Week2: Thoughts on today's discussion

I don’t know why, but today I really feel like posting…wow…

Anyways, we discuss like “What is your personal leadership vision?” in today’s class, and I am giving my thoughts and introducing what we discussed in this post.

I, personally, would like to be able to share my task with other group members. This is because I often carry out tasks by myself. It might be somewhat related to what the book says in “Create Engaging Distractions” on page 26-27.

When I belonged to brass band club in my high school, I was a leader of percussion part. And I was like a boss. I conducted almost all tasks alone. It is maybe true that I was a strong leader, but at the same time, I could have given others some tasks which provided them responsibility. I was too responsible for the part and other members too relied on me. I do not think that there was like a situation at The Edge, nor others felt anxiety, but still I assume I could have share my tasks with my part members.

Interestingly, there was a person who was opposite to me in the discussion. She tended to depend on others and she said she wanted to have her own opinion. I found it really interesting that many different (sometimes opposite!) people meet at one class and discuss or share each idea among others. Another classmate said that there are two types of leaders. One is like independent leader who leads others well, kind of similar to me. And the other is like a leader who is good at sensing others’ feeling and cooperating with others. He suggested that we need to switch these two kinds of leaders up to the situation and I felt it was true. We should keep in our mind that don’t incline to one type leader, we ought to become both.

Overall, I got many suggestions in today’s class and once again I felt I really like discussion.

Week2: Summary & Impression of L@E Chapter 1

 Hi, everyone. In this post, I am going to summarize the ideas of Chapter 1, Leading at the Edge, and then show my reaction to the chapter as well.

In chapter 1, the book introduces one of the strategies for the leadership. That is…

“Strategy1: Never lose sight of the ultimate goal, and focus energy on short term objectives.” (p.15 L@E)

This means that good leaders keep their eyes on their long-term goal, and at the same time, they keep their attention to relatively short-term tasks as well.

Then the book explains many tips for the good leaders. Such as…

“Be willing to find a “New Mark””

-meaning that leaders should change their final goal and short-term goal flexibly depending on the situation, and also try to work hard toward the new goals.

“Do something”

-showing that leaders need to look for every single opportunities to do something for reducing others’ anxiety, though those work does not seem to succeed. This is because these actions may gather momentum and lead future success.

“Look beyond your own needs for action”

-teaching that leaders keep making a balance between their own concern and that of others’ in their mind.

“Overcome uncertainty with structure”

-telling that leaders ought to maintain the sense of order by means of creating organizational structure, when they face uncertainty.

“Create engaging distractions”

-explaining that leaders are required to pay attention to others’ emotions and conditions. And if a group member is in trouble, leader should shift his/her negative energy to another activity which gives a responsibility for him/her.

Even this chapter is one of the ten strategies, it provides many, quite useful tips for good leadership. I learned a lot though reading and I get interested in the leadership more and more!!

Regarding to my reaction, I felt like “True that!!” when I read the last 2 paragraphs of “Do something” part (I mean on p.20, just before “Look Beyond…” part). This caveat reminded me of my sister’s company. “Culture” or “belief” of her company is similar to that of the company shown in p.20. That is, in her company, it is important to work late and on weekends rather than the efficiency. For example, she has to work till midnight or even later, she often used the last train, known as “Shu-den” in Japanese, what is worse she sometimes did not come back home because of the work, known as “Zangyo” in Japanese as well, and oftentimes she had to go to work on Saturday. Obviously, her company was “Black”. She almost to suffer from mental illness due to stress and now she is planning to quit. Of course I do not know much about other companies in Japan, but I was taught that some Japanese companies value activity over results in Gender and Social Structure class. I hope those Japanese companies realize an obstacle which disturbs their economic success and that the obstacle is actually created by their own…

Week1: Impression of one of the most inspiring TED talks ever

“Fake it ‘til you become it” by Amy Cuddy

To tell the truth, I had watched the TED talk before, but still it was worth to watch it again. I watched one of the best TED talks named “Your body language shapes who you are” by Amy Cuddy, and I am giving the summary and my reaction of the video clip today.

Amy Cuddy, who is a professor and also a researcher at Harvard Business School, studies how body language affects others and ourselves. In this wonderful talk, she argues that our posture changes not only others’ perception, but also our own hormones and brain. She explains how “power posing”, which we learned in first week, make our testosterone level up and cortisol level down in our brain, and what is more, she suggests that “power posing” may influence on our own life and future by referring to her own experience.

What struck me was her own story. Even though she had a terrible car accident which caused her severe head injury and she was said that she would not finish college when she was a college student, she did it by her really really hard efforts. More specifically, she did “fake it until make it” in her own life. That story really touched me and while listening it, I gave applause to her literally.

Regarding “power posing”, when I saw the pictures in her talk, I noticed that there was a difference between those who were doing “high-power poses”, and those who were doing “power-less poses” in terms of their faces. In other words, when people carry out “high-power poses”, they tend to have kind of strong or powerful facial expression. On the contrary, when people do “power-less poses”, they are likely to have sad or weak facial expression. It is really interesting because if you change the posture, you may alter your facial expression as well as your hormones.

As Ken wrote on his blog, this TED talk is really fascinating, inspiring and wonderful. I truly recommend you to watch it once :)

Week1: Self Introduction

Hi, I’m Yu Ito. I’m now 20 years old so that I can vote in the coming election. I live in Yokohama with my family and it takes around 2 hours from my house to ICU. I have 4 older sisters and we have close relations among each other. We always chat for long time and really enjoy it. I am going to major in MCC, Media, Communication and Culture in ICU. I especially have an interest in intercultural communication, multiculturalism, and migrants in Japan. I am belonging to LAMBS (Latin American Music and Batucada Society, namely Samba club), SSS (Spanish Speaking Society), and Iweek in which we interact with foreign students and plan to go on a trip with them.

I really like playing the musical instruments. I’ve learned the Piano and the Marimba for 5 and 14 years, respectively. Moreover, I belonged to the brass band club when I was in a junior high and high school, and of course I played the percussion. Now, as I wrote above, I am belonging to LAMBS and play a drum too. You see how much I love to play the musical instruments right? Due to these reasons (maybe?), I often make a sound using my fingers or hands but please ignore that. I don’t intend to bother others at all :)

I also like traveling. In fact all my family love to do that. I’ve been to many European countries such as France, Germany, Ireland, Spain or some other countries, a few Polynesian countries such as Fiji, and also I have been to India and the US. And fortunately, I will go to Sweden from next September as an exchange student!

I’m truly happy to take this class with you. Hope to get along you guys~