas failed to listen to this great man this time, truly f alling into the faith that what he would do was of justice and his teacher had no reason to prevent him from executing his justice. The angry prince dismissed the Knights of the Silver Hand, in which he learnt everything from his teacher and the knights of which were all his old folks in the war, by the power  he possessed,  led his soldiers to the purification of the infected people before they became the undead and won this "Slaughter Competition". To completely defeat the undead forces and slay the Dread Lord who led the undead to bring this disaster, Arthas traced his enemy all the way to the foundation of the undead in a piece of a frozen land. In this place, he found his friend Muradin Bronzebeard and persuaded him to help fight against the powerful undead forces. His friend agreed to contribute his force, but right at that moment  an order was delivered from the human kingdom that the prince Arthas and his army must return home immediately. Arthas was shocked. The soldiers followed this order and tried to cut through the forest to reach the ships for retreat, yet the prince was determined to ruin their plan. He hired the orcs to fight for him through all the way to destroy those ships. Muradin helped is friend even though he had doubts about whether Arthas's decision was proper or not. When the soldiers finally reached the coast, the ships were found sinking already. Arthas claimed that it is the orcs who wrecked their ships and called out his soldiers to kill the orcs he hired. Muradin blamed him for his betray to the orcs and was starting to realize that Arthas was changing, but his true faith into his friend let this doubt go. Arthas asked the soldiers back to their positions to reinforce their army and be well ready to fight with him for triumph and glory.  However, he then realized that the population of the undead in this frozen land was too large for them to defeat with what they had right now. As the prince was in doubt, Muradin told him about the sword "Frostmourne" sealed in the ice desert which concealed unexpectable power and they might had a chance to utilize it to break the undead forces. Two friends fought together for it. But the sword was cursed. ”Here was power, here was despair", the words on the sword revealed that whoever claimed the power of the sword would have to undertake the curse with his soul tormented forever. Muradin was awared that the sword was ominous and tried to stop his friend, but Arthas's mind was totally controlled by the thought of revenging on the undead and he removed the seal on the sword anyway. At one instant, enormous power was released from the sword "Frostmourne" and Muradin was knocked down. Arthas, leaving his friend behind in the frost, returned to his army, defeated the undead forces and slayed the Dread Lord. 

  His revenge was terminated, but Arthas fell into deep confusion. The voice from the word tore him hard day by day, luring him down to take the place of his father, get relieved from the heavy load of the human prince, leave the human kingdom behind and pursue much greater power form the Lich King, the owner of the sword "Frostmourne". Eventually, Prince Arthas was taken down by this dark voice, lost the last piece of light in his eyes and became the slave of the sword "Frostmourne". He went back to his kingdom and claimed his father. 

  The following story is not necessary to be introduced anymore. Arthas, given the name Dead Knight, slayed his teacher, won several combats and became the Lich King in the frozen land.

 

 Arthas Becomes the Lich King

Arthas-Before-and-After

   Why did I  say that the education to Arthas is a big failure? The answer is pretty clear when it comes to the end of the story. What is lack in the education to the human prince is  love. The young prince  has everything but enough love from his heart towards his people, which is irreplacable by the sense of responsiblity and justice, both over emphasized during Arthas's growing-up. If Arthas had loved his people enough, he would have listened to his teacher and would not have had the slaughter of his people even if they were polluted by the undead virus. He would have believed that there might be a better way to save his people and would have tried to find it out. The slaughter is the turning point of the life of Arthas. His unconcern about his people closes the door of his heart, blinding him to follow his personal will without taking caring of others. In this way, Arthas started betraying those who had helped him before and claimed power in the price of his friend. To accomplish what he wanted, he was willing to sacrifice his soul, which seemed to be devoting and turned out to be evil. The pursue of justice went bad, transforming into his simple chase of power. As a result, the prince is swallowed by the power he possessed and became the slave of the power, ending up with the behaviours that are totally against his original faith. The lack of love in the heart of the prince lead Arthas, one of the Knights of Silver Hand, from light to darkness.

   Isn't love the base of even normal people?Yes, it is. To be a qualified leader, one has to be a qualified normal people first, no matter what power he possesses or what glory he enjoys.  

Everything should have a start, and it will start right now.

  Well, it has been long since I open my blog, but I haven’t really upload anything yet. I am still not used to “blog” my life and sometimes it is really hard to keep it in mind, lol. Considering the significant meaning of this blogging and also, by the way, the feeling of a respectable middle-age professor who has been touching our lives for so long, it is really necessary for me to catch up.
  Actually, when I start typing just now, I feel amazingly good, because it calls back a lot of unforgettable memories in the past (about in junior school, I remember), when days of my life is pretty simple, without computers and cell phones, and with TV and writing as the only major entertainment. It is in those days that I realize how writing can lead the development of personality. Yeah, it is true, even though sounds a little bit strange. When you are always trying to find something to write in order to let out your compressed emotion and energy, the words will take control your mind, sometimes even creating something inside your heart that you might never expect to have. Actually, part of my characteristics is formed at that time. This topic is not interesting, so let’s drop it now. 
  Anyway, no matter what I was busy doing before, no matter how much I have left behind, everything has started, as it should have. I hope that my mind will not “brainstorm” too much, but I can already feel the excitement in my blood. 

I see the world with both my eyes, but only one of them can be seen

  Hey, I am White. I am coming back.

My leadership Journey

  This is the first time I wrote so many words about my comprehension about leadership. This blog is a start of long journey, which is endless to be explored. Like always, have a nice day, my peers~
  

When it comes to the discussion about leadership, it is important for everyone to start it by thinking about the necessity of leader in a group life. In personal life, the leader of someone by all means refers to the person itself, considering that every individual should be respected and thus processes the right to determine the life of his own regardless of any requirement and order from outside, as long as the decision totally originates from will of the person himself. The reason why a group of people, which might consist of an army, a corporation or a government, is more or less also because of the individual personal will that has been proved every single day around the world that the power of which is irresistible to all who want their happiness truly and strongly, which I believe are still of the majority. Every single person may want every single thing in a unique way, or I might say, a different way from others, thus more often than not leading to a miserable mess in a group when decisions are about to be made. The reason of this unpredictable disaster, which is usually the origin of failure, is that different person in a group, well, of interest maybe, own different education background and personal experience. Those are the base of the values and the main aspect they will consider to make decisions. Since each person is similar in terms of this case, there is no difficulty in understanding that the expectation of harmony that people will agree with each other to go into a certain direction is way too stupid. Then the group will finally dismiss to terminate this pain of disagreement.

The necessity of leader then comes right out of the discussion above. People gather together for a certain destination, like earning money, winning an election or obtaining nice reputation, requires a person to give them a hand when the group is in crisis, to show them the right way in front when there is confusion and to encourage them bringing the bright sight out of despair when it seems to have no hope any more. When everything goes well, the leader for most of the times will try to maintain the good conditions and keep the good situations. Also, by sharing happiness, the leader can develop the inter-group relationship, which is helpful for the group to confront difficulties because of the sense of attribution. So above all, what is leadership all about? It is about protecting the group from the damage from the outside and inside, giving a right direction for the group to endeavor and increasing the happiness for people to stay in the group, which sometimes can be the most important aspect in a long term.

According to the description we have above, the following question is about to be rose, what are the qualities of an excellent leader?

First of all, a good leader should be confident about himself and his decision. It is really hard to believe in someone when he does not trust himself. It seems to be some kind of human nature that people’s judgment about one person can be more or less affected by the person himself, even though sometimes, or, for many people, usually, the story the person tells about himself sounds really unrealistic or nothing but bluffing. If this psychology stuff of human is something that is written in our gene, then it will be a total wasting of time over here if the argument is still going on about why people can be so easily blinded or more awareness should be paid to this issue. No matter how, confidence is one of the most significant qualities of a successful leader. What is interesting to study about, which a lot of people might not even realize, is that in some cases it is the fact that everybody truly believes what is going to happen that makes it happen. And that is the reason why sometimes a confident leader can accomplish something that seems really impossible. That is actually one of the truths of life. Not all the dreams can come true if you just dream about them. You truly believe it and you fight for it, which might not be the sufficient condition but must be the necessary condition of dreams coming true. So for a leader, people can only feel confident to follow him if he has true confidence in himself.

The second one goes just along with the confidence, which is the great sense of judgment. Different from confidence, this is not something that can be acquired by just one’s feeling about himself, but is related to a lot of things, like the education he had, the personal experience he enjoyed and for many of the times the intuition that helps him judge. To make a long story short, this quality requires experience after trials and errors. A confident leader always inspires people at the first time, but without a good knowledge of what to do and how to do it, this trust can be as fragile as a piece of paper. Like in an army, a commander that cannot give the right orders will be looked down upon badly. What is not like an army in real life is that people are not constraint to any military law or something like that, once the reputation is ruined for a leader, objection can be revealed in such a strong way that there will definitely going to be a crisis for the position of a boss, especially in western countries, I bet. A leader also has to prove that he actually is qualified for his position, and he must show to everyone that he surely can make the best decisions. It is actually the main part of the leaders’ job.

Last but not least, I would have to say a good leader should have the ability to unite the group of people from the beginning. A lot of people believe that a good leader must be a charming person, for the simple reason that a charming person is more attractive to others and thus easy for people to accept considering that appreciating beautiful thins is also part of human nature. However, as a successful leader, it is significant that the charm he has must go parallel with his great capability to keep his members friendly to each other. This looks to be an easy job, but actually it is always ignored when it comes to practice. The bonds between different members in a group might be different from one another. These two people might be friends together, and those three might be best buddies ever since. They choose to come together not because they want to be friends together, but for something that attracts them like reputation and money. Since the relationship among them is not well as founded at the first time as it is when friends found each other, arguments and personal opinions might easily generate. It is well known that tiny flaws take down a big dam, and these small obsessions in a group can be the potential reason that caused the group to bankrupt. Clearing out these bad feelings between group members is also a very essential work for a good leader, because that is one way to generate a harmonic working environment where people are fond to be thinking good for the group and pleased to cooperate with each other making contributions to the benefit of all of them.

As long as the confidence, the great sense of judgment and the uniting ability have all been possessed by the leader, then he should show his way to put the group business on track.

Normally the group works everything out by themselves according to regular route. However, there is going to be some cases where the leader should stand out and play his role. Let us just say that in a company, the top strategists are gathering trying to figure out what to do about the choice of different products offered by different agencies. The total has been automatically break into several parties, each of which insisting on their own opinion about the choice. Some focus on the short-term benefit the company can earn from this trade considering the financial difficulty that the company is experiencing recently, some focus on the long-term instead arguing that it is not wise to sacrifice the company’s future finance for the issues at hands and that the financial difficulty the company confronts right now can be figured out by some other ways, and the others might concentrate on the reputations the company can obtain from this trade instead of interest, who stand on their own ground stating that development of the company requires reputations more than just the benefit and that it is a good opportunity that can be seized now or never. In this case what a good leader should do?

As the leader himself, he might have a tendency about which strategy he is fond of the most, but if that is enough for him to decide, then the unfortunate things could drop right down on his head. The prejudice of those whose opinions the leader does not even bother to listen to might start flowing around the room and considering the power that the boss has, silence might be kept but the anger is still going to be real. The leader himself, normally as stupid as he already proves, will not find out what has happened and believe that he will not even think he did anything wrong. Since it is not my obligation to finish this novel here, I am going to go directly into the right behavior a good leader should take. Firstly, no matter which strategy he likes the most, a good leader must always finish listening to all the opinions from all the members if possible. When it comes to the top managing people in the company, it becomes necessary, because normally that the intelligent are very much aware of their respect and are curious to know that their ideas are very important to the company, which in close related to their personal value they think of for themselves. Then according to the information delivered to him, the leader should judge which of it truly describes the situation they are facing and which of it that contains too much personal feelings. Then, a more or less total picture of the situation should be well formed in the leader’s head, telling him that what is now available to the company and the cost and benefit of each strategy. By acquiring whole picture of the situation, the leader should now make his second judgment. Which way should the company go? It is him who has the privilege to determine the values and the direction of development of the company so he has to consider first which way benefit the company the most in the company-term. Meanwhile, he needs to modify his original opinion as well according to the information he obtained. If his original opinion does not work out well, then it should be abandoned immediately. This part of judgment actually tests the leader the most. It requires strong ability of taking and giving away. Only that kind of leader who is total conscious of what the company is satisfied with and that is the most farsighted can be capable of this work. After he has made his decision, he needs to announce it at first in front of all the people in the discussion before and then explain every single detail, like how this decision is going to work, why it is going to work, what result it is going to get and why that result is very important to them so that the others are abandoned. Then last but not least, the leader will have to convince the people who are not pleased with this decision why this one is preferred right now, and how their ideas are contributing all the time. Before making this long speech, the leader should keep it clear in mind about what he is going to talk about and the tone that he is going to use for different part of the speech. By this the leader has finished the work of making decisions and uniting the group as one. This long process seems tiring, but it is imperative.

I can still remember that winning election speech of Barack Obama in Chicago. Maybe it is because that I lived in China and I have heard almost no political speeches that I think that is the most impressive speech I have ever heard in my whole life. Instead of political policies that he is going to put forward to this nation, Barack Obama mentioned more about what American people actually dream about and really care about, like that America is believed to be a country where everything is possible, how the country is confronting difficulties, how American families are suffering from all kind of pressure and how the American young people are not willing be taken as self-involved and are already prepared to prove that they also love this country and are ready to make contribution to the reconstruction of the honor of America, etc. He also mentioned that 106-year-old lady who has seen half of the history of this young nation, moving but also showing that the America has experienced a lot even though that it is so young and changes are always happening on this land. What Barack Obama is trying to do here is arousing the pride of American people and the light the fire of hope in people’s heart that American people can make changes and will confront the difficulty that they are facing, like the lack of jobs and the financial problems. The most impressive thing I have learnt from this man is that his amazing ability to inspire people and give them hope and encourages them to fight for the common values of them, which is shared by them all. Since it is a long time ago, and after that speech when Obama is on the position of president, his policies have been criticized a lot, but this is not the focus. “Yes, we can!” is the slogan that is widely used those days. When this slogan is put out, it attracts a lot of young people who cannot accept the judgment to them that they cannot take the burden of sacrificing themselves to fight for the glory of the country, and the power the slogan contains arouses the passion of many American people, calling them out to reconstruct the country that they love. What I have learnt from Obama is that it is always important to give people hope when there is depression undergoing, even though the hard work in front might bring back the depression again. Whatever to be faced, it is essential to motivate people to start resolving it.

When I was in high school, I used to be the class cadre who is in charge of the daily labor. For high school student, this position is very challenging, considering that there is no connection of interest among us so that other students can always ignore your arrangement if they do not want to do the labor. As an aspirant young man with dignity, it is shame for me to tell on those people who would do that to the teacher and even though it might be obviously effective for the labor work arrangement, my reputation would be ruined and the all other students would take me as a loser. That actually means the failure of my leadership. So I must apply some leadership skills to my work to attract my classmates into the labor work. Instead of keep telling others what to do and getting them tired of the tedious labor, I decided to make them believe that it is not me who am asking them to do the work, but all the class including me are constraint something like a law that rules the labor work. At the beginning of my second year of high school, I made up a laboring system for our class, in which everything including the time schedule and the division of work were written clear in details. At the beginning, people as well as the teacher feel it a little bit strange and not accustomed to this brand new idea. However, after one semester, with my continuous endeavor in pushing the system forward into practice, people are getting more and more reliable on the system and finally accept my opinion that all of us are following these rules and that it is our obligation to follow the rules. During the time I pushed the system, the most important thing I did was to strictly limit myself to the system or more often than even more picky. My effort was just to help my peers realize the significance of everyone following the rules so that a good atmosphere for the laboring work can be well formed in the class, establishing a kind of culture, which is commonly accepted and automatically functions. If there is any doubt about the system, I was always patient to demonstrate it in details and my original mind of the corresponding rule. In this way, I made sure that everyone in the class fully understands the system. As a return for my hard work in this area, at the end of the high school, I won 38 out of 39 tickets in our class in the election of “the Best Municipal Class Cadres” and was rewarded with this reputation. If there is anything in this personal experience that might be helpful to me for lifetime, it should be that a good leader should always have a long-term sight about the task he has to accomplish and that being a good model himself is not necessary but very effective to outstand your convincing power as a leader. Apart from those, what also this experience constantly reminds me is that sometimes it is not always good to show off your leadership. For me, I could asked our teacher to do me a favor, announcing in the discussion class that I am privileged to take charge of the laboring work and thus it is obliged for the class to follow my command. However, then my classmates will take as a “leader” that stands apart from them and has more power than they do. This kind of feeling can make people feel upset and annoyed, which is not good for the union of the class. Even though setting up this system and obeying it by myself will sacrifice my personal vanity about being the leader, it turned out that this decision is the wisest and I believe that my peers would not let me have the reputation of being the best if I focus on my vanity.

Personally, as a leader, I am responsible and have a clear mind about the destination of the group. I am concentrated to the goal and thus can always give the right direction about what to do to accomplish the task. Since I am an organized person, it is also my strength to organize the procedure of a program. I know that the limitation of signal persons so instead of admiring individual heroism I prefer the division of work to suitable persons and that always gives a result more efficiently.

Nevertheless, there is still a lot of room for me to improve my leadership skills. I used to be a very shy boy and have difficulty in communicating with stranger. With time going, my personality gradually transformed and now, I feel no pressure talking with total strangers, but yet I still feel it not very comfortable to greet with people I am not familiar with and I am still not a very smooth talker with everyone. If I looked into my heart, I can see that there is still some fear that builds up psychological defense against other people. I might not be able to eliminate this tiny little “young” me because no matter what kind of person I am now, that guy has always been part of me and is always a composition of my soul, but I can practice my communicational skills with different people trying to figure out how to maintain a conversation in a smooth and easy way that does not bums people out just as a compensation to my unavoidable personal weakness. Besides, considering that I am a very competitive person when it comes to argument, I might easily get myself too excited and subconsciously want to overwhelm others using my words. This can really piss people off, because nobody likes to be proved wrong even though what they are making mistakes. There is a saying that even though it is the truth, it still requires the right way of expression. Once other people realize that you are a person who is not going to let any single chance go to prove that you are better than others, they would instinctively stay away from you. So I think that I need to learn to put aside my competitive attitude and remind myself of that it is not always necessary to argue with others and that the result does not always matter. Sometimes we are not looking for a specific result when it comes to discussion. It is the process that we really enjoy, in which we have fun listening to other people’s opinion, admiring different values and find out improvement that we can acquire from others. If I am able to keep thoughts like this in mind, then I will enjoy more pleasant conversation with more people.

To be a better leader, only realizing the weakness is not good enough for me. I also need to work out some concrete resolutions that can practically help me with my personal shortage. By taking a brief look backwards, I think that my biggest problem that prevents me from being a very good leader is that I do not feel confident enough in my communication skills, which is more or less based on the fact that I am not very good at communicating with other people. To find a way to solve this problem, I have determined not to let go any chance to practice my communication skills with strangers. First I need to convince myself that talking with others is not that a big deal. The worst result I can obtain is that I do not have to talk to them anymore, which is kind of the same with the original situation. Most of the people that I feel to bother me are those who we might never see ever again in my whole life, so a brief piece of talking does not require too much attention and pressure. Then I need to set up a system that can gradually improve my communicational skills. I might ask for help from some smooth talkers. Whatever I have learnt, however, practice is the only way to make it perfect to use for me. Last but not least, I need to have perseverance in what I have planned for myself. It might be easy for me to be talkative for one day or one week, but for like a month or a year, it is really heard. Keeping the faith in mind, I believe that I am right on my way to become an outstanding leader in the future.

Being in Honors College is one of the best things that have ever happened to me. I will seize this great opportunity to accomplish my personal melioration on leadership skills. The road in front for exploring leadership is still very long, but I am pleased to start is already.