Growing Up In The City Of Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

To lead is to serve
One inspirational global leader, William Ward, once said “The mediocre teacher tells. The good teacher explains. The superior teacher demonstrates. The great teacher inspires” (Biviji 31). These words are what run in my mind when I think about my leadership vision, strengths, and weaknesses. Growing up in the city of Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, I was surrounded by influential persons, who showed nothing but hard work, commitment, and kindness. These are the virtues that were nurtured in me at a very tender age. I was only 9 years old when I was made the class prefect at elementary school. I learned good lessons regarding implementing instructions given to me by my school teacher, handling issues raised by my fellow classmates, …show more content…
Doing what you expect people to do is the best way of encouraging them to implement your directions. Ronald Reagan stresses that “The greatest leader is not necessarily the one who does the greatest things. He is the one that gets the people to do the greatest things” (43). When a leader shows his people what to do, he expects them to follow. There is a difference between getting people to do those things because existing rules and getting them to do the same things because of inspiration found in the leader. This reminds me of a time when I had joined campus and was a member of Saudi Students Association where I was appointed a communications person. I was given the role of encouraging new first year students to practice good spoken English. The only way I could get them to do it was to speak English myself even if a member of the first years was trying to speak in Arabic. I found that overtime trend was picking and in a period of four months there was remarkable …show more content…
I will look at the society, not as a single, but as a combination of units that play different roles whose effect produces a greater good. I understand that a society that fails to acknowledge the roles that other people play will not live in unit. My role as a leader is to create and nurture that unity among people. For example if I was supervising the building of a house, I will look at the roles that artisans, accountants, suppliers, and others play. When a leader decides to only appreciate the role of the builders, ignoring that of the suppliers, the latter may decide to bring substandard material, which may in the end affect the artisans’ work. This clearly shows the interconnected nature of the world and a good leader learns to bring out the good that all people