IV. Developing a Leadership Autobiography
Marysle E. Figueroa
When I was little, I always wanted to hide behind the curtains of everything. Many
opportunities came which I chose to ignore for one consistent reason – the fear of failing. Failure
has always been my number one ghost. What if it all flops? What if it won’t come out the way I
imagined it to be? What if I won’t make it? A lot of what-ifs killed all the possibilities until I chose
to rewrite the narrative.
I dumped all these what-ifs and started to translate them into Whys. Instead of asking
“What if I fail?”, I realized then maybe I should ask: “Why would I fail when I’m not even trying?”
This moment is a perfect reenactment of Morpheus’ line in the movie The Matrix, “There is a
difference between knowing the path, and walking the path.” It is not enough that we know. Praxis
will always be the ultimate measure of all.
And so the leader in me was born. I knew I had to take up space. A survivor of this amnesia
lane would be the time when I served as the Chief Executive of my High School’s Student
Government. It was a bitter-sweet experience. Equally, there were sunny days and rainy
afternoons. For some I was the best, for others I wasn’t good enough but the thing is, nobody can
really tell how something went except ourselves. Nobody said it was easy, but one thing I got from
this page of my diary was the fact that service to others is always worth it.
During my tenure, I have been a devotee of 4I leadership: Information, Involvement,
Innovation, and Inspiration. These qualities, when mixed with passion and love, are top-caliber
secrets of the world’s best leaders which I aspire to become someday. You inform your constituents
about the status quo. You involve them in the process. With their help, you innovate ways. Along
the process, you inspire people to move and take up space.
Effective leadership is about enabling ordinary people to produce extraordinary things in
the face of challenge and change and to constantly turn in superior performance for the long-term
benefit of all concerned (Charlton, 2000). I would like to think that this mantra is the starting and
finish line of this choice. I was once inspired and so I aspired to inspire others in the name of
leadership. When you lead, you unconsciously hand others your heart. You lend them your abilities
and in turn, they lend you gratitude. The sense of it all is not just the satisfaction of being
appreciated but the reality that it all pays forward. Do good to others and they will do good to
others, too. Then, Voila! The beauty of leadership is that it truly inspires everyone to be good. It
inspires the world to be better. It brings out the best in us.
Effective leadership is never a product of a simple formula. It can never be canned into an
exact definition. It is a multifaceted mirror that branches out to all aspects and stages of life. When
we initially started introducing leadership in the middle of the 1980s, we found that the literature
lacked many tenable generalizations beyond such tidbits as "leaders appear to be slightly taller and
slightly smarter than their subordinates." (Stogdill, 1948). For sure, this concept is obsolete now.
The rubric of “who shall lead” in modern times goes beyond the form. Hence, leaders of
today are expected to have substantial knowledge about management and leadership per se.
However, this does not discount the fact that form is essential. Many of us in this democratic
country view leadership as a golden throne rather than a seat to genuinely lead and we can not
blame the people as this orientation can be rooted in our fingerprints, lightyears ago when the first
civilizations were established.
There are all kinds of leadership in this world, but never the same leadership twice.
Different kinds of leaders will emerge to lead in ways different from those that we have
known in the past because different times and different conditions demand different approaches
(Apps, 1994). Mine is another style. Years after serving as Student Government President, I braved
the waves and courageously tried my leadership outside the academe. Through the support of my
family, friends, and all who believed in me, I ran as Sangguniang Kabataan Chairman in our
Barangay.
To say that this experience was taxing is an understatement. It was difficult, to say the least.
New battlefield. New people. New challenges. Hence, new solutions. I lost the game but ill-fated
though it was, I never lost the battle. My hopes were high because leadership, cliché as it may
seem, is never about the position. It is about service to the people, with or without the carved
wooden nameplate.
Despite what happened, I continued the fire through college organizations. I joined Junior
Philippine Institute of Accountants and from there, I was able to understand the deeper intricacies
of leadership. During these years, I must say I was inspired by a model called “ Transformational
Leadership”. The idea of "transforming leadership" was initially introduced by James MacGregor
Burns. His definition of transformative leadership is "a connection of mutual stimulation and
elevation that transforms followers into leaders and may turn leaders into moral actors" (Burns,
1978).
The author continued by saying that "[Transforming leadership] happens when one or more
people interact with others in a way that elevates both leaders and followers to higher standards of
drive and morality." This strategy places a strong emphasis on both the moral aspect of leadership
as well as the leader's capacity to inspire and empower his or her followers.
Constituents’ morale has always been my top priority ab initio. What is the sense of
leadership if you do not care about the people in your boat? Guided by this question, I craved a
leadership that upholds and empowers not just myself as a leader but the organization in toto. Now,
we are all fielded in different paths, and seeing them become captains of their own boats validates
the kind of leadership which I once attempted to impart.
As a grown-up leader, I now look back to my younger self, pulling from my pocket this
sage advice – that as a future leader, it is always alright to be afraid, to always be afraid but do it
anyway; to never hide behind the curtains for when the sun shines on you, you’re a fool to turn
away.
References:
Jooste, K. (2004). Leadership: a new perspective. Journal of nursing management, 12(3), 217-223.
Hogan, R., & Kaiser, R. B. (2005). What we know about leadership. Review of general
psychology, 9(2), 169-180.
Bolden, R. (2004). What is leadership?. Centre for Leadership Studies, University of Exeter.