Jossen Rinn

Leadership Motivation

There are many important traits when it comes to being a leader. One must maintain self-

composure while keeping a group poised to achieve a task at hand. This alone requires

communication and empathy on behalf of not only the leader, but every member of the group.

There are many other attributes to talk about, but I want to give my personal definition of what it

means to demonstrate leadership. I personally define leadership as the ability to effectively lead

a group of people to complete a common, desired task. While this might not stray too far from

any dictionary definition, I want to elaborate upon what I have learned about what it takes to be

an effective leader.

First and foremost, it is important to differentiate between a normal and a responsible

leader. Just because someone oversees a group may put them in the position of a leader, but that

does not mean that they will follow the process of being a leader. The first part of that process is

to understand who one is working with; a leader must empathize with his or her team. This

involves getting to know everyone not only on a work, but also a personal level; the reason for

this is to ensure that there isn’t forced trust simply due to the circumstance of work but that the

leader truly knows everyone for who they are. I say this because at the end of the day, before a

leader is a leader or before anyone is whatever job title he or she is assigned, we are all human.

If people focus on this aspect first, then the progress made will be significantly greater than any

progress without this personal connection. Following this humanistic approach to being a leader

comes maximizing potential. A normal leader will have people complete the task at hand but

make no effort for further engagement with any team members. On the other hand, a responsible

leader will make every effort for everyone to contribute their own ideas and feel passionate about
their work. In Benjamin Zander’s TED Talk, he dives deep into this subject. He used the words

“sparkling eyes” to represent when someone has had their possibilities awakened. When

someone has sparkling eyes, they are confident that they will be able to make meaningful

contributions. Zander even goes to the extent to say that the way he personally measures success

is not money or power, but by how many sparkling eyes there are around him. I think this is

very important and relevant today because everyone works on teams. Many people show up to

work but don’t take their work to heart. This is a quality of a poor leader. The poor leader does

not take his work to heart, so he or she does not care about making the eyes of those around him

or her shine. The poor leader is simply there for the paycheck and to complete the task at hand,

not to try to better any of his or her team members’ lives. Benjamin Zander is an orchestra

conductor and the way he described his job and role as a leader was very meaningful. He said

that while he may be in charge of the orchestra, he is completely silent; he requires on the ability

of every single musician to have a powerful performance. Obviously, a leader should not be

completely hands off, but it is important for a leader to encourage individuality, not conformity,

regarding ideas. Zander uses an orchestra to explain this. In an orchestra, every person has their

own instrument that cannot produce the final performance alone; every instrument remains

individual but is a part of something much bigger. This leads to the case of “what if one of my

member’s eyes aren’t shining, or what if one of my members are not opening up to his or her

potential?” In this particular scenario, Zander says that a leader must ask themselves “Who am I

being?” This question is very open ended as nobody can ever truly know how someone else

perceives oneself. However, there are key questions such as am I being responsible; am I

leading or telling; and how can I be better?

 Aside from interpersonal conflicts leaders must also deal with intrapersonal conflicts.

While there are too many possible intrapersonal conflicts to list, I want to highlight the

importance of opportunity. To start off his TED Talk, Zander gives the story of the two shoe

salesmen in Africa. Upon noticing that the people weren’t wearing shoes, the two salesmen had

very different feelings. One of the salesmen exclaims to his boss that business in Africa is

hopeless as none of the people wear shoes, whereas the other salesman is excited to say that none

of the people wear shoes. While both salesmen saw the same people and had the same

experience, one of them was afraid to introduce positive disruptiveness. This closed mindset is

often displayed in work settings as no one wants to be the person to try something new and fail.

This leads me to a quote from an author named Charlie Wardle who said, “A bird sitting on a

tree is never afraid of the branch breaking, because its trust is not on the branch but on its own

wings.” I like this quote because it ties back into what I mentioned earlier regarding people

realizing their potential. Once a good leader does this, the people are confident in their abilities

and understand that while they might fail at trying something new, they are still trying, and they

still have their abilities.

All in all, there are too many aspects of leadership to talk about in one post. The topics

mentioned above are merely traits and processes that I find important that I do not think are used

enough. Industries change, society changes, and the world changes. There will always be new

conflicts, projects, and new beginnings. Therefore, it is important as a leader to remember that

we are all human and working for each other.