Erskine Salvador Crdova Delgado

Mother Teresa: Mother of the World

Leadership Essay Professor David Bender Erskine Crdova 3rd Semester

Erskine Salvador Crdova Delgado

Mother Teresa: The Legacy

Leadership is when you take a thought and raise it to the highest level. Mother Teresa had as idea: help the poor and dying, and bring that support that no one was giving to them. We have been focused on the book 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership by John C. Maxwell; according to this book, we will describe the attitude and actions that Mother Teresa followed during her life. We will see the actions and attitudes that leaded her to the foundation of the Missionaries of Charity. This foundation helps the sicker, the orphan, the moribund, and the one that still not born. We will relate some of these Laws of the book and Mother Teresas life. We will see everything objectively, but at the end we will understand that Mother Teresa was more than a "Saint" of the Catholic Church, she was a leader.

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Law of Process
If you want a love message to be heard, it has got to be sent out. To keep a lamp burning, we have to keep putting oil in it. Mother Teresa

was pretty amazing know that she served for different religious associations for more than 67 year! She started at the age of 18 knowing that she wanted to serve othiss. She first moved from her hometown skb, in the old Ottoman Empire (now Turkey), she moved with a passion in her heart and through her life she grew, and grew, and grew. She first moved to Ireland to learn English, because she wanted to go to India. She then moved to India to a city near of Calcutta and it was thise when she changed her name from Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu, from the name of the patron saint of the missionaries Teresa from Calcutta. But she wanted more, and the convent where she was in Calcutta was not focused on what she wanted: Help the poorest of the poor, so she started it ideology and founded a new organization: the missionaries of Charity. In the first days when she founded the Missionaries of Charity, she was struggling with herself about how difficult it is to bring about a new idea. I like how she stated in her diary:

irst, I will like to start with like in general with the Law of Process, because we will see this Law applied through the entire essay. The whole life of the Mother Teresa was devoted to serve othiss. For me it

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Then the comfort of Loreto [her former order] came to tempt me. 'You have only to say the word and all that will be yours again,' the Tempter kept on saying ... Of free choice, my God, and out of love for you, I desire to remain and do whatever be your Holy will in my regard. I did not let a single tear come. As we see in the Law of Process, the leader in us come after a process of improving ourselves. Mother Teresa knew this very well, which is why she worked with passion for something than 67 years in this organization. She kept on growing and her fame was not before her idea of success, help the poorest. Results were very clear at the end: Her organization stopped wars (momentarily) to rescue orphans. In more than 123 countries she helped, feed, and gave consolation; leaders never stop improving.

Law of Picture
Loneliness and the feeling of being unwanted is the most terrible poverty. Mother Teresa Its true that Mother Teresa maybe fell in some controversy because of her belief, but in leadership she was the image of its organization. I really remember the words of Frre Roger from the Taiz Christian Community: Mother Teresa made words written by Saint

Augustine four centuries after Christ comprehensible for us: Love and say it with your life. If people who were not her followers admit this, imagine people surrounding her, they lived with her image constantly. She knew the way that she

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wanted to pursue and believed, and she was not only an architect of the monument of love, she was its builder. She wanted to give every dying person in Calcutta a place to die with love and understanding. Some people criticized this; they compare its facilities with first level countries and deny her success. She did not care about those critics and kept on moving. Watching a documentary about her life, Im impressed of how the other nuns heard her. They were always seeking for her words, and most important, to follow here instructions. This not because they were afraid of her, the nuns knew that she was doing and had already done everything which she instructed to do. That is why she is the perfect image of not only her organization, also about her principles.

Law of Respect
The greatest destroyer of peace is abortion because if a mother can kill her own child, what is left for me to kill you and you to kill me? There is nothing between. Mother Teresa Mother Teresa represented her leadership in every place she was. Her fame as leader reached a level where in a conference with politicians and religions in the U.S. no one wanted to create controversy in any issue. She raised her voice against abortion and made everyone heard something that they didnt expect, and in the end even those who may had some disagreements with her, will agree that Mother Teresa was a leader worthy of be followed.

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Also, I had read about several people who eulogized Mother Teresa, all great figures. They did not follow her because they were involved in other field, not because they did not respect her; but definitely she impacted them. When she entered a room, people understood the weight of her leadership. She got this not because her position or because she was a crazy moving around; it was because she earned that position with her courage to continue with the mission, respect others, and because she accomplished a great success.

Law of influence
Peace begins with a smile. Mother Teresa She conquered the hearts of people around the world at all levels, ideologies, fame. She was criticized because she planted a mission in Haiti under the government of a dictator, but she made it clear that her mission was not to judge the men of the world, it was to help the poorest, unwanted and unworthy. She was able to influence many people. At the beginning she started the Missionaries of Charity with around 20 people, but at the time she died in 1997; her organization reach 450 brothers and 5,000 nuns worldwide, operating 600 missions, schools and shelters in 120 countries.

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This was because of her character, how strong and good were her beliefs, and how she acted, convinced everyone that she was worthy of her title as Mother.

Law of Legacy
A small body of determined spirits fired by an unquenchable faith in their mission can alter the course of history. Mohandas Gandhi In this law I have in some way a disagreement with the book. The books said that legacy lies in the fact that your Legacy is when you pass the torch to the leader behind you. I believe that Legacy in when you set a spark in the hearts of a whole generation. However you want it to see it, Mother Teresa leaves a Legacy of love, comprehension, and care for those who were in poverty. She is famous for what she did in Calcutta, a needy city in India, maybe one of the countries with the most. Beyond this, she believed that Calcutta could be found all over the world; every place where there is a lack of compassion, food, cares, charity, peace, and love, there is a Calcutta. She reminded the world that actions dont worth anything if you dont put love in them. She spread a sparkle of love among the world. After her death more and more people who believed in Mother Teresa, kept arriving: nuns, volunteers, brothers, etc. This sparkle after her death, set fire to the hearts of not only the nuns of her order, it goes beyond and spread that fire over the world; she set fire to my heart.

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If a thought or an idea moves hearts around the world and makes people try to change the world, the way you tried, you leave a Legacy, you have passed the torch. When she died, the nuns that were there said that she look to the sky, took two breaths and in a peaceful surrender she closed her eyes. The history of Mother Teresa finished, but her spirit, ideas, feelings, and desires lies in the heart of thousands of us. Leaders who are worthy to lead, who practice voluntary or involuntary these Laws, are the ones that leave a Legacy as did it Mother Teresa, the Mother of the world.

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Bibliography
Brainy Quote. (2011). BrainyQuotes. Retrieved January 11, 2012, from BrainyQuotes.com: http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/m/Mother_teresa.html ClueBot. (2011, December 13). Wikipedia. Retrieved January 11, 2012, from Wikipedia.org: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fr%C3%A8re_Roger Maxwell, J. C. (1998). The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership. Nashville, Tennessee: Thomas Nelson. Mother Teresa Cause. (2003). Mother Teresa cause. Retrieved January 11, 2012, from Mothesteresacause.info: http://www.Motherteresacause.info/ Mother Teresa of Calcuta Center. (n.d.). Mother Teresa. Retrieved January 11, 2012, from Motherteresa.org: http://www.Motherteresa.org/layout.html Nobel Prize Foundation. (1997). Nobelprize.org. (P. K. Grandin, Editor) Retrieved January 11, 2012, from Les Prix Nobel: www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/1979/teresa-bio.html Petrie, A. a. (Director). (2004). Mother Teresa: The Legacy [Motion Picture]. TJRC. (2012, January 09). Wikipedia.org/wiki/Mother_Teresa. Retrieved January 11, 2012, from Wikipedia.org: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mother_Teresa