Self Analysis

Self Analysis
Elizabeth Del valle


During my ages in technical school, I tried to learn about national leaders in the Dominican Republic, and global leaders that somehow influenced the history of the Americas. Throughout those years, the professor Samantha, the social science’s professor at the Maria de la Altagracia Polytechnic, always used to ask in class if leaders were born or leaders became leaders through experiences in life. Always having those questions in mind and learning how the history of my nation was shaped by a person who was named “el padre de la patria nueva”, in English “the father of the new motherland”, and evaluating that at the end of his dictatorship the results he got as a leader were not what the nation deserved and desired, and making comparisons among local and international leaders, I made a definition of leadership. Leaders are individuals that through team building and by listen to the perspectives of others they help a community to achieve their goals. Then I answered the questions: am I a leader and are leaders born? If you would like to hear my definition of leadership, I could give an entire page talking about those characteristics we all know a leader should have. But if you would like to know how I would define my leadership style, with simplest words, I could say I am a people’s person, then I am a leader who dreams next to my followers. I am not emotional, because sometimes emotion could become our weaknesses, but I hold the ideal that one of the major characteristics a leader should have and maintain is empathy. I am a leader who believes in people and their ideas, and while making any decision I walk in the same sand they walked, just to follow their tracks and try to think like them. If you want, you do not need to call me a leader, just define me as a voice. A voice that is sometimes listened to; a voice that, for sometimes, has been respected and somehow has helped other voices to be heard.
Then, to answer the second, and perhaps the most important question, took me more time; many years of thinking and a summer program in Prague to get a real and clear answer for that question. Are leaders born? Some philosophers would say no. Some leaders would say that it takes time and experience through a life of learning how to be a leader. But others will say that individuals become leaders in different situations. Without agreeing with them, I can firmly say, leaders are born and we shape our styles through experiences and learning from other leaders and from our followers. People are born to be leaders internally. It is up to them to find those meaningful experiences that help them to come to that realization. Leaders are born, and through experiences we shape what we already know. With these experiences we shape our ideas and perspectives of life. Unfortunately, sometimes some natural leaders are neglected by the system of their societies. I do believe that we all have some leadership qualities inside. Someone born with a tone of voice will be inclined to get everybody to listen; others would be born with unique writing skills; others would be more critical thinkers and that ability will help others to understand their ideas better. We all have something inside that sometimes most people do not get to discover. This is when leaders become leaders. When we discern that we have the capacity to understand those characteristics we have inside of our selves, that uniqueness that makes us leaders, and when we get conscious of them we then exploit them in favor of others.
When I talk about how leaders should be a voice for those who trust and believe on its faculty of do things right, and to help them to reach their dreams and rights, I confidently believe that the trust natural leaders get from their followers would never be reached through cruelty. The history of my nation, suffered the pain of a dictatorship for about thirty years. Today, forty-six years later, I still try to understand how the cruelty of the leader we had made the members of the Dominican community all over the world reaches their ambitions and dreams as citizens of a country. When I think about it, the answer remains the same; the country did not achieve their hopes and goals. My perspective of leadership is firm-a leader does not get respect through cruelty; the philosopher Nicolo Machiavelli dedicated a chapter to this important point that every leader should be aware of. A point that most of the time is misunderstood. I absolutely agree with Machiavelli when he based this chapter on the balance that should exist between qualities fear and love. Nevertheless, I do not believe that the accurate term to express this argument as fear; rather, I would call it respect. “ ..It is difficult to unite them in person” (Machiavelli 3), as an actual leader in my small communities and as a future leader in other societies, these are some of the primary ideals I will be focusing on in order to improve new skills that would let me balance trust and respect, confidence and tolerance. Some “princes” or leaders tend to misunderstand the concept of being loved or being cruel. However, I fully agree with the idea of having a balance between being loved and respected. A leader should be respected and “he must Endeavour only to avoid hatred,”( The Prince 4).
With the ideas of many philosophers I hold my views of leadership to be based on equality. Based in the fact that we, leaders, are leaders because society need us to fight for the dreams of a group of people that somehow cant reach their goals in life because the lack of knowledge, or simplest because society does not let them reach them. As I said I am a “people person”, and I consider my self to have pragmatics believes, although I understand that always there are intelligent ideas behind those thoughts. On the other hand, being in a world where discrimination of sex and or race today exists, sometimes being a leader in society is a challenge. Once, in the Declaration of Sentiments, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony declared that “all men and women are created equal; that they are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness…”(Stanton 1) when they wrote it. In July 1848, they were looking forward to get equal rights, citizen’s rights, between all genders and races... Nowadays, we could apply it in terms of how leadership rights should also be in respect to each individual no matter their nationality or gender. Not only leaders, but also the members of a group should receive respect from their leaders as well. Let’s view into the following scenario; I am the president of the Model United Nations club at Rochester Institute of Technology. By default it would be an organization where students with different ethnicities and genders would be interested in joining. A principle that as a leader I will cultivate, is the respect to each individual, without thinking in the differences in gender, races or nationalities, and the fact that we all have the same privileges and we all need to be respect equally. When leaders respect the ideals and views of the members of the communities, when members all share the same privileges and somehow they feel they live in an environment where the freedom of expression is not only respected but also taken into consideration, when this members of a community feel that “Independence is happiness” (Susan B. Anthony), then goals could be achieved easier.

Now being in a different country and adapting my perspectives and views into a different culture have made me aware of my weaknesses, but at the same time, after four weeks in Prague, the same cultural changes have made me aware of how I should reinforce those weaknesses. As Masaryk said, “it may be a weakness, but I am shy. As I said before I don’t like speaking in public, and whenever I give a lecture or speech I have stage fright” (Masaryk 176). Normally it only happens to me in this new foreign environment where I still do not feel totally comfortable. It may be because of the language barrier, but only because of that simple and vulnerable reason. However, I would always believe that all weaknesses have something behind them that make you stronger in some other area, and just as Masaryk said, “maybe in a more practical aspect rather than pragmatic is where my leadership style is better filled;” Talking about practical things, things that have to get done, that’s something else again.” (Masaryk 176).
Let me conclude by saying that just as many philosophers and leaders of our societies had achieved their goals as leaders and the goals of the people they represented, I will achieve my goals as leader; goals that follow the interest of the people who believe in me, my communities such as: my family and school; my social and multicultural groups that because of their trust and support, my work and ability of doing things right have gained the respect from each member of these communities I am a part of. I will conclude affirming that leaders would not exist without their passion of doing things right and without the fervor of passing to others their knowledge and ambitions of learning. This is my leadership style, this is how in the following years I would like to shape and refine my leadership skills.