Wilner Zabala
9/6/19
English Composition 101
Ms. Matyakubova
The Leading Times
Hardships births people with the strongest wills, the most perseverance, and the highest goals, they birth a leader. A leader is defined as a person who leads or commands a group, organization, or country, putting others before them self. I wasn’t a leader of an organization or a country, but growing up the only man in a typical spanish household full of women, I had lots of responsibility. Not to sound like a misogynistic person who doesn’t value women leadership skills, most of my leading knowledge that I have gained came from the amazing women in my life.
Courtesy from What are the 6 key traits of a true leader in the digital age?
With no shadow of a father figure, everything fell on my mother. Dealing with six children total was no easy task. She struggled, she worked hard, she fought for everything she had and everything she got for my siblings and me. To me she was a hero that doesn’t wear a cape, a hero that tired but didn’t stop till everything that needed to be done was completed. When it came down to it, she made the difficult decisions for everyone and led everyone to their highest possible standard. That’s how I became the leader I am today, because my mother molded us to be our very best self, stick to those who help you, and most importantly to never be a follower.
Unfortunately, around the time of my 10th grade school year my mom got sick. It wasn’t cancer fortunately, but when I say she got sick, she was sick. Her immune system was failing her, which meant that and small cold or flu that most other could push aside in order to get through their day was ten times worse for my mother.
This lead to some of her kidneys to start shutting down on her, which meant she was in the hospital all the time and when she was at home, she was always bedridden. This became a very difficult time for my siblings and me, because we felt that our mother was being taken away by something that is supposed to biologically supposed to help her whole life. We felt as our mother, our hero, our leader was going to leave her small battalion of soldiers by themselves forever.
However, my mom pulled me to the side at some point, and told me that I was the only male figure in my sisters’ lives and that they looked up to me. She told me that I had to pretend to be strong because if they saw that it affected so deeply that it in turn makes them feel even worse and make them believe that she might never come home. With tears falling down my eyes, with a facial expression comparable to people facing death on my face, she told me that I had to step up and be the man of the house, I had to become the leader for the time being.
From that day forward, while my mother was trying to feel better, I was controlling everything in the house except bills. I had gotten a job in order to help my mom with anything that she needed. I told my sisters to shower, get dressed, had to take them to a from school, and cook for them on most nights, tried to make as much as hours as possible, all the while also trying to finish my 10th grade year strong. It was hard adjusting to this lifestyle but it got easier as my sisters started to understand why I was being so bossy. Soon enough, everything in the house was situated, my sisters knew their roles placed by them and me having the final say, I handled big situations for my mom while she was getting better. Being a leader became like a second nature to me. Eventually mom got better and she resumed her position as the leader of the household. Those life lessons of being a leader resonated with me and stayed with me till this day.
Courtesy of Being a leader and being ‘in charge’
Flashing forward, at my job at Dunkin’ I was a regular employee, but one day the manager had gotten really sick and had gone home. So there we were, my coworkers and me in the middle of a morning rush with no manager, we were falling apart because no one knew what their posts were for the day so we jumped from post to post. So I decided enough was enough and unofficially assumed the manager’s position and told what post everyone needed to be on and to stay there, we started to run smoothly and soon got to the finish line of the morning rush. The next day, my manager’s boss came up to me and told me “I heard that you stepped up yesterday when stuff started falling apart, I just want to say thank you,'' she ended the conversation by offering me a manager’s position.
After taking the manager’s position at Dunkin’, I became the youngest manager the chain ever had. Most employees didn’t like the fact that I was young and was their superior, but I didn’t let it get to me because I know that every leader whether good or bad, has people that don’t agree with them, it just comes with the job. Plus all I would say to myself was that “it comes with the job.” A couple of years and a lot of donuts later, I decided that I haven’t gotten tired of working there and taking the unfair treatment from my coworkers so I quit.
After quitting Dunkin, I got my security license and started working for Security Services Inc. I will admit, I was a little out of my element because the only job experience I’ve had was managing coffee makers, telling them how to frost the donuts, and when to go on break. That’s the thing with trying new things though, since it’s a change, whether expected or unexpected, it makes us feel weird. Like the feeling of butterflies in our stomachs, and no matter how hard we try to make ourselves feel calm, that feeling of uneasiness is there, an earthquake running its course.
After a while, that sense of uneasiness subsided and I finally started to really enjoy work. It was the type of jobs to always keep you on your toes. The type of job that always kept you interested. Though I was new, I learned things pretty quick, always made sure I came on time, and always made sure to do my job. My boss admired these things that I would do and soon enough within two months of starting at the company, my boss made me the supervisor of a site.
It wasn’t a really big site, it meant alot to me because again i’m only twenty years old and here I am supervising a three floor bar and rooftop, and supervising 4 other guys, it felt like so much responsibility but at the same time I like the way leading felt at this point. Leading for me isn't power or superiority over other people, but being able to share my ideas and learn new ideas from my coworkers, and being able to guide my coworkers through the day smoothly and as easily as possible. I'm currently at this job, and plan on staying with this job till after college, from which point I will enroll in the police academy.
My goals in life is to be a police captain. My leadership skills have gotten me far in life, from family, to school, to my job. I have been able to apply my skills to all those aspects of my life. So I feel like I can make it as a police captain, and learn how to be a better leader than I am now
In no way or form do I claim power in every situation, most times I sit back and let someone lead. The reason behind this is because it only makes you a better leader when you fall back and learn new ideas from other leaders by the way they lead. Trying to usurp power and lead every possible chance doesn’t let a person learn what they should and shouldn’t do.
Bibloagraphy:
Comments
Post a Comment