Homework Assignment #6 – invictus/leadership challenges

(1) I was very impressed seeing Nelson Mandela having such a strong value of forgiving. After the 28 years he has been locked up in prison, he still had the courage to forgive the withes and get elected as the president to unite all the people. His way I really liked, was that he gave people the pros and conns of their purpose and didn’t make the decision for them. Also how he treated the other people, although he was in a higher position then them, was not different. 

Francois Pienaar also learns from Nelson Mandela and brings his team forward. Even though they were losing, he never lost hope, he still motivated and believed in his team and encouraged them to practice and practice.

Because of their engagement, they won the Rugby World Cup and the withes and blacks got united, exactly what Mandelas goal was.

(2) Every Tuesday I teach a gymnastic group with girls ages 5-9. It is a personal experience of mine acting in a leadership role. Teaching this class was a big commitment for me because being the children’s teacher asks a lot of me. I felt like being their role model, organizing, directing and always being there for them would be hard to accomplish that well. But my mind changed after I started teaching the girls; I really enjoy giving the children classes, though I also encounter challenges in my leadership.

For example I had a student, whose parents were very ambitious. They wanted their daughter to become a professional gymnastic, so they told me to let her do all the advanced exercises even if they were out of her comfort zone, because she should just try everything out. I didn’t think too much about it and agreed to bring their daughter to a high level. However when I met the girl and she was joining my class, she told me how she didn’t like gymnastics and how she was scared of doing the exercises. She asked me if I could just tell her parents that she was doing really well. But I didn’t know what to do, because her parents didn’t want to understand, that gymnastics was not their daughters enjoyment. I felt bad having to lie to the parents but also going against their daughter. But I had to stick with the right decision and that was having a talk all together and finding a new sport that she would enjoy. I felt much better afterwards and the daughter was also very relieved and happy.