My Idea of a Leader

As I read Stephen Covey's piece about the left and right sides of the brain, my thoughts immediately settled on one of my best friends in high school, Alok Vaid-Menon. He was truly what defines a leader. In every way he could motivate others, grasp attention easily in a room, come up with creative and helpful ideas, and was an expert at time management. He was in orchestra, BPA, Interact (which he was the president of), wrote for the literary magazine, Spanish Club, Student Council (he was one of the officers in that as well), ran a poetry club, among other things. I attended his Interact meetings on occasion and was impressed to find that he could engage everyone in the room so easily. His ideas for projects were motivational and creative and people enjoyed coming to meetings instead of feeling obliged to. I realize now that this is because Alok is someone who was driven by his desire to help others and make a difference in the world. He knew what he wanted to do for the community and he set out to do it and I think this idea of service was fulfilling for him and for those that followed him. People who are firm in their beliefs and have a strong will to follow these beliefs make good leaders. The motto for Interact is "service above self" and I think that this definitely goes along with what Covey has to say about having a "sense of responsibility, of service, of contribution, something we need to pull or push" (Course Anthology 220). By being the leader of a club with such a name, I can see how Alok fits the description of Covey's leader so well. He was clearly able to "project a holistic picture of what [he] want[s] to do and to be in life" (Covey 131). Having a sense of purpose can be a very strong influence on someone.

I know that for me, I will work harder if I feel like what my actions are doing some good in the world. For example, for Student Council, we did a project around Christmas in which members went caroling around neighborhoods collecting donations for Brazos Valley Rehab Center. Although I was embarrassed to go out and sing in front of complete strangers, I felt happy doing it because I knew that the donations were doing some good for my community. This sense of purpose enabled me to lead my group in singing and asking for the donations. My happiness in being able to help others outweighed my unwillingness to embarrass myself and I ended up successfully leading my fellow singers.


Alok not only has a high sense of service to the community, but he is also an example of a person who can truly engage both sides of his brain when leading. He could definitely "'walk in [the] moccasins'" of his audience (Course Anthology 220). Depending on his audience, he could be serious, ridiculous, funny, or charismatic. He overcame the "'macho' cultural stereotype" and used both his logical and time management skills along with his "creative, aesthetic, intuitive capacities" (Course Anthology 225). Alok definitely overcame the stereotype that art and expressiveness are aspects that should be shunned by the male population. He became extremely popular in school and admired by most of us. However, he wasn't totally without punishment for rising above this macho stereotype. He told me that on many occasions guys would call him "fag" and other offending terms like that. The more I think about it, the more I think that these people just don't understand the meaning of leadership and are failed leaders themselves. They see his success and popularity and resent it because it is not their own. Covey has truly shown me how leaders must have the ability to balance both sides of their brain while leading others. To be a leader, one must not only be able to balance time and manage meetings in an organized fashion, but they must also engage their listeners with creative ideas and inspiration. I have attended meetings where only the first set of criteria mentioned here was used and it was not successful. These meetings required a parliamentarian to write down names of people who talked during meetings and I realize now that this would not have been necessary if the meetings' agendas had been more creative and engaging. Without projects that interest the participants, a meeting becomes more tyrannical and boring rather than fun and engaging. Alok also showed me that a leader must march to their own drum and not fall prey to offensive remarks and negative comments. Alok was very much his own person, his beliefs set firmly in place and he knew what he was doing. However, it also required a certain degree of bravery to face these people. He knew that he was being talked about and instead of allowing this to hurt and humiliate him, he cast the comments aside and continued. He persisted and it ultimately paid off because he was successful in leading others and never got down about what people said about him. All in all, Alok was truly a person who could "manage from the left [and] lead from the right" (Course Anthology 226).

I can definitely understand why Covey would say that a leader must engage both sides of the brain. I feel like I lean on the right side of my brain much more than the left. While I am relatively good with time management, I enjoy being spontaneous and creative more. I enjoy playing music for the sake of playing and I sometimes find it hard to focus on a central goal to look for while practicing. I see the joy in aesthetics and often struggle to find the right words to describe things. However, my string quartet was one aspect of my life that truly introduced me to the responsibilities of being a leader. In my quartet were three of my good friends, but I soon realized that more than friendship was going to have to hold us together. At times, I hated it because I had to be the "bad guy," who was telling others they needed to practice or be kicked out, who was getting angry when people were late, who had to make decisions when the others wanted compromising and negotiation. I found that the leadership was forced on me in a way. I started the idea that we could play at weddings, but soon realized that in order to play at weddings, we would need much more organization and dedication than we currently possessed. I began to understand that we were going to be treated as professionals and as such I raised our standards to those of professionals. I also felt a sense of responsibility: here was the most important day of someone's life and I wasn't willing to be the aspect that wasn't perfect on that day. I demanded more of the quartet and found myself planning practices, setting prices, and handling dates of weddings. There was another aspect that made me want to lead, though. Our second violinist came up with the idea that it might be nice to play at nursing homes every now and then for those who cared to listen. Thus, I had a new project to organize that made me feel better about what we did. We weren't being paid, but we did this because we found that it gave people joy. After playing at the nursing homes, a resident or two would often come up afterward and tell me how much he enjoyed listening or merely reminisce about what he used to play. I enjoyed interacting with these people and I found myself feeling proud that I could bring up memories of those who used to play. The idea of service and creativity really stimulated me in this project and I found it much easier to balance my time management/logical side of the brain with my creativity and artistic abilities.

Caroling picture: http://www.holidayinsights.com/moreholidays/December/carolers.jpg
Bored meeting picture: http://pmkyker.files.wordpress.com/2008/05/smm_20061201_office_bored.jpg