Week Two: Negotiation

Last week, we practiced about negotiation skill with partner. We supposed the situation: A wants to eat oranges because he/she is thirsty. B also needs oranges for cooking orange flavored cake. There is two oranges in refrigerator, so how can we divide?

We role played with partner, and I played A. It took a lot of time and difficult to reach the solution because my partner(Sho) and I never compromised:P
But at the end, we found the win-win solution which is both of us got what we want. Sho suggested I can get peer of oranges and he got orange fruit. Ken called it's "magic solution". After finishing class, I thought we negotiate as usual in daily life. This orange case is good example. When I spend with my family, sometimes I quarrel with my parents about who has the right to watch TV. My father wants to watch baseball game, my mother want to wants to watch drama and I want to watch documentary movie! We discuss and negotiate each other in order to find best solution.
Negotiation skill is important not only for leader, but also for all of us, I think. I realized the importance of this skill through the class.

Week Two: Chapter 1

There are two things I thought it's important for me to be a great leader from reading LEADING AT THE EDGE. So I'd like to write about it.

First, I learned leader must be both visionary and pay attention to detail from what Shackleton did. Sometimes, he showed big vision to team members so that they wouldn't lose the way. At the same time, he showed the detailed plan to members to show the new way. I think I'm lack of the ability to demonstrate attention to detail. When I was a leader of student organization, I could motivate other organizers by showing our vision, and it seemed to last. But it failed to succeed at the end. When I read Shackleton's action, I realized the reason why I failed. If I showed detailed plan for members to accomplish the vision, they didn't lose their motivation and the result might be different. I misunderstood only thing leader should do is showing vision, but it's not enough. I want to keep it in my mind.

Second, great leader should monitor other's condition and sense when team members are overwhelmed. I quote one of the phrases which impressed me most: "As a leader at The Edge, you must continually scan for people who exhibit nervousness and anxiety."(P. 27)

When Shackleton found one of the crewmembers was discouraged, he solved the problem by giving the new job of cook. Keeping people feeling busy is so important to manage team. I also tried to do that when I was an pre-representative of organization. Keep checking other's condition by talking with them and observing what they are doing. Leader must make win-win relationship between members and organization in order to keep good team.

Week One: Reflection on what we learned so far

First week was passed like an arrow. There are three things I learned in this weekーhand shakes, power pose and Social Intelligence in leadership. 



First, we learned how to shake hands. Ken told that shaking hands is really important to give a good impression to others. The key point of good hand shaking isー"Brief", "Warm" and "Firm". We practiced with class mates and after shaking hands many times, I noticed that I felt no walls to my RW friends. When we meet someone, first thing we will do is shaking hands. It means shaking hands is the first way to show what's kind of person who I am. I hadn't realized the importance of hand shaking before I learned in this class, so I want to put in practice soon.

Next, posture affects our body and mind. We read the article: "How 'Power Poses' Can Help Your Care" written by Sue Shellenmarger. According to this, powerful pose changes a person's hormones and behavior. We learned expansive power pose can increase testosterone, which give us confidence and aggressive behavior. Also, power posing improves our performance. I've never known about powerful poses gives good influence biologically. I am thinking of majoring psychology, and psychology studies abut how behavior affects our brain(mind). So I came to be interested in how power poses effect on our brain from the psychological perspectives. 

Last, we learned about social intelligence in leadership. We read the article: "Social Intelligence and the Biology of Leadership" written by Daniel Goleman and Richard Boyatzis. It explains about social intelligence and it's related to brain. For instance, we have mirror neurons which mimic, or mirror what another being does, and using it, leaders can keep positive mood in their teams and get the best of them. Becoming a socially intelligence leader, I learned showing empathy and be attuned to other moods is important. Through this class, I decided to be sensitive other's motivation, because I thought I'm lack of this skill. Being like this is really important to be a great leader, I think. When I was an leader of student organization, I didn't consider other's motivation and gave heavy task to one of my past member even though he didn't have a high motivation toward job. In the end, he decided to quit organization. Even though motivate members and make them to do the job is essential skill as a leader, I think being sensitive members' motivation is also important. Without this skill, followers cannot come with leaders and they feel heavy stress. I want to keep in mind this.

Shaking hand, power poses and social intelligence, these are essential points we should know about learning leadership. I noticed everyone should be able to get these skills after learning and practicing. These things don't require special gifts. It means everyone have a chance to be a good leader. I want to put in practice soon:) Also, I think these three points are related to "give trust to others". If you want to be a leader, first you have to be trusted, of course. I noticed essential thing to be a good leader is not only skills for jobs, but also good character to be trusted from others.

Week One: Self Introduction

Hello everyone. I'm Moeno Kiuchi. Please call me Moe or Moeno. This is my first post, so I'd like to introduce myself.


My hometown "Shin-Kemigawa" is located in Chiba, Japan. It looks nice, but nothing special. Even it looks like just typical small town, I love it. Especially, I love "Green Belt" which is long road where a lot of cherry blossoms are in bloom every spring. As a typical Japanese living in this typical small town, I have a picnic under these trees every year since I was a child.

Cherry blossoms at "Green Belt"

Last year, I decided to leave here and live alone because it took 2 hours from my home to ICU. So now I'm living in Higashi-Koganei. But I am sure to go back my home to watch cherry blossoms during spring vacation:)

My hobby is traveling abroad. Here, I want to introduce my favorite countries:)
Last autumn, I went to Vietnam and Laos. I didn't make a solid plan before visiting there, I just thought going only Vietnam. But after arriving Vietnam, I came up an idea of visiting Laos, so I decided to across the border and enter Laos. I like traveling without any special plans like this:)

Hanoi, Vietnam

Laos. I used boat to move.

Also, I visited Israel and Palestine this spring. The reason why I went there is for my job as a member of student organization(I'll explain later), and just I was interested in this place.
It was amazing experience I ever had. Israel and Palestine have a lot of holy places. Especially Jerusalem is known as holy to the three major Abrahamic religionsーChristianity, Judaism and Islam. As you know, there is a conflict between these two states. When people think about Israel and Palestine, negative images like "terrorism" or "dangerous" will be come up. In fact, however, people living there are so nice and leading a daily life like us. Hope peace will come and no one will be killed anymore in this beautiful place.

Jerusalem

Separation wall between Israel and Palestine@ Bil'in village, West Bank

Old City, Jerusalem

Last, I want to tell you about why I chose this class. As I mentioned above, I was a member of JIPSC(Japan-Israel-Palestine Student Organization), and my position was executive director. JIPSC invites Israeli and Palestinian students to Japan every summer and we have discussion related Israel and Palestine conflict(HP: http://jipsc.org/). 

This year's conference was held in Hiroshima

As a leader, I faced many difficulties to manage my organization's members and middle eastern students. I didn't know how to manage organization and people at all because it was almost the first time for me to be a leader. I learned how to do that slowly and slowly through many mistakes. Now, I think I'm better than before, but still I'm immature as a great leader. My job as an executive director of JIPSC has been officially finished this month, but I want to learn more about leadership to go to the next step. That's the reason why I took this class.

I felt loneliness because there was no one who I know in this class. But after taking classes 4 times, I noticed I shouldn't be nervous because everyone was so nice and friendly:) I want to know and talk more with you, so feel free to talk to me:DD
Grad to see you all!