harris west point commencement speech

harris west point commencement speech

The Importance of Leadership and Service

1. Setting the Foundation: The Role of Leadership

It is often difficult to delineate between a leader and a follower, or to understand why one is chosen over the other in a particular role. The best framework that I have found is in the IHKP management course, which explains that in any situation there are certain tasks that need to be done, and these tasks are allocated to certain individuals. With reference to these tasks, a leader will be the person responsible for one or more of these tasks or objectives. So my first realization in understanding leadership was that if you want to be a leader, you need to show an ability and willingness to take responsibilities and tasks. This seems like an obvious statement, but in reality the world is full of people shielding away from a task for the fear of failure, or to take on higher responsibility for the lack of comfort or challenge in their current situation. It is in fact the words “willingness to” where leadership qualities are shown.

People don’t often stop to examine the importance of leadership. It is taken for granted, and it is assumed that, at some point or another, a person in a position of authority will have the capability to lead. But never has it been more apparent to me than in the past year, that good leadership can mean the difference between success and failure, and great leadership can make the difference between an ordinary and an extraordinary outcome.

2. The Power of Service: Making a Difference

Service is not just a simple act; it is a way of life. It is with these words of encouragement and hope that I began to feel more strongly about the importance of service. Service is a way to make a difference in the world. It is a way to progress and to improve your quality of living and the living of others. The National Youth Leadership Council defines service learning as a teaching and learning strategy that integrates meaningful community service with instruction and reflection to enrich the learning experience, teach civic responsibility and strengthen communities. Quite a mouthful, but what it’s saying is to learn service you must do something that’s educational enriching and lasts; then you need to understand what you did and see how it impacts the place and people you did it for. This is the absolute truth. Service is not merely doing something nice for someone, but learning from it to better the future. It is just like pulling weeds. If you pick a weed but never remove its roots, it will only grow back. By putting in the effort to remove something dirty and tiring and learning to prevent it from coming back you are doing some service to the future of what you cleaned. And what the world needs now more than ever is knowledgeable leaders to guide their peers and youth onto the right path for a brighter future.

3. Overcoming Challenges: Building Resilience

Duncan Munro, one of Shackleton’s men, said, “During those days on the boat, I have never heard him say we were in a desperate situation. He was always certain that we would reach our goal.” Although Shackleton was a realist, his optimism in the face of overwhelming odds was a key factor in morale maintenance and it is an essential part in the development of resilience. Shackleton eventually reached South Georgia and organized a successful rescue. After four failed attempts to reach the stranded men, he brought all of them home without loss of life. His courageous and determined leadership was a prescription for resilience, providing meaning and hope to his men and the will to carry on when escape appeared a futile exercise.

Building resilience is not an easy task. It often requires one to go through a patch of pain, disappointment, and failure. A defining moment from Ernest Shackleton’s failed yet lauded trans-Antarctic expedition vividly illustrates effective leadership and resilience in the face of a catastrophic change in circumstances. After his ship, the Endurance, was caught in pack ice and sank, stranding the crew on Elephant Island, Shackleton and a few of his men made an open boat journey to South Georgia to get help.

4. Embracing Diversity: Strength in Unity

A wealth of experience has led Paula Leitz from a career primarily in psychiatric nursing to her current passion as a Scouts Canada volunteer developing training and opportunities for young people. Paula has been involved with Scouts Canada for the past 25 years in both the volunteer and professional capacity and has held a variety of roles, all of which have led to her current volunteer position as National Leader Trainer for the Scouts Canada Youth Spokesperson Program. Throughout her experiences with the youth, Paula has developed her understanding of the power of youth leadership and the importance of giving young people a voice and the skills they need to address issues in their own communities and around the world. This better understanding of youth capacities and a belief that youth are the leaders of today and tomorrow has brought Paula to her current volunteer position. Paula’s variety of life experiences, coupled with constant learning from others, has pointed her in the direction of servant leadership as a means to affect social change. Now taking GRS online courses, Paula has recently become a team captain for a GRS HIV/AIDS awareness and fundraising campaign focusing on children orphaned by AIDS in Africa. With a background of a myriad of life experiences and an improving understanding of leadership and service, there may be no better individuals to lead GRS into the future.

The interest in his leadership and service was sparked by John’s experiences as a teenager in a hosted program, Where There Be Dragons. His excursion led them through Bolivia, where he saw the poorest of the grassroots communities. They stayed with many families and spoke about local issues. His experiences and those powerful connections with all those he met were so moving that he has taken his communities and families within the US. This compelled him down the path of servant leadership with Grassroots Soccer. During his college years, John broadened his commitment to leadership and service with a focus on global health and development issues. He volunteered and interned with a variety of different organizations in the US and abroad, primarily working on sex and global youth health. While in Montserrat, West Indies with Princeton University, he again saw the impact and power soccer had as a tool for teaching life skills and HIV prevention to youth. This trip further affirmed John’s belief in the power of youth and sport in addressing key global health and development issues. It also struck home the importance of creating cost-effective and behavior change interventions, which has been the driving force behind GRS programs development ever since. Finally, his concentration of global health at university, coupled with various courses and research on different development issues, helped him better understand the myriad of factors that can either help or hinder global health and development. Today, John is with one foot still in the global health world, and the other in GRS. He is finishing up a degree in nursing, has recently completed their work with the Montserrat Football Association on a UEFA funded project for grassroots youth football, and occasionally helps his mother Maureen with her nutrition and health counseling program B You Well Inc.

5. Inspiring the Future: Leading with Purpose

The most important contribution that leaders can make is to inspire the next generation. The best way to achieve this is to lead by example in tackling the social issues that have been discussed in this essay – whether that is through professional work in government, business, education or health, or through voluntary work in the local community. The lessons from the case studies show that the firsthand experience gained through direct community service provides an invaluable insight into the challenges and constraints faced by community-based organizations. This can only help to inform the leadership of the future. At the same time, traditional leadership of charitable organizations or direct service to users or clients enables leaders to remain in touch with those who are most disadvantaged and to better understand both the issues and the wider social and political context. This too can only be to the benefit of the communities and the causes that they serve. The wealth of personal qualities and competencies that have been identified as contributing to effective leadership are as relevant as ever when applied to the task of leading with purpose in the community and public sectors. The key for future leaders is to develop these within the right framework. Whether this takes the form of adapting an existing role, taking on more senior positions in other organizations, engaging in freelance consultancy, or going into full or part-time education and research, the need to cause positive change in addressing the issues that affect the quality of life of individuals and communities remains paramount.