week 4,5 First Label

Healthy Mind and the Leaders

20613 Yoo Ji Min



    In schools, students' representative accommodates various opinions from various students and makes the best decision. In the company, superiors give command and recommendation to the employees so that the company can maintain the working system. 
As we look, it can be little hard to become a good leader because they aren't the people who just carry their own opinions strongly. True leaders are people who knows the way, goes the way and shows the way to the followers; and to become a true leader, emotional health is needed. Healthy human mind is the most essential factor to be a true leaders. Leaders need resilience to bounce back from adversity, the flexibility to accommodate various opinions, and warm heart to share feelings with the followers. These are the traits of healthy minded people, and this means that the traits of them and good leader is almost the same. By researching these three traits, I could realize the true meaning of a good leader.

  
    Recently, the importance of mental health is growing more and more. The mind is the most mysterious, yet the most influential part which affects the whole body. As many doctors assert "by changing our minds, we really can change our lives.", we need to realize the importance of mental and try to maintain the healthy mind. However, as the world becomes complicated and as the competitive society people try to beat other in order to be the winner, people loose time to maintain their mental health and becomes selfish. At this point a person who makes harmonious society is the leaders. Leaders need healthy mental to make the group work well. For many years, people have watched a lot of leaders who made great contributions in various fields and thought that they didn't become famous with no reason. According to a new nationwide Pew Research Center Social and Demographic Trends survey, 80% of the women answered that compassionate is the most important factor in the leadership. This shows modern people set a high value on emotional and mental share. In 21 century, people think the role of the leader as the indicator to the right way, and attention to it gets bigger. A lot of books about leadership make hit. In school, teachers open an leadership camp so that the students can learn how to be a good leader. Good leaders such as Bill Gates, Abraham Lincoln gets welcomed by mothers who want to raise their child like them. In this case, we should know the exact meaning and the traits of leadership.


     First trait of the healthy mental that the leader should have is the resilience according to the health website mentalhealth.about.com. It has been long known that some people handle stress better than others. The more resilience you have, the less stress you get. Good leaders should overcome the difficulties and bounce back from the adversity with the resilience. While doing the work, everyone must have confront failure. It's hard for anyone to forget the memory that he had failed. However, good leader should calm oneself and restart the work to step forward to the better future.
     Second is flexibility according to an article www.pritikin.com. Here, we should clear up the difference between the boss and the leader. There's a popular words spoken by E.M Kelly, "While boss says go- the leader says let's go." Leader is a person who accommodate various opinions and go together with his followers. According to forum.woodenboat.com the two computer genius Steve Jobs and Bill Gates can be a good example to explain this. Steve Jobs was a leader who was more closer to a boss.  He was a demanding perfectionist who ran Apple like a dictatorship, who typed angry emails to his critics, who regularly lost his temper when his employees do not do enough to please him, and who felt beyond his own rules. In contrast, Bill Gates was a person just right for the good leader. He was one of the most richest, yet humble man who never took granted for what he accomplished, who wrote code for years along with his employees even despite the fact that he was of higher authority than they were, who constantly donated to charitable causes during and after his time as chairman of Microsoft, who was strict with his employees while still being respectful to them. The most notable difference is that while Steve Jobs got angry when his followers were against him, Bill Gates always respected their opinion in a low attitude. Although both of them had big role in the computer development, Bill Gates would be remembered more longer as a suitable leader that the world needs. By looking at this, I could understand why people think highly of Bill Gates than Steve Jobs.
    Third is warm heart. According to a new nationwide Pew Research Center Social and Demographic Trends survey, 80% of the women answered that compassionate is the most important in the leadership. True leader can share the blood, cry, and sweat with the followers. Here's an anecdote of America president Lincoln in his biography <The Real Abraham Lincoln>. During the Civil War, president Lincoln visited every hospital where the injured veterans were gathered. Lincoln took an approach to the soldier who was hardly damaged, looked almost dying. He asked the soldier that is there something he can help. The soldier answered he wants to write last letter to his mother and plead to write a letter. Lincoln dictated everything the soldier told, and watched him dying with grabbing his hands. Sharing the grief and happiness is the leader's main work.

    
      Everyone has different ideas. Therefore some people might say ability is more important than the healthy mind. I agree that the ability is one of the traits the leader should have, but healthy mind is more essential. There are so many people who are experts in their fields. This means that there are are a lot of people who have ability. The reason why some of the experts become a leader while others can't depends on the mental health. Think of a Adolf Hitler who was a founder and a leader of the Nazi party. Think about his ability shown in bbc.co.uk/history.  He was very professional on the decision making and fluent on speaking. Also, he was good at grasping the mass crowd. However, no one says he was a good leader. He was the moving spirit of the Nazism and killed the Jews in a very cruel way. Millions of others whom the Nazis considered racially inferior were also killed or worked to death. He thought that only the German people with no physical problems could be treated as a human. He is remembered as excessive nationalist who destroyed the world peace. Just having the ability is not enough to become a good leader.


      In conclusion, mental health is essential to the leader because of resilience that helps you to overcome difficulties, flexibility to accommodate various opinions, and warm heart to understand the followers. In 21 century leadership is growing as an important talent. As world is changing into a competitive society people try to win others instead of going together. At this moment teaching the cooperation and making the group harmoniously is the role of a leader. The reason why mental health is the best idea for a good leader is that relationship between human is the base of all the work happening in the world. Everyone wants some emotional share and mentally comfortable relation with people around them. Leader with healthy mind can lead the followers in a cooperative way and therefore the followers can maintain good relationships with each other. If all the leaders become mentally healthy, everyone can be respected and it will soon lead to the world peace. Helen Keller says, ‘Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much.’ Actually it’s not that hard to be a good leader. With healthy mind, anyone can become a true leader.