C. Jewel Garcia
Department of Communication Studies, Northwestern University
MSC 529: Topics: Leadership: Maximizing Performance of Self and Others
Dr. Michelle Buck
December 4, 2021
Rise up, make ripples, serve humanity. These are the primary elements of the form of leadership I will embody. To be clear, there are many different kinds of leaders and many different types of leadership, but these are the values that are most important to my personal form of leadership. These forms of leadership are important to me because they speak most to my strengths and my personal big “S” Story. A Story is defined as the answer to the questions “Who are you?”, “Where do you come from?”, “Where are you going?” (Buck, 2021, Leading with vision and purpose). It is influenced by the small “s” stories of a person’s life. Small “s” stories are stories from a person’s life experiences (Buck, 2021, Leading with vision and purpose).
The first form of leadership I will embody is rising up to the occasion. This sometimes means taking physical action and other times means speaking up. Rising up to the occasion is important to me because my great heroes have done this. From Fredric Douglass to Cesar Chavez to Ruth Bader Ginsburg good leaders rise up to the occasion even when it is unimaginably difficult. In addition, my family heroes have done this. For example, my father always rises up to the occasion for the small things. This happened when I was opening up a bank account and the banker was making rude and racially and economically discriminatory remarks about my ability to budget my own money. My father took the time to point out to her that I was a college student with a mathematics minor. My father always stands up for the little things that really matter. I want to be a leader who does both standing up for the unimaginably difficult things and the little things that really do matter. As a result, I am committing to taking every chance I get to stand up for civil rights and human dignity. To rise up to the occasion in a difficult way I will use my platform as a dramatic writer and as a filmmaker to speak about human objectification, dehumanization, and oppression and lift up underrepresented voices. This is important work because storytelling through film is powerful since it can spark empathy and influence people. This is a challenging stance to take as a dramatic artist because these types of works are not always marketable, even though they are needed; as a result, this may make it difficult for me to have a strong career. To rise up to the occasion in a small but important way I will speak up whenever I see microaggressions in public settings. (Microaggressions is defined by Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary as, “a comment or action that subtly and often unconsciously or unintentionally expresses a prejudiced attitude toward a member of a marginalized group [such as a racial minority])” (Merriam-Webster).
The second form of leadership I will embody is making ripples. That is influencing others around me and taking influence from others around me. All great leaders are to some extend followers. Leading is the act of giving direction and following (Buck, 2021, Leadership as partnership). In addition, I believe leadership is the act of setting up greater leaders. My primary strengths as a leader are in Influencing (or strengths in taking charge, speaking up, and making sure others are heard) and Strategic Thinking (or strengths in absorbing and analyzing information to help make better and more creative decisions) (CliftionStrengths). As I stated before, film has the power to influence. For example, as a child I never really saw anyone like me represented on screen which caused me to not speak up in many cases, stifling my ability to make change. I want my films to help make an impact by setting up and influencing people to become more empathetic to others and inspiring them to become leaders and make change. These strengths together make me aspire to be the type of leader who makes a difference through advocating for others and setting them up for success. I plan on embodying this characteristic in my everyday life and through my work in film. In my everyday life, I am committing to trying to be empathetic to the struggles of everyone around me even when I do not understand or experience these struggles. I understand that putting out a message to help set up other leaders is a critical part of leadership. That is what I want to do with my art and my life. I want to use it to make ripples. A current example of how I am doing this with my art is by writing a screenplay that helps represent mental illness more accurately and helps advocate for the just treatment of people living with mental illnesses. I know that this script has the potential for having a large impact on how people living with mental illnesses are seen and are treated because it has the potential to make ripples.
Finally, I want the form of leadership I embody to serve humanity. Many leaders rise up to cause oppression and lead by making ripples that harm others. Some leaders use their skills to harm humanity. I want my form of leadership to serve humanity. For me serving humanity means making an impact that positively influences people’s lives and does no harm. To me, a large part of doing this is helping to give voices and agency to those who do not have them. That is why I want my art to help give voices to those who often do not have their stories or voices heard (Buck, 2021, Leading with vision and purpose). Stories are important because they allow people to be seen and they make a difference in how people see each other as well (Buck, 2021, Leading with vision and purpose). As a person who lives at an intersection of oppression, I know that having a story is sometimes the only thing that gets a person through the tough times. I see my work in film as having the potential to serve humanity by increasing empathy and helping to influence others to become leaders in the fight for equal rights and protections for all.
Nevertheless, I do not know everything about the form of leadership I want to embody. A question to live is a question a person lives with and grapples with that they know they do not have the answer for currently (Buck, 2021, Leading with vision and purpose). For me, a question to live about leadership is how visible does your leadership have to be to make a large impact? I do not know if my leadership has to be very public or if it does not need to be. In the realm of film, this means how much should I let go of when it comes to my creations in order to become recognized and have a larger platform in an effort to lift up diverse and underprivileged voices. I honestly do not know. I feel like I should not let go of anything I want to represent properly. Yet, I am not writing what I know is marketable for the most part in the Hollywood film industry and I am unsure if I will ever be writing those stories. If I do that would be because I mead the calculation that my work will make a bigger impact if it is seen by many. Currently, this is a question for me to live.
An image that visually displays my leadership style is water at a dock at night. The image is just bright enough to see reflecting my question to live of whether I should be a very visible leader to make the greatest impact or whether I should not be a very visible leader to have the greatest impact. The water rises up onto the land, just as I will embody the trait of rising up to the occasion. The water makes ripples as it washes onto the land just as I will use my life as an example and my art to make ripples in other people’s lives by empowering them. Finally, the water uses the fact that it rises up to the land and that it makes ripples to serve humanity by lifting people inside boats up and taking boats out to their destination, just as I will embody serving humanity by lifting marginalized voices up and helping empower them to become leaders.
Buck, M.L. (2021) Leading with vision and purpose: What’s your story? [PowerPoint slides]. Canvas@northwestern. https://canvas.northwestern.edu/
Buck, M.L. (2021) Leadership as partnership: Dynamics of leading and following [PowerPoint slides]. Canvas@northwestern. https://canvas.northwestern.edu/
CliftionStrengths (n.d.), Gallup Access. https://my.gallup.com/_Portal/Component?gssClientId=dduOMXW7d71AS3U_2BFMiMY8EiRX0WxJVn_2FHNUkaHb4okdayR4Pz6_2BetryXCC5aLQ2&gssComponentId=6872#/summary
Merriam-Webster. (n.d.). Microaggression. In Merriam-Webster.com dictionary. Retrieved December 3, 2021, from https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/microaggression