Changes

Something bothered me more than it should have. We were talking about emotional intelligence and social intelligence in class today, and i ask: "how do you induce/teach emotional/social intelligence to a person?"

From my observations, changes are made by these general steps:
1. Awareness in self and its surrounding (through observation and experience)
2. Through awareness, identification areas of weaknesses
3. Acknowledgement of identified weakness and hence the will/need to change
4. Modify behavior towards desired outcome, usually through self determination or training
5. Maintain behavioral modeling until it becomes a part of you

Changes are never easy, step 4&5 (modeling and maintenance) are the longest and most tedious, accomplishing this requires a lot of guidance and determination, it's understandable that people may fail here.

When change is not possible due to weak character/determination, it is quite understandable, but one should at least have awareness. However, many fail even at the first 3 steps: awareness, identification and acknowledgement. One cannot change when one does not know what to change. Even worse, as people grow, they tend to become stubborn as their lifestyle and thinking are deeply embedded, when problems are pointed out to them, it is like poking into their comfort zone and they thus turn defensive. Instead of accepting, they are convinced further that they are right; they refuse acknowledgement even when the identification is presented to them.

I thought I can get some new insights from a more experienced person, but it pointed to the same answer. The answer was not surprising, but still disappointing, as i was hoping that there is a way to do it. The comfort is probably that coming out with the same philosophy myself, I am not too bad, right?

Leadership

I was reading about leadership and teammate management, and I realized that I’ve been drifting away from greatness. I feel that I have been somewhat authoritarian in my thinking and leadership styles lately. My pride has made me arrogant, losing the connection with my people somehow. This superiority complex has led to selfishness in my behavior somewhat, and I’m beginning to fail to understand that the people I lead are complex individuals as humans themselves. I’m starting to enforce what I want on the team, based on my own perspective, failing to think from their perspective.

The leader provides vision and leads the team towards this vision. But vision must be built based on his people. To do so, the people must be constantly consulted. Truly great leaders adapt their strategies to the people around them and the situations in front of them. I hope I am on track for the search for greatness.