THE CHOSEN ONE

MOCRITA M. GARCIA

No one becomes a leader overnight. There’s no such thing as instant success when it comes to leadership. And, the thing about leadership is this: anyone can be a leader. Even your quietest student can become a leader someday. Even the most mischievous one can become a leader.

For a leader to succeed, he can refer to his influences. They can be teachers, politicians, orators, or anyone with attitude or confidence or leadership skills which are worth emulating. Sometimes a leader is defined by the people he looks up to. Isn’t it that when we idolize someone, there is a piece of them that we acquire? Let’s just hope that the things we imitate are the good things that they have.

You are a leader not because people who chose you for that position had no choice. They chose you because they believed in you. They believe that you can spearhead the organization to reach success. Sometimes when we are entrusted with that kind of faith, we tend to be overwhelmed. Let’s just prove to those people who put us in a certain situation that we will not disappoint them and we will certainly do our best to make things work.

You were chosen as a leader, and one of the responsibilities that will be given to you is the right to choose other people who can be a part of your team. Choosing the best team members is hard, as what was mentioned in the text. For me, if you are confused on who to hire, then let your gut feeling work. Hiring people is a risk because you will never know someone’s true intention to the company and their real abilities or skills. It is not wrong to ask for help to any member of the organization on hiring especially when you seek help from a member whose opinion you value the most.

A leader is also human, and it is in our human nature to make mistakes. It is not wrong to make mistakes. What is wrong is letting that mistake define you and letting it destroy you. Yes, you must own up on your mistakes but do not let the mistake become a problem which was not given proper solution. Another thing is giving the blame on anybody. A mistake, whether it was committed by you or by your employees, should be solved by you with the help of the rest of the team. You should not point fingers and divert the problem to other things.

There are certain factors which can make you a good leader. You can learn leadership from when you were a student. You can get values fitted to a leader from the first job you ever had. You can learn to be a leader from you own household, from the community, from people that you look up to, from people who are under you. The thing is, you should have an open mind so you can get good values on how to be a leader.

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The author is Teacher III at SAN ISIDRO HIGH SCHOOL

STA. ANA PAMPANGA