Follow the leader.

Goleman, Bate, and Covey take a look at "how-to" become a good leader. 

Now, I am not necessarily touting that having an adorable tuxedo kitten with a head cone on makes you a better leader, but it couldn't hurt, right?

This Is Not My First Harvest, Farmer.

I4H (Imagination, Head, Heart, Hands, Health)

I Pledge:

My Head to Clearer Thinking

The Science Behind Empathy

Why exactly did our brains evolve the ways they did? Why do we feel emotion the way we do? As I see it, the amygdala and pre/frontal cortex dance to a very interesting rhythm in a series of checks and balances in which we constantly must counteract baser, more primitive actions we once used for survival by utilizing forethought and planning. The limbic system, the amygdala, the frontal and prefrontal cortex... all those good things... aid in this process.This, apparently, is one of those things that separates us from "the animals."

 

 

This cat seems to agree.What is your opinion? Fun bonus question: do you believe that animals are capable of empathy or sympathetic imagination? 

In this way, we are best served if we balance both head and heart to connect ourselves to the world around us, to truly experience and become in tune with it all. It is not so much a question of whether we should be rational or emotional beings (or if we should be guided by our head or our heart) so much as we should utilize both to truly interact on an intimate level with people, animals, and really anything we encounter. As for those other lauded values (like courage or a sense of humor)... I don't know exactly where that comes from either. I would guess that would be the brain. Good luck, wrestling that cerebellum out of the scarecrow's hands, you lions of the world.

 

My Heart to Greater Loyalty: "excitement, optimism, and passion"

Why does this  matter at all, though? For me, I look to great leaders (the Mother Teresas and Gandhis of the world) as a source of inspiration because from a deeply poignant, genuine, and visceral place, I want to make the world a better one. I am a pure idealist. I admit it. I want to live that "life of service" that Stephens mentions in The 8th Habit. I want to leave the world a better place for my having been here. I want to touch people's hearts and actually witness the good that comes from it, like their smiles and new ideas forming in their daily conversations. Living a life of service would be my ideal. I want to feel good about what I am doing, from a moral level. I want to "live the law of love." If I can get up every morning and feel like what I am doing is right, that I am living "life as a mission, not a career," then I have ultimately achieved a large part of what I aspire to. I mean, I don't mean to throw so many tropes out there, but that is how I feel.

This reminds me of a song/prayer that always resonated with and inspired me when I was younger: "The Prayer of St. Francis."

Sarah McLachlan, Prayer of St. Francis

“Music is the shorthand of emotion.”~ Leo Tolstoy

"Grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console;
to be understood as to understand;
To be loved as to love
For it's in giving that we receive-
and it's in pardoning that we are pardoned."

Ultimately, I actually would really like to be a teacher or a therapist, which, to me, really encompasses one of the most far-reaching and pervasive leadership positions there is--- shaping and molding young minds. To "generate excitement, optimism, and passion" are all qualities listed as being possessed by great leaders. Goleman expounds further, speaking of how a teacher's duties are motivating, guiding, inspiring, listening, [and] persuading" those they lead.  Tell me you've never wished you had a teacher who ignited all of these things in you. I'm sure you have, dear reader. It's not just about imparting knowledge, but fostering a sense of purpose in life and of the world. That's heavy stuff. "By continually reminding people of the larger purpose of their work, the visionary leader [the most effective kind of leader] lends a grand meaning to otherwise workday, mundane tasks."

It is my goal to create empathetic, sympathetic, generous, industrious little beings. 

“Love is not consolation. It is light.” Friedrich Nietzsche

That is my passion, and as touted here, passion arises when "human need overlaps unique human talent." Now I am not truly sure if I have a talent for imparting knowledge quite yet, but perhaps it is something I can develop further.

 

However, to become the highest form of myself, I must first change myself.

There is too much of myself that I see in "The Man Who Didn't Feel."

Or perhaps it would be more self-evaluative to say that I so feel things (most ardently, in fact), but it closely resembles paralyzing confusion, and it very difficult to communicate those things effectively. Still, I'm working on it.

 

Ironic that to be the best form of yourself and help others the most, one must first really focus on themselves (something we've been calling self-centered and negative lately).

One must be able to say "I am my master" before they can say "I am your servant."

Looking outwards, I am sure to encounter socially and emotionally stunted souls along the way, who I need to use my sympathetic imagination to relate to.

My brother is one of them. So, too, will I probably work with kids in need of some tailored sympathy and compassion in my classroom. 

 

My Hands to Larger Service... and serve, I will

My Health to Better Living... because I can't really help people all that much if I'm pushing up daisies

and not to upstage 4H, but this is the crux of my argument:

My Imagination

As Bate quoted Dugald Steward,

"the apparent coldness and selfishness of mankind may be traced, in great measure, to a want of attention and a want of imagination... Sympathy, which is achieved through the imagination, characterizes the highest moral and aesthetic exertion." And as our old pal Einstein said,

“Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited to all we now know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world, and all there ever will be to know and understand.”

 

Crash Trailer

"I think we miss that touch so much, that we crash into each other, just so we can feel something."... "I am angry all the time, and I don't know why."... "You think you know who you are. You have no idea."

This opens the whole world before me. I just have to look for opportunities. I merely have to look and think outside the box. Moreover, I have to be able to transcend my own preconceived notions or prejudices or whatever that are inherently in me, so that I can look beyond myself in greater clarity.


All I could think of while I was reading these are the many projects I've wanted to undertake since I've been living on my own in Austin: teaching, fostering dogs, fostering children, volunteering with the refugee service, etc. In every instance I had to question how I was going to affect those around me, who I should, theoretically be helping, and if my abilities would actually be helping them.  
However, lately,  I've really developed an interest and passion in animal and music therapy, which hones imagination in several ways, and through my research, I ran across Susan Bady, a therapist working with patients with emotional and social disorders such as Asperger's, autism, and interestingly enough, alexithymia, just to name a few. She works with her her two pet cats, and according to her they:
(1) calm and soothe both patient and therapist,
(2) facilitate emotional expression in patient and therapist,
(3) model desirable behavior,
(4) serve as a projective screen,
(5) model ego states,
(6) allow us to touch and be touched,
(7) encourage spontaneity and fun,
(8) respond to human emotions,
(9) support the therapist and lessen his or her isolation, and
(10) provide an unconditional love essential to human well-being
More information on Susan Bady's pet therapy


What is interesting to me here is the agency placed in these animals. 1) It places the animals as the leaders, really focusing on qualities humans can learn from. 2) These therapies work, and finally 3) The individuals who works with these animals tends to view them beyond just their value as therapeutic tools. They see them as blessings and living beings and care greatly for them. Furthermore, if you look at some of the qualities these pets are thanked for, their honesty, adaptability, self-control, and optimism, then surely they are great examples of qualities leaders should possess.

Apropos, for the not so faint of heart, I have also posted a link to my favorite episode of South Park ever, "Leader of the Pack." Cesar Millan, leadership skills, and South Park--- sure, it's tongue-in-cheek, but it's resonant.
http://www.southparkstudios.com/full-episodes/s10e07-tsst
Also, thanks to my mom for passing these videos on to me. These deal with how pets have become leaders for individuals who have previously had difficulties empathizing and socializing with people, specifically individuals with PTSD and autism.

Perhaps that's what Beatrix and Mathilde are to me, my therapists. And considering I spent an hour this morning trying to coax them from room to room so that they would stop trespassing in my roommate's hallway, I would say I did a lot of "following" them this morning--- quite literally.

 All Works Cited Can be Found in the Course Reader:
Daniel Goleman et al, Primal Leadership: Realizing the Power of Emotional Intelligence. Harvard: 2002 Bate, Walter Jackson, The Sympathetic Imagination in Eighteenth-Century English Criticism
Covey, Stephen, The 8th Habit: From Effectiveness to Greatness   

I would also like to extend my thanks to 4H, for a host of reasons--- not only for the use of its pledge, but also for fostering my love for animals as a child.