Week 7:

October 1st, 2020

To begin our class today, we started off with watching a music video of OKGo which was interesting because I had actually never heard of their music before. Although it’s extremely different from what I usually listen to, it was interesting to listen to. The whole reason we actually watched this video was that we were talking about Halloween costumes. I actually haven’t thought about a Halloween costume yet because of Corona. Halloween weekend is one of my favorite weekends of the year because the parties are really fun and I’m able to see so many of my friends and have a good time.

After watching the video, we talked about leadership development and having more than one motivation to fuel your drive. When you are a leader and you’re trying to reach a certain goal you cannot just have one mindset. Although you want to stick to Plan A and keep your mind focused you always have to have many motivations to get you to that Plan A goal. Then we split into breakout rooms and talked about the importance of this list. I was in a breakout room with Nyeema and Obi. The list was:

1. A sense of duty or obligation

This was also talked about a lot because you need to be aware of what your task is as a leader. You need to take the job with a lot of importance and making sure what you want to be done is getting done. When I am leading a group, I always feel the obligation to make sure that everyone is doing what they need to do and it’s getting done on time.

2. Being in control or have power

We talked about this option a lot in our breakout room because having power and being in control can sometimes be a negative connotation. When being a leader you need to make sure that you’re not putting yourself above anyone else and making yourself high and mighty. This is an important step though because you need to be able to take control of a group and lead them in the right direction.

3. Domination

Domination can also be taken negatively because you are trying to dominate a situation. Domination wouldn’t be too high on my list because it makes it seem like a dictatorship where you are making all of the choices. What you go says, and I don’t feel like that should be a characteristic of leadership development.

4. Honor, Praise and Recognition

Honor, praise, and recognition can go both ways because needing recognition does not always come with being a leader. You are giving your time and energy not for the honor but out of the kindness of your heart.

5. Prestige

This topic wasn’t talked about as much in our group as the other topics, and I feel like it wasn’t because it doesn’t add to leadership development in my perspective. I don’t feel like if you were prestigious or if you were not would add to you being a good leader which is why it was at the bottom of the list.

6. Love and Design

7. Love and Humanity

8. Nurturing Concern

After leaving the breakout rooms, we came back to a classroom discussion on what was talked about. An interesting point that was brought up by a different group was having a natural connection to the group that you’re leading. If you don’t form that connection, it will be hard to be able to tell them what to do. And telling them what to do doesn’t make it a dictatorship but it allows everyone to share what they are feeling. When you make that connection, the group feels more comfortable bouncing off each other and the ideas. Another point that was brought up was reputation. As an example, we all choose Howard to attend for at least the reputation. We knew that Howard has a lot of clout of being a prestigious HBCU and the same thing as a leader. When you have a reputation of being a good leader, it makes people more prone to wanting to follow you.

October 5th, 2020 (Homework)

For homework, we completed Chapter 7 on Kallion. We had to read the Normal Heart, which was a play about the aids epidemic in New York which was spreading around the gay community. For one of the assignments, we had to think about how people see us? The different behaviors and traits of a person who is good at recognizing how others see them? Two topics that I thought of were protesting for BLM, police brutality, and systematic oppression. The other topic was the problem with diversity at my highschool. My generation especially during these times has had to deal a lot with the social issues going on so even though it’s not just me, I have a huge part of what’s going on and I decided to be a leader.

Key Passages and Discussion:

Passage One: When Dr. Brookner tells Ned that a “big mouth: is a cure for Aids

• Advocating for the gay community
• Dr. Linda (advocate for gay awareness): Athena
• She has divine qualities, marries Ned, and Felix, wise and healer, matches sense of outrage about treatments
• Sense of shame: Flaw of anger is an asset to him
• Physically and psychological nakedness
• Who and what is this character about
• Finding identity by teasing (having a big mouth)
• Political dimension to disease

Passage Two: When Ned complains about the low agency of the members of the gay community (perhaps still trying to distance himself from the taint)

• Capable of showing that leadership
• Incapable of self criticism (playing the victim)
• Assumptions about agency (stop having sex)
• Detached and superior
• Social, political dimension

Passage Three: When Mickey explains the tragedy of the ideal of promiscuity

• “Finding heaven”
• Binti narrative: savior, outsiders of the group
• Marginalized community
• Sex paves the way of gay love: can’t adopt rigid views
• Gay sex does not equal impure
• Unwilling to view new perspectives, doesn’t like being an outsider

Passage Four: Ned is kicked out the Aids activist organization

• Self awareness, knowing one self
• Manipulating fear
• Making sex forbidden
• Dictatorship over the community
• Removal as director
• Gaining a too late insight (being vigilant) during leadership to see how others see you
• Reputation/edification/motives

Passage Five: When Ned identifies himself as part of the group of gay men (mentions Alan Turning)

• Locating destiny
• Belonging to a culture
• Behaviors can work against you
• Not caring about others feelings
• Expecting too much
• Can’t work with others

October 6th, 2020

For our classroom discussion, we talked about the comparisons of all of the stories we’ve read so far. It’s interesting to see how the stories we read are so completely different, but still have all of the same themes of leadership. It’s also cool to relate different characters and plot points from the stories because it gives a deeper meaning and understanding of what leadership development is. We can also contrast different characters and themes and show the positive and negative sides of leadership development.

A contrast in the play we read this week and Binti were the different personalities. Binti is more of an empathetic type of character. She listens and takes others’ thoughts into her thoughts which is why I feel like she was taken under the wing of Okwu so easily. She was able to hide her emotions which I feel like Ned was not good at doing. He is very outspoken with his emotions and does not listen to other people’s feelings. He is very outspoken which did not help him in the long run. Narcissism is also a theme that we talked about with our leadership development lists. Ned comes off as a narcissistic person because it feels like he only thinks that his ideas are important and need to be the right option. He does not validate anyone else’s feelings and thinks that he is all-knowing.

Another topic that we talked about was the fact that Ned’s real name is Alexander which can be compared to Alexander the Great. This comparison is interesting because it seems like they both always had great ideas but no one ever listened to them. Ned’s real issue was that he was so aggressive with the way he tried to talk about his ideas it pushed people further and further away from wanting to agree with him.

Being gay during this automatically puts you on the outskirts of the group. It was something that was new and different and had not been explored before. You were automatically not accepted within the group because you are different. A lot of the stories that we read talked about how it was easier to become a leader when you are in the insider group. Being in the outsider group makes it tough for you to prove yourself but when you do it feels great because you had to do a lot more than the others. Stress and anxiety come with being an outsider which will then make you shy. Before high school, I was an extremely shy person because I was new to the school. Once I was able to stand my ground and feel more comfortable, I was accepted into the group and was able to talk more about my feelings and what I thought was right or wrong.

A question that was posed to the class was “Should Ned have been kicked out? (For being aggressive)”. I think that he should have not been kicked out of the group because you can’t always have a friend as a leader. You don’t want your leader to be so soft and caring with you to an extent because no work will be done. I like having leaders who are tough on me and telling me that I’m doing something wrong and what I can do to improve. Having that person who is pushing you will help you succeed your goals even quicker.

After class, we took a survey that was just like a recap of what we’ve done this semester so far. It’s interesting because when I first started the course I honestly didn’t think I would like it. I joined this opportunity about two months ago where I need to lead and mentor a bunch of people, while I am also being mentored. It’s interesting to see how many overlaps there are and how I’m able to use them in my everyday life. I also find myself using a lot of the techniques we are learning about in class in my everyday life. The quiz helped me truly reflect on my personal leadership development.