I learned so much from the Dow leaders with whom we spoke that I had a hard time pulling out an ultimate “take home” idea.
Something Tim Dyste said really stuck out to me – he highlighted the importance of finding your joy, which, to him, meant finding what you love to do and what you do best. It seemed to echo the ideas of Aristotle that I held so highly after our initial class discussion.
Something Tim Dyste said really stuck out to me – he highlighted the importance of finding your joy, which, to him, meant finding what you love to do and what you do best. It seemed to echo the ideas of Aristotle that I held so highly after our initial class discussion.
Aristotle, in addition to his prescription of a balance life, preached the importance of Eudaimonia, which is happiness earned from doing well that which you enjoy doing. “Human Flourishing” has been a commonly accepted translation of the word.
It makes sense, though. How can one flourish if he is constantly going to a job that he does not enjoy? How can one flourish if he is beaten down by the system day in and day out? If the system—the job; the leadership—does not encourage him to grow, thrive, and influence change…how can he do the same for his organization and his followers?
It makes sense, though. How can one flourish if he is constantly going to a job that he does not enjoy? How can one flourish if he is beaten down by the system day in and day out? If the system—the job; the leadership—does not encourage him to grow, thrive, and influence change…how can he do the same for his organization and his followers?
As we learned in the leadership theory portion of the Roberts Fellows Seminar, leadership is dynamic. It often requires a leader to analyze many different followers and many different situations in order to best handle the task in front of you. It deals with people, decisions, environments, the past, and the future. Although it may not be a high and lofty, unattainable ideal, it is in the very least a challenge.
The leaders of Dow reflected this idea. They discussed situations in which managing conflict amongst employees was a major challenge. Sometimes the hardship was recognizing the problem; sometimes the hardship was living with the problem long enough to truly understand it. They discussed situations in which communication was challenging. There is a language barrier when working in international situations as well as a cultural barrier. Sometimes the words simply didn’t exist or were unknown. Sometimes the Dow leaders didn’t know when they needed to be explicit or implicit. Sometimes employees were simply afraid to participate or communicate, or disagree because it was disrespectful in their traditional cultures. Most importantly, the Dow leaders discussed the challenge of continuous curiosity and awareness. They worked in new cultures and wanted to learn about what these cultures had to offer and why they functioned the way they did. They needed to continuously ask questions and talk to employees and learn in order to succeed.
How can a leader expect to take charge of these challenges develop and execute solutions with success, and remain open to the culture and the humanity of the organization if they are not in love with and excited about their job? Without passion and joy for what one is doing the actions would become lifeless and mechanical, possibly controlling and menacing. The human aspect to the job would be lost as it would become a necessity rather than a choice. The Eudaimonia of which Aristotle wrote is essential to dynamic, successful leadership.
Further, I believe achieving this Eudaimonia is half the battle—but also a challenged that was highlighted for us by the leaders of Dow.
It was mentioned by each of the panelist that we cannot set in stone the path that we plan to take. None of the leaders with whom we spoke were working in the field in which they got their degree. They had all made a plan and worked their way through that plan and willingly ended up in a completely different destination – and each of them was happy.
The strongest example was Bridget Sparrow. She spoke jokingly of her first plan: she never, ever wanted to work in the United Kingdom. Of course, she did end up living and working there. When she got there, she re-worked her plan: She didn’t want to stay for longer than a year and would never, ever marry and English man. Of course, she stayed for 23 years and married an English man. She continued to say that Shanghai was also not on her plan, but, of course, she worked there and loved and wouldn’t have changed a thing.
It is important to have a plan as it gives us motivation to keep working. It gives us a guideline of how to prepare and what we should be doing. But in the end, we may not have had the best idea of which plan we should actually follow. If we force ourselves in to a box and create tunnel vision for where we want to go, we will be unhappy with the result as we did not search inside ourselves and really find that one thing that makes us the most happy. When we allow our lives to be shaped by our plans and our paths, we allow ourselves to grow, change, and be just as dynamic as the leadership we hope to someday achieve.
When we really live our lives, we find our own Eudaimonia and we can then become true leaders.
The leaders of Dow reflected this idea. They discussed situations in which managing conflict amongst employees was a major challenge. Sometimes the hardship was recognizing the problem; sometimes the hardship was living with the problem long enough to truly understand it. They discussed situations in which communication was challenging. There is a language barrier when working in international situations as well as a cultural barrier. Sometimes the words simply didn’t exist or were unknown. Sometimes the Dow leaders didn’t know when they needed to be explicit or implicit. Sometimes employees were simply afraid to participate or communicate, or disagree because it was disrespectful in their traditional cultures. Most importantly, the Dow leaders discussed the challenge of continuous curiosity and awareness. They worked in new cultures and wanted to learn about what these cultures had to offer and why they functioned the way they did. They needed to continuously ask questions and talk to employees and learn in order to succeed.
How can a leader expect to take charge of these challenges develop and execute solutions with success, and remain open to the culture and the humanity of the organization if they are not in love with and excited about their job? Without passion and joy for what one is doing the actions would become lifeless and mechanical, possibly controlling and menacing. The human aspect to the job would be lost as it would become a necessity rather than a choice. The Eudaimonia of which Aristotle wrote is essential to dynamic, successful leadership.
Further, I believe achieving this Eudaimonia is half the battle—but also a challenged that was highlighted for us by the leaders of Dow.
It was mentioned by each of the panelist that we cannot set in stone the path that we plan to take. None of the leaders with whom we spoke were working in the field in which they got their degree. They had all made a plan and worked their way through that plan and willingly ended up in a completely different destination – and each of them was happy.
The strongest example was Bridget Sparrow. She spoke jokingly of her first plan: she never, ever wanted to work in the United Kingdom. Of course, she did end up living and working there. When she got there, she re-worked her plan: She didn’t want to stay for longer than a year and would never, ever marry and English man. Of course, she stayed for 23 years and married an English man. She continued to say that Shanghai was also not on her plan, but, of course, she worked there and loved and wouldn’t have changed a thing.
It is important to have a plan as it gives us motivation to keep working. It gives us a guideline of how to prepare and what we should be doing. But in the end, we may not have had the best idea of which plan we should actually follow. If we force ourselves in to a box and create tunnel vision for where we want to go, we will be unhappy with the result as we did not search inside ourselves and really find that one thing that makes us the most happy. When we allow our lives to be shaped by our plans and our paths, we allow ourselves to grow, change, and be just as dynamic as the leadership we hope to someday achieve.
When we really live our lives, we find our own Eudaimonia and we can then become true leaders.
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