A 1 Business Leadership

Leadership subject at AGSB is an Ateneo advantage. It emphasizes leadership from within, authentic leadership. One of its pillars is love. This is odd in a cold steely corporate world. The others are heroism, ingenuity and self awareness. The goal of leadership is not only to develop oneself but to clone other leaders. Everybody has potential to be leader. What we do, even if we do not have followers influences/affects others. It is time to define Filipino leadership too

Monday, August 10, 2015

Reflection Paper No. 2 by Tristan Val Leonida

Dear Prof,

I am resending my Reflection Paper 2. I have sent this last July 27, 2015.

Thank you very much!

Regards,

Tristan

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Tristan Val Leonida <tvleonida@gmail.com>
Date: Mon, Jul 27, 2015 at 8:09 AM
Subject: Reflection Paper No. 2 by Tristan Val Leonida
To: profjorge.entrep.clark@blogger.com

Reflection Paper No. 2

Engr. Tristan Val L. Leonida

A week before the start of classes, my excitement to be back to school led me to reading the HBR Article on Authentic Leadership and it struck me right away. It spoke right through me when it said that "The story of your life is not your life. It is your story." We all get ourselves boxed with what our life story is, telling us that we should see the events as limitations. This quote told me that we must look into events as our fuel while we propel to become the best version of ourselves. The class opened me up to a lot of new learnings about myself and helping me pickup up the bits and pieces of my life and put together the 'new' me or just putting my best self forward, away from the distractions of the entire human ecosystem. Now, I come to this point to summarize what my life story is all about.

FAMILY

I hail from Lambunao, Iloilo. It is a third class municipality used to be called the "Little Baguio of Iloilo" because it is located in a plateau in Central Iloilo. With that, everything is simple back then. My family is a typical definition of a complete and healthy home. My nanay and tatay are very hardworking with my brother and sister excelling as well in their studies. With a large age gap with my sister, eight years, I have seen the world in a different light as theirs. At a very young age, I strived hard to prove my worth to my parents and siblings. My mother never failed to review my subjects daily while my father guarded my TV viewing time. With that in mind, I never left the honor roll since kindergarten until I graduated in high school as valedictorian in our local public high school. In addition, the clans that I am part of value the closeness of family so I grew up attending all family gatherings. My parents always remind me that when everything is gone, your family will be the one who will always be there ready to embrace you wholeheartedly. My closeness to my titos, titas and cousins is incomparable. We have our few feuds but at the end of the day, we come to terms and build stronger relationships. If there will be things I can be proud of about my family that would be that I never felt that we competed against each other. I never sensed the feeling of jealousy within my relatives. We celebrate the successes of everyone. Each time there is someone who get promoted, passed the board exam, opened a new business, we gather through simple private parties that end to become a huge reunion. In times when we need to cry for each other, everyone is there too. I never understood back then why my parents forced us to attend these gatherings but now that I live away from them, I can clearly see its value that in times of your need, the people you met in those you-thought-boring parties will be your closest family.

ENVIRONMENT/SCHOOL

I can say straight face that I am an achiever since kindergarten. My system is set to strive hard and beat the odds. I am a consistent honor student since I began going to school never leaving the Top 5 of the class. I also covered all literary-musical competitions- from English and Filipino declamations, orations, extemporaneous speaking, vocal solo, vocal duet and even folkdance winning from school to national levels of competition. My competitiveness is something I always deny because I am afraid to lose. I always think I can't do it before it even begin just to dismiss expectations. When I started college, I enrolled to engineering and everything changed. I am aware that Mathematics and everything with it isn't really my strength thus I struggled in some of my subjects which made me accept that I can never be at the top. I have my moments wherein I needed to tell my parents that I they need to be prepared for me not pass the course but I always do. With that stress, I desperately looked for an outlet to bring me back to my feet. I turned to performing. I started singing in school events which led me to be invited as frontact to Matt Monro Jr. and Jose Mari Chan. I also ventured into hosting a few local TV shows and later run for a student council position. It also gave me the confidence to lead the entire university publication, The Central Echo, as the Editor-in-Chief. Since my academics is not in its pristine form, I didn't graduate with a latin honor in engineering but I was recognized as one of the Outstanding Students of Iloilo by ABS-CBN and the JCI, the Institute of Electronics Engineers of the Philippines, as one of the Future Business Leaders by the Aboitiz Group, as one of the Ayala Young Leaders by the Ayala Group and an advocate for Development Communication by the Philippine Information Agency. In summary, my journey inside the schools I have joined defined me based on my strengths and weaknesses. I also learned to adjust myself and focus on what I can develop.

WORK EXPERIENCE

I am very much thankful that I have been part of two companies who value their people so much. Right after I passed the ECE Licensure Examination, I joined Monde Nissin Corporation through their Cadet Supervisor Development Program, a crash course to develop fresh graduates to become production supervisors. This experience helped me transition my life from being a student to a real world warrior. The 6-month training really was intensive but it never felt like work because of the people I met. My greatest challenge in MNC was dealing with my boss. We were just too different. As a young engineer, ideal at that, I pictured a hands-on boss that would guide me on the process but I never felt it when I was in there. Impulse led me to leave the company. My parents were behind my decision but after a month of being unemployed, the feeling of being dependent to them made me feel useless. I hastily looked for another job and I got into TI. Well, TI is really my dream company since college. When you hit a crossroad where in you get the chance to grab your dream, you never think twice. I was hired by TI a day after they called me for an interview and started working a day after that. My journey at TI is a rollercoaster ride. Just after a month I got hired, I was made Team Leader of a new area then after few months, I was then moved to another area as a Team Leader as well until I got the chance to jump into an HR role which I realized to be my calling. Now, I am living the dream of being a catalyst for developing people. I have always believed that there is always a greater plan and it perfectly fit my personal mantra which is a quote by Fredrich Buechner which says that:

"The place God calls you to is where your deep gladness and the world's deep hunger meet."

I guess in the end, everything will fall in its proper place and I am just lucky enough to be there in the right place, in the right time and with the right skill set.

INTERNAL

A few months back, I bought a book by Tom Roth entitled, Strengthsfinder 2.0 which will help you determine your Top 5 talents. There I found out my standout characteristics:

1. WOO (Win Others Over)

· Being a WOO, I can easily connect with people and win them over. I rarely have a hard time making people comfortable with me. I sometimes come overconfident or intimidating but I can easily adjust and try to connect again. I used to be a pleaser but after a series of disappointments, I pulled out from seeking approval for some people and just be the bubbly me.

2. COMPETITION

· I love to compete. Even though I have this feeling that I don't want to, my system is competitive. I always find acceptance if I can go home with the laurel but I feel the same if I don't. This pushes me to always be the best in everything I do so that if I fail with my best, I am still good. I have this innate drive to be the best even on very short notice. I have this experience wherein I was asked to compete for a regional singing contest a few hours before the competition itself.

3. MAXIMIZER

· Influence is something I have. With all my credentials as my background, it is much easier to talk to people and influence them. As a leadership facilitator at the side, it is hard to develop people when you can't really walk the talk. When I am given the chance to speak to a bunch of high school and college student leaders, I always remind them that they should be good in their academics before they become leaders because student leaders are student-first. You can never influence effectively when you are not the person you are describing.

4. COMMUNICATION

· I am engineer but my track record speaks of me differently – I am an events host, a TV host, a politician, and a journalist which all point to me being a communicator. When I was in 2^nd year college, our Guidance Counselor suggested for me to transfer to a course related to communications because my strengths is on that side of the fence but since I have an agreement with my parents, I kept it within me and continued with my journey in engineering but destiny is real. I am now in line with communications.

5. ACTIVATOR

· Aligned with my strength as a MAXIMIZER, being an ACTIVATOR means that I can influence and make people do things for the better. I can make them see the good things in the actions they will take which is what I need to become an effective Talent Development officer of a multinational company – where every action should be fast, accurate and enthusiastically executed.

In conclusion, all I mentioned above have a lot to do with the current me. My value for building relationships and trust I learned from my parents. My soft heart for the people especially something that has a connection with family is greatly influenced by how I was brought up . My drive for excellence and pursuing my passions have been motivated by the activities I have been involved in school. My respect for time and a high level of ethical standards, of course I drew from the companies I have been part of. I may not see it in plain sight but I was made by the people, the situations and the events that touched my heart in a positive or negative way. As I go through the next phases of my life, I will keep in mind to cherish the moments, the lessons and the bits and pieces of life because I know somewhere in the near future, I will understand its purpose and see that everything is connected, that everything is in God's own version of my biography.

Regards, 3

Engr. Tristan Val L. Leonida

HR | Organization and Talent Development

TI (Philippines), Inc.

+639175127654

https://ph.linkedin.com/in/tvleonida