Final Integrative Paper - Leader Michael Manauis

Final Integrated Paper – Leader Michael Manauis

When I enrolled with the Leadership Class, I was excited to again study leadership as we have been attending various leadership training with FedEx. My first impression when i got the book was that this is going to be more of a leadership of faith or leadership related to the church instead of leadership for business. I have doubts with said class if will do any good for me as a leader and manager of a multinational Company. My expectation was that I wanted to improve my leadership skills in order for me to be successful in the corporate world.

HEROIC LEADERSHIP - by Chris Lowney

When I got the book, I was so happy that it was not thick! However, was doubtful and dreading to start reading it because I was reluctant when I saw the words "Ignatian".  My first doubt was that the book will discuss about religion, about love and faith to the Lord.

But during my readings, I found that it's really about love and faith to the Lord and how it applies to all people and situation. It discussed that the Ignatian style of leadership and ministry essentially consists not of a set of doctrines or rules, but rather involves principles that foster an integrated way of living.

The book articulates the Jesuit model of leadership by discussing its distinctive qualities and guiding principles in the context and language of business. It discusses about the characteristics of a leader:

a.        We're all leaders, and we're leading all the time, well or poorly.

-          Everyone is a leader, and everyone is leading all the time – sometimes in immediate, dramatic, and obvious ways, more often in subtle, hard-to-measure ways, but leading nonetheless. It is in the everyday, ordinary activities and choices that I am becoming a leader. It is the way I smile, dress, am spontaneous, self-revealing, kind, affectionate, and supportive that I influence others, for better or for worse. Leadership is primarily an inside job because it is about self-leadership. However, it affects people exteriorly. My inner choices influence others at an external level. As I grow and improve, so does my group, company, family.

b.       Leadership springs from within. It's about who I am as much as what I do.

-          A leader's greatest power is his or her personal vision, communicated by the example of his or her daily life. Vision springs from within, from hard self-reflection that yields deep-rooted personal beliefs and attitudes: What do I care about? What do I want? How do I fit into the world?

c.        Leadership is not an act. It is my life, a way of living.

-          Leadership is not a job to be left at work when one comes home to relax and enjoy life. It does not consist of putting on a set of values or conduct when one is "on duty" and putting on a different set when one is "off duty" – like a lab coat or construction hat. Because, it is a way of valuing and thinking that springs from deep within, there is no sure checklist of things to do; rather, it is an inner compass from which to discern one's action. Heroic leadership is a daily personal pursuit. Do I wake up in the morning with this attitude?

d.       The task of becoming a leader is an ongoing process.

-         Becoming a leader is an on-going process of self-development. Leadership is a never-ending work in progress that draws on continually maturing self-understanding. Environment change, people change, priorities shift. These changes call for continual adjustment and re-commitment No one becomes a leader by accident. Strong leaders welcome the opportunity to learn about oneself and the world and looks forward to new discoveries and interests. A leader is essentially a pilgrim, not one who has "arrived" at some idealized state of perfection.

The book doesn't tell us much we don't already know about what leaders do. Nor it teaches us anything about what leaders achieve. But it has a lot to say about who leaders are, and how leaders live, and how they become leaders in the first place. It discusses on principles on integrated way of living:    

a.        Self-awareness - understanding their strengths, weaknesses, values, and worldviews. "Overcoming oneself," "self-acceptance," and "being at home with oneself" are expressions referring to a journey within that seeks a healthy command of self. Only the person who knows what she wants can pursue it energetically and inspire others to do so. A good leader knows what she wants in life, how to get it, and what weaknesses or paralyzing mindsets can trip her up.

b.       Ingenuity: confidently innovating and adapting to embrace a changing world. A leader must by vigilant about and set aside ingrained habits, prejudices, cultural biases and the "we've always done it this way" attitude – baggage that blocks effective, adaptive responses. He or she stands by core beliefs and values that are nonnegotiable. Knowing what's negotiable and what isn't, the leader can adapt or accommodate confidently. In short, he or she becomes "indifferent" – free from attachments to places, possessions, ways of doing things in order to move, change, or adapt to engage opportunities.

c.        Love: engaging others with a positive, loving attitude. Love-driven leadership involves a way of seeing potentials and the commitment to empower others toward realization of that vision.

This love-driven leadership involves the vision to see each person's talents, potentials, and dignity; the creativity, passion, and commitment to unlock those potentials; and the resulting loyalty and mutual support that energize and unite teams.

d.       Heroism: energizing ourselves and others through heroic ambitions. One will not achieve the dream one cannot imagine. This involves the Ignatian ideal of the "magis". This means envisioning and imagining heroic objectives and doing an ordinary act with great love. It may involve doing more; or it may mean doing less. This always involves compassion toward others in understanding of weaknesses, but aiming high nevertheless.

When I saw list of assignments and class discussions, I immediately understood that our class will be going to be. It is going to be full of sharing and discussions. It's going to be full of reflections and most importantly a fun filled class!

In addition, the class is all about the HEROIC LEADERSHIP Book guiding us to be self-aware, be genuine, and do it with love and passion for any purpose and especially for the Greater Glory of God.

I will discuss what I've learned for some class/activity that we attended:

A.       Are Leaders Born, Made or Situational

In this class, I learned that all of us are born leader. All of us have the innate leadership qualities passed through our genes. This is the basic leadership blueprint. Leadership qualities however will grow depending on the situations and events that each person will undergo throughout his life and on how he learned from that said situation. Leadership can also be learned from others. As the saying goes, a naïve man learns from his own mistake, a wise man learns from the mistake of others. If someone does not learn or waste the learnings of the situations and events or put his learnings to practice his leadership skills and qualities will not grow.

B.       Defining Moments

There is a lot of defining moments in our lives. Defining moments usually happens very quickly, sometimes at the blink of an eye. They are unalterable. Our choices define our moments. They are either negative or positive.  The story of my life defines who I am now and what will I will be in the future.

These defining moments are events that very memorable that are the foundation of who am I as a leader now. These are the moments I thank God that I'm alive. These are the moments I will remember all my life. Every experience good and bad are considered as life lessons. As they say in Audit "Charge it to Experience".

C.       Leadership in Movies

One of my past times is watching movies. In fact, I'm a movie buff! I love when I see a new story and cinematography style is done. I was so movie that I even borrowed a book "Movie Almanac" from SBC Library and read about movies and their synopsis. I even almost watched all movies available for rent in ACA and Videocity' 

I've watched the Godfather for nth time already. In fact Godfather should be the Bible for any man out there. Everything you need to know, you will learn from Godfather. Godfather is about family. And how should a man acts and fight for his family.

Ender's game is also a beautiful movie. Clearly leadership skills where shown in the movies such as thinking ahead of others, understanding the risks, how to influence people, leadership by example, looking beyond the problem, and how to correct people privately.

So why do we love movies? I really don't know the reason why I love movies until I was introduced by Prof to Joseph Campbell.

Joseph Campbell was not a screen writer, but he changed to course of cinema history. Campbell was a guru on mythology and the Power of Myth is literally a conversation about stories: why humans need them and why they love some more stories than others. Joseph Campbell is best known for the Hero's Journey, a classic, universal storytelling model. while that 12-step character odyssey is going to be a revelation for you and a constant companion through your screenwriting career. According to Campbell:

"that what we're seeking is an experience of being alive …
… so that we can actually feel the rapture being alive."

It made sense!

The reason I love movies isn't tangible, it's the way it makes me feel. It's like when you read a great book, you enter a world that is separate from where you are, but you relate to the characters and get lost in the pages. It makes you happy or sad. It makes you laugh and also cry. Movies do that, but more directly. A good film resonates with you and doesn't leave your system right away. Some of the greatest films I've seen have never left my heart and soul, and I hope they never do.

D.        Enneagram

Enneagram is a model of human personality which is principally understood and taught as a typology of nine interconnected personality types. The Enneagram of Personality has been widely promoted in both business management and spiritual contexts through seminars, conferences, books, magazines, and DVDs In business contexts it is generally used as a typology to gain insights into workplace dynamics; in spirituality it is more commonly presented as a path to higher states of being. It has been described as a method for self-understanding and self-development.

In my enneagram test, the results indicated that I am type 3 which describes that I am an achiever, motivator, adaptable and success oriented.  Somehow my score in 3 was close to my scores in type 2 (Helper), 7(Generalist) and 8 (Leader). I agree that I am under type 3 with bits of 2,7 and 8. I am optimistic, friendly, and upbeat. I like providing for my family. I also like being competent and able to get things to work efficiently. It also helped me to assess how to deal with myself. In fact I'd like to share the results to my teammates so that they can understand me further. I also want them to take the exams to know their personality.

Enneagram will be useful for me to understand my teammates and how to deal with them individually. This will allow me to be a better manager/leader to them and will improve rapport and team dynamics.

E.        Genogram    

When I wrote my Genogram, It was very difficult for me. It was the day that the doctors asked my father to spend his final days at home. My father was diagnosed with Cancer in his salivary glands. Genogram was used to identify repetitive patterns of behavior and to recognize hereditary tendencies.

My genogram shows that we are a family of leaders. A family with close ties and been helping with each other.

My father's side shows that I came from a family of drivers and professionals. They are good communicators and wide readers. They are very good in interpersonal skills. Some of them are very active in political arena and seems like everybody likes them. These side of my family is more bold and loud. Whenever we have gatherings, its seems like there is a fiesta.

Meanwhile, my mother's sides are more of farmers and traders. They are more reserved but business oriented. They lived a very simple life and usually grows their own food. This side of the family were thrift and workaholic.

My leadership qualities or rather how I think and my lifestyle is a combination of the two families. I like creating rapport to people and maintaining a good interpersonal skills. I also like driving and now also a professional.  On the other hand, I am also very practical and loves farming and having a livestock.

E.       Teambuilding and team activities

I enjoyed the teambuilding. Although we didn't win anything, it was a way for me to just be with teammates and observed. I observed that even that we are all leaders in our different field we are still willing to be a follower. I observed that during the activities, immediately one will pop as a team leader and no one really contested the leadership. As leaders, I observed that everybody is willing to work together to meet the great good.

The most memorable activity during the team building was the CHAOS game. I listened to the question carefully and think of the greater picture. I was thinking about my other teammates. I presented the idea to my team but was concerned on how the other teams think. During the first trial, I was just observing. Everybody was in chaos trying to win the balls. I talked again to my teammates and eventually understood that I meant. I went to team 1 and team Ubebe and presented them my idea. When we went for round 2, I told them to follow me and we will all win. And they did! I was able to let them buy in to my idea.

I realized that the teambuilding activity is really for a better dynamics of the team. Some teammates will evolve as leaders and some will be followers. If everybody understood each other and their role in the team and have synergy, I'm pretty sure that the team will be successful.

F. Call to arms speech – declining number of farmers

During the call to arms speech, my idea was not to be like an oration or like a politician. I was more thinking of like a TEDTalks setting where everything is relaxed. Unfortunately, there was grading on the delivery of the speech. I stumbled because I didn't prepare for that type of speech.

Then came the speakers before me. All winners actually came before me – Tristan, the champion, in fact was the speaker right before me. The have powerful deliveries. I succumbed into delivering my speech the same way they did. But I refrained and remained to deliver it lightly and in a TEDtalks setting.

Delivering speech was not a problem with me. I've been always been in the stage as dancer and ass a choir member. I was a lector and even delivered homily when I was a seminarian. What as difficult was thinking of what really is my advocacy. It took into reflection what really is my advocacy. Although I help in my community generously such as giving free medical mission to poor people every December, giving school supplies to the indigenous on June, and spreading the use of Ytawes dialect.

However probably with my genealogy that I chose to speak of my other advocacy to provide a better playing field and opportunity for farmers and specially on encouraging youngsters to do farming.

I learned that all leaders are good communicators. That they can tell what is in their minds so simply that you can understand it.

G.       Passion

Reflection paper on passion took me again into reflection. I realized that I loved cooking. I realized that other than my love for my family, its cooking that I love next.

H.         Blog, AVP and class sharing

This is really something new for me; where you share yourself to others.  To share your reflection paper and videos were really fun.

When Prof Jorge created a blog for our sharing of assignments, thoughts etc. There was apprehension in me. This is will enforce me to share my inner most thoughts, secrets and desires. Everybody is going to read about you and your failures and weaknesses. But I accepted this as an open heart. The book really opened my mind to learn about myself and learn about the people around you.

I learned a lot about my teammates and how they become successful in their field. I learned about their passion and advocacies. I learned their characteristics as leader and will be using that too in my daily life. I learned their hardships and how they overcame such.

              

Final words:

What weve been to has been in line with the HEROIC Leadership or rather Ignatian Leadership. I consider the class was more of a RETREAT and go back about the past, your roots and deepest toughs and desire and reflected on it

With the class, I am not more self aware, genuine, loving and heroic. I realized that Ignatian Leadership can be used to any situation in life and in business.

After 8 weeks of attending class, reading and listening to the stories of each of my classmates as well as my professor, I was transformed. The class became a retreat for me to go back in time and understand why am I here now and what should I be doing in the future. It brought me back to my senses and see the world differently.

With all the learning that I came across during this class I am 100% sure that we wll become better leaders in any 

field that we will take and do it the Glory of God.

"But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us."              

o    Corinthians 4:7