The leader Within

Chapter 17: Business Venture Project

Business leadership was one of my grade 12 courses. This course focused on the development of leadership skills used in managing a successful business. Students analyzed the role of a leader in business with a focus on decision making, management of group dynamics, workplace stress and conflict, motivation of employees, and planning. Effective business communication skills, ethics, and social responsibility were emphasized throughout the course. This course helped students find leadership potential within them and what a good leader looks like. Throughout the course students were put in situations where they had to use critical thinking, creativity and good communication to demonstrate effective leadership skills.

During this course, we were divided into groups of four and required to create our own business. We had to research and present our idea and convince the whole class to invest in our business. I was responsible for helping come up with a business idea, analyse its strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. I was also responsible for making the PowerPoint for our presentation and making sure that our formatting and fonts are consistent. I also edited and gave feedback on the research my group members did to make sure there are no flaws left.

This experience was very important to me because it changed the checklist I had created for what a leader should look and act like. When I first started this course, I thought a leader was someone who can speak their minds, be loud and dominant where everyone in the class can tell that a certain person is a leader without even working with them. Without working with some people, I could still identify them as clear leaders by the way they took charge of a certain situation or automatically became the one to set direction or a plan for everyone else. I realized that I had started molding into such a leader myself. However, during this experience one of my group members did not fit in these criteria but I could still see that she was a clear leader. This reminded me of the time our teacher had asked us if it was possible for a person to be a quiet leader. I realized that a leader can be quite and doesn't necessarily have to fit the stereotypical image we set of a leader. In few situations, quiet leaders outshine the typical leader. I learned that instead of taking forceful, direct action, these quiet leaders worked behind the scenes—quietly, carefully and patiently. Their aim is to address serious problems and live by their values. These leaders work behind the scenes but still inspire other team members to think outside the box. They also realize that sometimes things will unexpectedly break their way, so they are ready to grab opportunities. And quiet leaders also understand that, quite often, things turn out much different from what they or anyone expects, and then they are ready to move flexibly and rapidly. This is because quiet leaders see the world as a place where they can expect failures and take chances and learn something new from these experiences instead of just running behind a set goal and success like most leaders do. I realized this because our group's business idea was similar to another group's idea. But that group member motivated the rest of the team to go with our idea and make it better than the other group's. She realized that it was a good opportunity and will be beneficial for our team and decided to grab it. I realized that quiet leaders talked less, but that little amount they talked is very effective and inspiring which provides directions for the rest of the team too.