Week 8 Journal
Week 8 assignment:
The person who in my life who has exhibited. the best leadership has been my mom. My mom had me at 19 and had to become a parent, adult and a leader quickly. Although she was young, she always made decisions with my best interest in mind even if it made things for her more difficult. I believe that one of the truest test of leadership is making decisions that are difficult for the leader but benefit the collective or in this case me. My mom has made endless sacrifices and even though I am an adult now she still continues too. My mother has also been my biggest advocate which is another sign of leadership. My mom has advocated for me with teachers, financial aid at Howard, at the doctors office, with other family members, and whenever I have been falsely accused. I appreciate my mom for always standing up for me, especially when i could not do so for myself. Watching my mom advocate for me and others has taught me how to stand up for myself and for others when I witness something wrong. My mom has also exhibited leadership with our family. When anyone in our family has an issue they always go to my mom and she always figures out a soultion. My mom has lent endless money to family members, even when she didn’t really have money to loan. My mom helped my great-grandparents fight the bank tooth and nail when their house was in foreclousre. My is always willing to take a family member into her home when they are facing a rough patch.
Looking back, my mom was probably always a leader. From what I know about her life she lived at my great-grandma’s house with her younger brother and younger cousins. Due to the fact that she was the oldest of the kids and both my grandparents had full time jobs I know my mom took a position of leadership by helping out with the other kids and around the house. I definitely believe my mom developed her leadership skills by following the lead of my great-grandmother; she was and still is the matriarch of our family. I think my mom learned her nurturing and care taking skills, how to take care of a household, and how to be the rock of your family from her. I believe that my mom’s leadership skills are effective in our family. I am not saying this to discredit or downplay her leadership in no way, but I feel like matriarchy is her strong suit and she runs a family incredibly well.
Assignment part 2:
I believe that Cyrus did his best to exemplify leadership for his specific time period. I purposely choose to phrase my statement in this way because the leadership needed during that time was different from leadership now because it was more of a military time. With this being said, I do believe Cyrus exhibited necessary characteristics of leadership. As I said, Cyrus lived in a military time so being victorious in war was an important aspect of leadership for his community. Cyrus definitely fulfilled this requirement as he had been victorious in many battles. I believe his people equated that to strength and masculinity which were also qualities of leadership for the time. Cyrus was also a great leader because he exhibited both mercy and justice which I feel like was not common during that time (this is based off the few stories I have read about the time period, which may have been fictional). After reading the story, I read an article about it (which I will attach at the bottom) to help me solidify some ideas in the story and further understand the story. The article said “While he with the other Persians boys “learned justice” the way most boys learn grammar, meaning they learned to be lawful”. This quote helped me to understand why Cyrus may have been more just and merciful than other leaders of the time.
I do believe that Cyrus is a good practitioner of leadership, maybe the best, for this time period in particular. Mostly because I feel like the other leaders of the time were unfit. The leaders were often cruel, unjust, and incompetent.
