A Good leader That I Want To Follow
The leader that I want to follow is Mother Teresa. Mother Teresa, known as the
servant to the poor, dedicated her life in helping the impoverished in slums of
Calcutta, India. Her devotion and services to people in need exhibited several
essential leadership skills which I want to learn and act in my life.
Background information:
Mother Teresa grew up and involved in church in her childhood, she wanted to be a
nun in 12 and she finally left her family in age of 18 to join the Sisters of Loreto. She
started her service in India since 1929. She worked in slums of Calcutta, started
school for small children and refugees, opened a dispensary with medicines to serve
people in pain. She also opened a home for dying patients in southern Calcutta to let
the unwanted in society to die with love and dignity. Mother Teresa received the
Nobel Prize for Peace in 1979 and her dedication was praised for her selfless.
The process of being a leader:
Mother Teresa was an educator obviously. She taught in Loreto Convent School in
Calcutta for 17 years and the last 11 years as the principle. Except being a teacher,
she taught her followers skills to take care of the sick. In early times of service in
Calcutta, there were only 30 women volunteered to join her team. She then sent
them out in pairs and systematically to streets to pick up the ill. As a consensus
builder at the same time, Mother Teresa devoted herself to communicate and work
with others. She was welcomed by the government and so she built up a mutual
coordination with political parties to gain advantage in helping the poor.
The support from government changed Mother Teresa’s leadership style from
without authority to with authority. Before her accomplishments were well-known,
she adopted leadership without authority, such as charitable work like teaching and
providing medical care. After she got attention from the society, she started to adopt
leadership with authority as Missionaries of Charity has become a large organization
and so there were lots of administration works involved. She even dealt with these
works at mid-night while other sisters were in bed. Allocating resources and
management of finance were challenges for Mother Teresa after being authorized.
Pursuing her goal, Mother Teresa did not seat to wait for opportunities. She has great
determination in her goal—to help those in need in slums. Her determination and
integrity can be viewed as the traits of her leadership. It was really hard for her to
create a missionary from the beginning, but she did not fear about the financial and
bureaucratic problems. She set up the Missionaries of Charity in the year of 1946.
Relationships also played an important role. Mother Teresa called 12 nuns who had
similar goal from her old missionary to join her freshly established one. After
Missionaries of Charity was being more and more well-known, her relationships
between the authorities were widely used to gain benevolent donation and
resources to help more people in need. Her methods in obtaining resources, gaining
designation and spreading services in universe can be interpreted as a model of
multiple linkages.
Regarding to the measure of success and failure, Mother Teresa adopted a positive
attitude towards her hard times. Indeed, she has faced difficulties in her services, she
doubted her religion, and she felt disappointed with the gap between her dream and
the reality. Yet, she chose to embrace difficulties and suspicions with positive
attitude.
Leadership skills which Mother Teresa exemplified:
Mother Teresa concerned for people more than concerned for result. She
understood her audiences: politics, journalists, the poor, just lists a few. She used her
body language to show her care to everyone she met and made them felt they were
important. She once said, “We ourselves feel that what we are doing is just a drop in
the ocean. But the ocean would be less because of that missing drop”, it implies that
building consensus with others is a big goal of Mother Teresa as she think of
everyone’s devotion in a whole picture.
Servant leadership is the best description of Mother Teresa’s leadership style. Her
dedication to the poorest of the poor in slums of Calcutta embodied her clear vision
towards helping the impoverished. She acted as a servant in helping others, not
minding if she sometimes needed to be in disadvantage such as living in ragged
houses and had simple diet. Her life is a reflection of being the smallest and the
largest at the same time. Once you want to be the leader in a group of people, you
need to be humble and be the smallest to serve people.
Mother Teresa’s servant leadership has demonstrated empathy. Her integrity to do
the right thing—to help the poorest of poor has the belief of empathy behind. One
obvious example is the build-up of the home for dying patients. Mother Teresa and
her nuns take care of those who were dying and rescued them to the home. Indeed,
hospitals at that time often refused this kind of patients. Yet, empathetic Mother
Teresa saw the need of them and gave a peace environment for those who
abandoned by the society to leave with love and dignity. On the contrary, it is
inevitable that there were factors which inhibited that empathy. From my point of
view, perhaps the administration works will be an obstacle of empathy in Mother
Teresa’s case. There were various aspects developed by the missionary, for example
schools, medical care services, home for dying, missionary place for spreading gospel.
Heavy administration word load may inhibit the empathy because of focusing on
results rather than focusing on people.
Mother Teresa mainly implemented adaptive solutions. In the ever changing India
society at that time which wars and chaos usually happened , Mother Teresa
developed lots of rescue plans to help those in need. During World War II, Calcutta
was full of refugees and food supplies were cut. Mother Teresa immediately
introduced medical work in slums, opened a dispensary with medical care to ease
the emergency status. In my point of view, I would like a leader which adopts
adaptive leadership instead of just thinking lots of technical solutions. The world is
changing and we are living in an uncertain era, adaptive solutions can help us to stay
close and keep the pace with our society. On the other hand, technical solutions can
not apply to every single situation and it has certain restrictions.
Transformational leadership was also adopted by Mother Teresa. Her symbolic action
of helping the poorest of poor in slums of Calcutta inspired many people to donate
money and her behavior was touching. In addition, speeches she gave also
enlightened the public and her charisma though role modeling of servant leadership
stimulated her followers to work continually after her death.
How I can follow Mother Teresa:
Mother Teresa is a good leader that I want to follow. There are a few procedures that
I think I can follow to be like her. Firstly, a clear vision in mind is of the utmost
importance. Mother Teresa has a crystal clear perception in mind when she was only
12. So it is obvious that the basic of leadership is building of vision and mission.
Secondly, I need to have the determination to work on my own objective as this is
the reason for not giving up when I face obstacles in the process of pursuing. Lastly, I
need to apply the serving spirit that I learnt from Mother Teresa. She served people
in need without discrimination. I think this is hard to imply as we often, in a certain
extent, judge people with his or her race, background and health status.
I chose Mother Teresa as a target to follow because I have great enthusiasm in social
voluntary work. I often join programs to serve the needy in Hong Kong such as
visiting homes of elderly and holding activities for children in social center during
weekends. Mother Teresa was a role model of voluntary workers as we can see her
effort and dedication in her whole life. Being a volunteer, I am sure that I need to be
as emphatic and determined as Mother Teresa to devote myself in helping others.
Mother Teresa’s determination, integrity and selfless really give me impact and I
want to serve others as she did. In my personal opinion, technical problems are
easier to deal with, yet adaptive problems are much difficult to solve. We can “learn”
to find a solution of technical problems, but we can only “develop” a positive attitude
to serve. It is a kind of personal matter and no one can replace other to adopt a
correct value in mind. I believe that to serve and not to be served is the first step of
leadership. Action speaks louder than words, a quote from Mother Teresa is used to
conclude the attitude we need to adopt and apply when serving people: “Do
Ordinary Things With Extraordinary Love”.
References
Bose, R.& Faust L. (2011) Mother Teresa, CEO: Unexpected Principles for Practical
Leadership. New York: Berrett-Koehler Publishers.
Howell, J. P. (2013). Snapshots Of Great Leadership. New York: Routledge Taylor
&Francis Group.
Joseph I. Williams. (2003). Mother Teresas Style of Leadership.
http://itchybon1.tripod.com/hrd/id28.html
Nobelprize.org. (2014). Mother Teresa – Biographical.
http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/1979/teresa-bio.html
The National Conservation Leadership Institute. (2014). Adaptive Leadership Define.
http://www.conservationleadership.org/index.php?section=overview-adaptive-l
eadership-defined