07 Jun The choice to be leaders
Few weeks ago, LEAD Italia organised its second workshop. Below are the details by two of the 17 ambassadors.
“May 6th-7th, 2018 – Ex Convent of Saint Francis in Conegliano – LEAD Italia ambassadors took part to a new workshop, after the Creative Thinking seminar in January.
The topic we discussed was “The Choice”, one of the most significant elements of leadership. One doesn’t born as leader but choose to become one.
The first day we arrived at the ex Convent at 15.00 to immediately start with the first activity that consisted on writing down problems and needs of each of us and our expectations regarding the workshop. Before starting this activity our facilitators, Giorgio and Elettra, asked us to free ourselves from any mask and be as much authentic as possible. Let’s say that this was the task that made this workshop more difficult and tough than the previous one on Creative Thinking.
The following activity consisted on writing down the expectations that the school, our friends, our loved ones, sport, music and LEAD carry about us. You won’t believe it, we filled up an entire poster. This activity made us reflect on conflictual expectations that challenge us. For instance: let’s consider sport, school and music. The coach says “sport comes first”; the teacher says “school comes first”; the same for the music teacher. You can easily understand that there are conflicts among the three activities and that for a young person it might be difficult to choose what to prioritise, which activity deserves more time and energy. An interior conflict arises.
At the end of day we have discussed about Ryla Junior 2017: in fact, we will be part of the team that will organise this experience, one more chance for us to get involved.
The second day was very intense for all of us. After breakfast, we had time for meditation with Giorgio. Through this exercise each of us had the chance to share with others his/her own fears, emotions, feelings, obstacles in our process in LEAD.
The following activity was one of the most significant in the workshop and consisted in learning the concept of “No win, no lose”. It’s that state of mind of a leader that is built on the idea that one shouldn’t ruminate on what was lost by not choosing the possible alternatives to his/her choice: one should move on and think that the choice made was the best possible one given the limited information available at the time of making the decision. Here is an example: two of my friends invite me out to two different places, sea and cinema. i choose to go to the cinema. Let’s imagine that that day it’s a beautiful day and that my favourite sport player is there. Given this, I shouldn’t regret my choice to go to the cinema as at the time of my decision I didn’t have the complete information; still I should look at what I have gain because of my choice. Although my choice was to go to the cinema, I didn’t lose anything.
We have then applied the “No win, No lose” pattern in more complex decisions, in LEAD and with respect to our project.
The last activity, a very important one, was around how we manage time. We reflected over all our everyday activities. Some of us are happy about how they assign their own time to each activity, others, on the contrary, believe that they invest too much time on school or sports rather than on LEAD and the development of their identity as a leader. The question we all asked ourselves was if it’s possible to change and to manage our time differently. And if it’s possible to change, how can we do so since we don’t always have the power to decide how much time to allocate to each activity, for instance in school.
Before ending the workshop, each one of us provided feedback with respect to the workshop. We have shared the common idea that we are the ones responsible for our own choices, if we want to be leaders: each of us is responsible for his/her own future and there is no obstacle in our life that we can’t overcome.
What was left of this experience? The desire to commit even more and be more determined in our activity as leaders and in our projects.”
— Oliver & Francesco
