Hey, its me!

A pleasant afternoon my fellow toastmasters and guests! Toastmasters International, where leaders are made. That is much our tag line. WHERE LEADERS ARE MADE. Actually, this tag line made me think twice of joining. These four words seems so heavy. Something for me personally would mean a lifetime practice continuous learning and application that would eventually lead us to the million-dollar question- What does it really take to be a LEADER?

Growing up with set of rules that has been written before I was even born has been my thing. This set up even led me into thinking that I will be joining the Armed Forces of the Philippines one day. I survived my brother’s rules, I can surely ace the AFP. Its like going, doing every day tasks with a manual. Let me give you a clear basic example. When I was taught to do the dishes at 7 years old, I was told to pre wash the dirty dishes with a running water, arranged the plates according to their sizes, silverwares and cutlery to their usage and to not stack the glasses. Upon washing, you need to first wash the silverwares then mugs and glasses and the plates. When rinsing, you have to rinse it twice again with the stated arrangement from silverwares and cutlery to mugs and glasses then to plates. After that, air dry is necessary for 5 minutes and a dry patting with dish towel before arranging to the cabinets. All that demonstration happened in our little kitchen. A week into my new task, I was observed by my eldest brother. Mind you at my age that time it was nerve wracking but pretty fun it felt like I am an adult. After some time, I came into conclusion of instead air drying the dishes I can actually pat them dry with clean dish towels and stack them on their cabinets. If it was the case, I can spare my 5 minutes of waiting. What a clever girl! But no uh! As soon as I have executed my perfect plan my brother was already questioning my at-that-time-stupid-decision. He told me to do it all over again              and this time following THE RULE. That was when I must say I have developed a love-hate relationship over dirty dishes. Sometimes I blame my mother for raising uptight kids and sometimes I blame myself of not entering the world earlier than them so I can re write the unwritten rules. It has been like that until the day they got married and left home. You see, things that has been going around like half of your life will stick around. No matter how you hate it you will find yourself doing and repeating. As I age, I have encountered things that made me realized that I should not, not that the rules where wrong but rather I can do things my own little way with the same output. Just as I have worked in a company where I am tasked to lead people and to make sure the operation runs smoothly as possible; I tossed the autocratic leadership that I was used to aside. So, girl move aside please, I don’t need you here. A slight autocratic became a much more of coaching style of leadership. Trust with one another will be a focal point. Mentoring your subordinate, the ways on attaining the desired output and rooting on them to succeed will be pretty much how I view it. Doing the daily huddle before the operations begun helped me a lot into the coaching style. Mostly it was where I got the chance to remind my team of their separate task keeping in mind that everyone will greatly contribute to the smooth take-off and landing. Yes, I am and always will be a firm believer that a person has its own expertise. It may not be viewed on time, nonetheless it will come to the surface. Everyone has the power within themselves. So, what does it really take to be a leader? To answer that frankly, I do not know yet. Well that’s why I am here.

Oh, and to add, I have already avenged my 7-year-old self. Taught a boy to the dishes like I did, coached him on the basics and let him do it on his own style but same output. Thank you !