Shared Leadership In My Home

I come from a wonderful family of seven. I have one brother, three sisters, and two fabulous parents. My parents were a wonderful example of shared leadership. They never made a decision without discussing it first. They disciplined together, made rules together, planned family outings and meetings together, and supported everything each child did. I learned early in my childhood that if I wanted to ask for something important, I might as well not even try until dad got home from work. If I did, my mom would simply say, "I will have to talk to your dad about it" or "we need to ask your dad before we decide."
During my senior year in high school my parents called family counsel. At the counsel our parents informed us that they were considering moving to Utah. They told us that we would not leave until the end of the school year if we moved, but that we would leave during the summer. To be honest, I was heart broken. I had lived in Weiser Idaho my entire life and, even though I would head to college before the move, I wanted my home to still be in Idaho. My parents then informed us that they weren't going to make any decisions until each one of us prayed about the move and received an answer. One week later we met again and discussed what had happened during the week. Each of us were praying about the decision but there were still some mixed feelings about whether it was the right thing to do. We took another week to ponder and pray about the decision and by the next week we all felt like it was the right thing to do, despite how hard it would be to leave home. This was an amazing learning experience for me. Not just about praying and receiving answers, but about the importance of shared leadership in the home. My parents obviously made the final decision together, but allowing us to contribute made me feel important and cared for.

Values.com

On values.com I found a really great commercial about honesty. This video is of a championship high school basketball game. The score is close and there is only a few seconds left on the clock. A player on one team hits the ball out of bounds but the referee still calls it his team's ball. Instead of doing the easy thing and taking the ball so they could win the game, the boy who hit it out told the referee he had touched it.

Honesty is, in my opinion, one of the most important qualities that a leader can have. If the people that you are serving cannot trust you, then they won't want to follow your lead.

Ethical Dilemma

This week in class we discussed morals and ethics. We were asked to write about an ethical dilemma that we have faced. I have been thinking a lot about this for the past few days. Simply being a college student presents multiple ethical dilemmas. However, I think that the biggest dilemma that I face personally, is that of lying to protect the people that you love. To be completely honest, I am not one hundred percent sure what the right thing to do in this situation is. On one hand, I know that lying is wrong and that we are commanded to be honest in all of our dealings. At the same time though, sometimes I just can't bring myself to tell someone the truth if it is going to hurt them.

In high school I was on the track team. One of my best friends named Ana and I were the top two girls high jumpers on the team. We had so much fun together at all of the meets and the practices. One day at practice, Ana hurt her ankle. We had a meet in a couple of days and she really didn't want to miss it. The head track coach, who was also Ana's mom, knew that Ana had injured herself but she didn't know how bad it was. Coach O. asked me to please tell her if Ana complained about the pain during practice. I didn't know what to do. I knew that Ana's injury was far worse than what she showed because she told me how bad it hurt to jump. I also knew that if she kept jumping off of it, it would only get worse. At the same time, however, I knew that she really didn't want to miss the meet that week and, to be honest, I didn't want her to either because we really pushed each other. After practice that day Ana and I were in the training room and Coach O. asked me if Ana had complained about her ankle during practice. I ended up telling her that Ana had told me how bad the injury was, but it was really hard for me. I didn't want to make it so that Ana wouldn't be able to compete, but I knew that if she did compete, her ankle would just get worse. Ana didn't compete in that meet, but it was good that she didn't because she was able to heal in time for districts and state.

In this particular situation, telling the truth ended up being for the best. I know that sometimes though, being honest with someone may be hurtful to them.

Servant Leadership

Mosiah 2:12, 16, 17

12 I say unto you that as I have been suffered to spend my days in your service, even up to this time, and have not sought gold nor silver nor any manner of riches of you;

16 Behold, I say unto you that because I said unto you that I had spent my days in your service, I do not desire to boast, for I have only been in the service of God.

17 And behold, I tell you these things that ye may learn wisdom, that ye may learn that when ye are in the service of your fellow beings ye are only in the service of your God.

In this weeks lecture, the speaker's topic was servant leadership. He gave examples from history of good servant leaders and taught us how important it is to love and serve the people we work with, rather than leading from afar. This was one of my favorite lectures because I am able to apply it to my leadership role as a roommate and friend. We do not need to hold a high up leadership position to apply servant leadership, because we can simply serve all of the people around us.
I chose this scripture about servant leadership because, not only does it teach that when we are serving Gods children we are serving Him, but it also makes the point that as leaders we should never focus on getting gain for ourselves. This concept is easily said but not easily done. I am striving to be a good leader and example to those around me and I know that the most important thing that I can do is to put their needs and desires above my own, just as Christ did.

Conflict Resolution: The Peacemaking Pyramid

The theme this week in class was conflict resolution. We discussed a lot of things from learning to be a good listener to preventing debating and arguing. All of the topics we discussed are important, however, the part that had the biggest impact on me was called the Peacemaking Pyramid. The speaker showed us tow slides, one with a pyramid representing how we usually spend our time and the other displayed how we ultimately should spend our time. In the first pyramid, the top section is correcting. With listening, learning, and building relationships down towards the bottom. The Peacemaking pyramid displays the opposite. It suggests that we should spend the majority of our time building relationships and learning about the person we are dealing with and spend hardly any time on correction.

I think that this lesson is so important for every leader to learn. Many times when there is a problem in a company or group the leader focuses his or her time on fixing the problem (or the person creating the problem). This is not the way we need to approach problems. Instead, as leaders we can focus our time and energy on getting to know the person and learning about them. This way, we will not only be able to figure out why there is a problem and fix it, we will also be able to build stronger relationships with the people we are working with.