updated 3/28/10
The official "Core Purpose of the University" is ÒTo transform lives for the benefit of society"YOUR ASSIGNMENT: IS TO CREATE A "PRACTICE" LEADERSHIP VISION OF WHO YOU WANT TO BE AND/OR WHAT YOU WANT TO ACCOMPLISH. It is only practice, in the sense that you can change it all tomorrow. What is important is to learn that you can indeed create a leadership vision.
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OPTION 1: LEADERSHIP VISION FOR A CAUSE, COMMUNITY, ORGANIZATION, ETC., FOR THE BENEFIT OF SOCIETY.
OPTION 2: HOW CAN I BECOME A BETTER LEADER FOR THE BENEFT OF SOCIETY? (see below)
OPTION 3: SOME COMBINATION OF THE ABOVE
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NOT A CAREER EXPLORATION ESSAY. This is not just about your career but also what you might want to accomplish outside your work roles. Whatever option you choose, remember that this is not simply or even primarily a career exploration essay. Let go for now, if you can, of your fears of not having already decided on a major, and a job, and not having planned your life.
áBOTH OPTIONS MUST INCLUDE PLANS FOR THE REST OF YOUR COLLEGE EXPERIENCE. For this essay, you MUST focus at some point on the connections or lack of them between college ACADEMICS and your leadership vision. This is especially important if you find that your extracurricular activities are the ones that are most essential for your leadership vision.
If you can make thorough and meaningful connections with ACADEMICS and your leadership vision you will then have more motivation and a greater sense of purpose for your college experience. If you can not make such connections you need to seriously consider dropping out at least temporarily until you can make them.á
When considering ACADEMICS you will need to consider your MAJOR OR DEGREE PLAN AND ESPECIALLY THE REQUIRED COURSES, BOTH LOWER DIVISION AND UPPER DIVISION: you will need to consider the relation of each and every course required by your College and your concentration or major for your leadership vision. If any of those courses seem to be simply an obstacle to you, you will need to write about how you will deal with that.
In the process you MUST WRITE ABOUT the relevance, if any, of the REQUIRED COURSES IN READING AND WRITING (such as this one) for your vision. o FINALLY, YOU WILL NEED TO SPECIFY WHICH ASPECTS OF THIS COURSE, IF ANY, HELP YOU IMPLEMENT YOUR LEADERSHIP VISION AND WHICH DO NOT.
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OPTION 1: LEADERSHIP VISION FOR A CAUSE, COMMUNITY, ORGANIZATION, ETC., FOR THE BENEFIT OF SOCIETY.
You might begin by asking yourself questions like these:
¤ What issues, organizations, or communities are most important to me?
¤ What group of people do I have a special affinity and love for?
¤ When I am most energized and focused, what am I working on?
¤ What do I like so much I would do it for free?
¤ What do I feel compelled to pursue?
With that in mind what you would say to a visitor if, pausing by the statue of Martin Luther Kng, you were asked 'What is your dream?'? Or, looking at the sculpture in front of the FAC, what would the torch represent that you would pass on to the next generation?
In the selection from Lee's Discovering the Leader in You in your anthology pay special attention to questions such as " What impact do you want to make? .... What better world do you like to imagine?"
As the image of the scallop shell below the motto on the tower reminds us, particularly important are pilgrimage goals that can endow you with a character and a compelling vision that inspires others to follow you.
Hence especially valuable are truths that tap into that which is greater than the self, truths that enable you to make a contribution to society that can be thought of as your legacy when you are gone.
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When you have some answers to these questions, ask yourself again where you would be most interested in serving, making a difference, or creating a breakthrough change (specifically which organization, community, or cause)? If you were in the Leadershape training program of the Colleges of Business and Engineering, your ultimate question for this assignment would be something like "What could the future look like (for my cause, community, organization, etc.) if I could have it way any way I wanted?"
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OPTION 2: HOW CAN I BECOME A BETTER LEADER FOR THE BENEFIT OF SOCIETY?
The basic question for this option is, "How can I become the kind of person who can lead others for the benefit of society?Ó
In other words, your leadership vision should be less about short-term vocational goals, and more about how you can become a leader in any job, anywhere, any time, and justify the state's investment in you as a leader of a democratic society. It is more about the composition of self, the construction of character that is the traditional focus of a college education, as defined by Newman below
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Personally, it should be more about the questions discussed above:
á "What you would say to a visitor if, pausing by the statue of Martin Luther King, you were asked 'What is your dream?'?
á If your life were to end now what would the torch represent that you would pass on to the next generation?
á What would you, as the old cowboy in the sculpture, Generations, in front of the Texas Exes, say to the next generation?"
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To make these questions come alive for you, you might want to begin your essay imagining a brief eulogy someone is delivering at your funeral seventy or eighty years from now: what would you want them to able to say about you, especially your leadership?
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Role Models. Take a look at the U.T. role models in your anthology and return to the selection from Lee's Discovering the Leader in You in your anthology. This time pay special attention to questions such as "Who inspires you? How would you become a leader like your hero?" Very important for many people is the section on role models and how they have exhibited leadership. What qualities do your role models exhibit that you would like to develop in yourself?
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How can I write a coherent, unified, option-2 Leadership Vision?
Begin with CoveyÕs Habit 2, Principles of Personal Leadership, pp. 96-129.
Accept ambiguity and multiplicity at first. You may well have to accept the fact that you have many different character traits you want to nurture or many different goals, ranging from perhaps one you would be willing to die for, to major directions for your future, to short terms goals for this semester. In the process, you would be well advised to quote from Dass on Òthe WitnessÓ (in our anthology) several times to make sure you are keeping the perspective of the big picture, always remembering that the trait, role, or goal you are discussing is but one of many possibilities radiating out from your center, from the core of your being. When you are considering which character traits you most want to develop, look over those traits listed in the table of contents of our anthology and review Goleman's essay on leadership and emotional intelligence.
In other words, this option focuses on the formation of your "character," that is the basic goal of a liberal arts education. In The Idea of a University, Newman mentions some of the other character traits you may want to develop in yourself.:
When the intellect has once been properly trained and formed to have a connected view or grasp of things, it will display its powers with more or less effect according to its particular quality and capacity in the individual. In the case of most men [and women] it makes itself felt in the good sense, sobriety of thought, reasonableness, candour, self-command, and steadiness of view, which characterize it. In some it will have developed habits of business, power of influencing others, and sagacity. In others it will elicit the talent of philosophical speculation, and lead the mind forward to eminence in this or that intellectual department. In all it will be a faculty of entering with comparative ease into any subject of thought, and of taking up with aptitude any science or profession. ... He apprehends the great outlines of knowledge, the principles on which it rests, the scale of its parts, its lights and its shades, its great points and its little, as he otherwise cannot apprehend them. Hence it is that his education is called "Liberal." A habit of mind is formed which lasts through life, of which the attributes are, freedom, equitableness, calmness, moderation, and wisdom.... Moreover, such knowledge is not a mere extrinsic or accidental advantage, which is ours today and another's tomorrow, which may be got up from a book, and easily forgotten again, which we can command or communicate at our pleasure, which we can borrow for the occasion, carry about in our hand, and take into the market; it is an acquired illumination, it is a habit, a personal possession, and an inward endowment.
Finally, to achieve unity you might list some of your options at the beginning of your essay, but then narrow the focus on just one of these character traits/goals or at least just one cluster of related traits/goals, perhaps using Covey pp. 109-128 to identify your center
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ÒOnly Connect.Ó As you write this essay, ultimately you will be hammering your self into unity. You will be composing yourself. The word "compose" connects "pose," that is "to place," to "con" ("together"), and its root meaning is thus "to place together," "To put together (parts or elements) so as to make up a whole" (Oxford English Dictionary).
As Newman puts it in The Idea of a University, your mind takes a
"connected view of old and new, past and present, far and near, and ... has an insight into the influence of all these one on another; without which there is no whole, and no centre. It possesses the knowledge, not only of things, but also of their mutual and true relations." Such a mind "makes every thing in some sort lead to every thing else; it would communicate the image of the whole to every separate portion, till that whole becomes in imagination like a spirit, every where pervading and penetrating its component parts, and giving them one definite meaning. Just as our bodily organs, when mentioned, recall their function in the body, ... so, in the mind of the [student], the elements of the physical and moral world, sciences, arts, pursuits, ranks, offices, events, opinions, individualities, are all viewed as one, with correlative functions, and as gradually by successive combinations converging, one and all, to the true centre."
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Make sure to include your college experience (see above), perhaps as part of some kind of action plan (see option 1).
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FOR ALL OPTIONS:
Double points will be awarded for fully documented research: for the footnotes as well as the quotes from your research. Triple points for research from print sources that can not be found on the internet.
IN ANY CASE, for the hard copy of P4 you will need to QUOTE AND CITE THE TEXT OF AT LEAST ONE ACTUAL, PRINTED BOOK NOT FOUND IN ANY WAY ON THE INTERNET, nor on our list of required books. Hopefully, this requirement will encourage you to visit the library.
Your vision for the future should be
1. focused on something greater than the self (service-directed)
2. vivid (a powerful mental picture),
3. compelling,
4. challenging,
5. expandable to include others now and in the future (a "we" rather than an "I" statement).
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At least five-hundred words must be devoted to your ACTION PLAN, and at least 350 of those words must be devoted to specific manageable goals, starting with your college years. Eventually, whatever option you choose, the essay should become an action plan consisting of stretch goals (experiments, prototypes), manageable goals (small wins, predictable successes), and timelines.
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Ÿ Stretch goals move the individual or the organization forward toward the vision. They are almost impossible (but not quite), big, bold leaps into the future. They draw not only on your passion but your ability to think outside the box, beyond your comfort zone. Nevertheless, if possible, they should have specific timelines, with objective assessment indicators for accomplishment: dates, numbers, percentages, new services, etc.
Ÿ Manageable goals are more attainable milestones that encourage you with quick wins, enabling the individual or organization to stay motivated, engaged, and propelled by a growing sense of confidence. Defined action plans and strategies for success, they are specific, measureable, realistic, and possible. Each manageable goal should begin with a first step, proceed with specific tasks, identify resources needed, and set a deadline or timeline. In your specification of timeline and dates, especially your first- step tasks, begin with your first year of college. Your first important decision may well be whether to stay in college or to leave to implement your leadership vision. Many famous leaders have left college early or skipped college altogether. To decide where you should follow that path you will need to consider how, if at all, college relates to your passion and leadership vision. See above: ÒMUST INCLUDE PLANS FOR THE REST OF YOUR COLLEGE EXPERIENCEÓ
EXAMPLES from classes with somewhat different requirements:
Preventing animal cruelty: JIN KELSI LYDIA; Saving Nature Through Writing: JENNY; World Peace: ANDREW; Saving Children: DANIELLE+ HANNAH ;Global Reduction of Carbon Emissions CHARLOTTE; Abolishment of Female Infanticide in China: JULIE C; Healing with Music Therapy: KAJAL; Promoting Korean Art: JENNIFER; Philanthropy: CRYSTAL;Promoting Integral Education: WILEY