Leaders

Great leaders in history are born. I do believe that to be true, and I must disagree with my classmate Darcey, she believes the opposite. Many of us are leaders in many situations in our life, other times we belong to a group and we follow and contribute as a member. I believe being a leader is not hard, being a good leader is difficult. In an earlier post in the discussion site, I mentioned that a leader is like a parent. Brandon put that idea in my mind when I read his post where he mentioned his father as a good leader. A good parent shares many of the skills of a good leader. They are leaders, they need good communication skills, they need to listen to the children, they need to solve conflicts, find solutions, they need to control, direct, influence, and create good members of society.

The part that I read with especial attention was the one dedicated to conflicts, solving conflicts, skills and strategies about management conflicts. Leaders who are skillful in the area of conflicts are valuable leaders because preventing or solving conflicts is something that many of us would find in our groups. I like to learn that conflicts could be seen as positive, depends the personal attitudes toward the conflict. The different approaches to conflict from gender and culture was very informative for me and useful because we live in a community with different cultures and each culture could approach the same conflict in different matters.

The skills and strategies about conflict are points to memorize specially when trying to solve a conflict with my own children. The cool mind, the critical mind to settle conflict rationally given a better chance to solve it by avoiding some behaviors that we could have when approaching a conflict situation. Defining the conflict is something that I knew and I try to use "I" instead of "you" in every conflict. The way we said thing is important. Checking the perception, many times what a person perceive is not the message that was intended. Suggesting solutions works great. I tried this too, and it makes a person focus in a positive way in the direction of problem solving, not in creating a bigger conflict. Looking for alternative solutions and evaluate them, meaning thinking positive for a future agreement. If the conflict is evolving in negative "you" sentences accusing, believing in one perception, not looking for solutions then the problems and conflicts become bigger problems, impossible to be solved until attitudes change.