Healthy Mind and the Leaders
20613 Yoo Ji Min
In schools, students' representative accommodates various opinions from various students and makes the best decision for the school. In the company, superiors give command and recommendation to the employees so that the company can maintain steady working system. As we look, becoming a good leader isn't easy because leader is not the person who just carry his own opinions strongly. True leaders are people who know the way, go the way, and show the way to the followers. This means that to become a true leader, emotional health is needed. Healthy human mind is the most essential factor to be a true leader. 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 and finding each example, I could realize the true meaning of a good leader.
Recently, the importance of mental health is growing more and more. Mind is the most mysterious and influential part as it affects the whole body quietly. As Dr. Arvon asserts "by changing our minds, we really can change our lives." (Dr. Coral Arvon, Director of Behavioral Health and Wellness at the Pritikin Longevity Center in Miami, 2012)., we need to realize the importance of mind and try to maintain a healthy mind. However, as the world becomes complicated and changes into competitive society, people try to beat other in order to be a winner. Therefore, people loose time to maintain their mental health and become selfish. At this point we need a person who makes society harmonious and that person is a leader. Leaders need healthy mind 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. In 21 century, people think the role of the leader as the indicator that leads followers to the right way, and attention to it gets bigger. A lot of books about leadership such as 'Developing the Leader Within You' ('The Leadership Challenge(James Kouzes and Barry Posner, 2009) make hit. In school, teachers open a 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 mind that the leader should have is the resilience.(Taylor, James, 2013) 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 confronted failure. It's hard for anyone to forget the memory that he had failed. However, if a leader gives up right after facing a failure without any effort, it affects the whole team and they won't make achievements. Therefore a good leader should calm oneself and start the work again to step forward to a better future. I was very impressed by what Steven Snyder, author of Leadership and The Art of The Struggle (Steven Snyder, 2013) said. “Struggle and leadership are intertwined… Great leaders use failure as a wake-up call.” (Steven Snyder, 2013) Actually, hardship can be used as a chance to be more successful. The overcoming of Lee Shun Shin (1545-1598) is adequate example for this. As widely known he had about 20 fights on the sea against Japan and led all the fights to the win. In the Battle of Myeongnyang, he faced the biggest adversity in his life ; he had only 12 ships left to fight large number of Japanese soldiers. Everyone thought it is a reckless challenge and even the king did not trust him. Lee Sun Shin felt deep depression and thought about giving up the fight. However, he started to make tactics and gave the soldiers training as he believed himself and his navy. He finally won the fight and is remembered as a hero who saved our country form Japanese.
Second is flexibility (Healthy Mind-Body Education at the Pritikin Longevity Center, 2013). Here, we should clear up the difference between a boss and a leader. There's a popular word, "While boss says go- the leader says let's go". (E.M Kelly, 1995) Leader is a person who accommodates various opinions and go together with his followers. The two computer genius Steve Jobs and Bill Gates can be a good example to explain this. Steve Jobs was a leader who was closer to a boss. He was a perfectionist who ran Apple like a dictatorship. He even sent angry e-mails to his critics, and regularly lost his temper when his employees did not follow what he had ordered. In contrast, Bill Gates was a person just right for the good leader. He was the richest, yet humane man who always shared his wealth and constantly donated to charitable foundation. Despite the fact that he had higher authority than the employees, he respected each of them as his family. The most notable difference is that while Steve Jobs got angry when his followers were against him, Bill Gates always respected their opinion with humanity. Although both of them had a big role in the computer development, Bill Gates would be remembered 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 a warm heart (Taylor, James, 2013). True leader can share the blood, cry, and sweat with the followers. Here's an anecdote of America president Lincoln in his biography <Abraham Lincoln : Redeemer President> (Allen C.Guelzo, 2003) . 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 wanted to write a 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. 80% of the women answered that compassionate is the most important factor in the leadership (new nationwide Pew Research Center Social and Demographic Trends survey, 2010). This survey shows that modern people set a high value on emotional and mental share, and I am one of those 80% of women. If I suppose that I am an employee in a company, I would be very happy to meet compassionate employer. Although the task is too hard to complete, I think I can endure the hardness with the heartfelt help of employer.
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. 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 the 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 the 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 a 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 said, ‘Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much.’(Helen Keller, 1880-1968). Actually it’s not that hard to be a good leader. With healthy mind, anyone can become a true leader.
Bibliography
https://www.pritikin.com/home-the-basics/about-pritikin/how-pritikin-works/16-healthy-mind-healthy-body.html#.VGiNnzSsUUf
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