In John Knowles’ novel A Separate Peace, Finny acts like a leader by being persuasive, caring, and creative. Finny tends to show creativeness in a situation that needs it which creates him as a leader image. He can be caught caring for others a lot which allows him to be called a leader. Both a leader and Finny can often be found to possess the trait of persuasiveness. Finny is frequently perceived as a persuasive person which a leader is known for. For example, Finny explains Mr. Prud’homme why Gene and he missed dinner by saying “The real reason, sir, was we just had to jump out of that tree. You know that tree . . . We had to do that, naturally, because we’re all getting ready for the war” (22). A leader needs to be able to persuade people why what they are doing is right so others will follow. In the same way, Gene greatly does not desire to jump off the tree for Super Suicide Society, but Finny convinces him to anyways. A leader to be able to …show more content…
As an example, he once thinks of a creative idea to say that the pink shirt his mother gave him he is wearing as an emblem towards the war. Only a leader, like Finny, would come up with such a creative idea to relate it to the war as an emblem. In addition to, Finny one day does not want to play badminton because he feels it as a sport is absurd, so he invents a sport with a medicine ball that evolves around all his talents named blitzball. Finny, as a leader, creates sports and activities in the matter seconds, so all will have fun. In conclusion, Finny develops a plan for him to train Gene for the Olympics and says “Leave your fantasy life out of this. We’re grooming you for the Olympics, pal, in 1944” (117). Finny is able to create an idea to lead Gene in training for the Olympics to get away and do something not involving the war. He uses his creative abilities to the fullest when acting as a
In the novel A Separate Peace, by John Knowles, Gene and Finny have boarding school experiences during World War II. Finny helps Gene mature throughout the story. Finny is an archetypal Jesus because of he preaches his ideas to his peers, his death is similar to Jesus’s, and his charismatic personality.
In A Separate Peace, Finny, who is a fearless young man who is an amazing athlete. He is normally the one to invent something to lighten the mood. For example, he makes people in his club, including himself, jump out of a tree and into the
Many people possess leadership qualities although they don’t rule a country. Meriwether Lewis, the official leader of the Lewis and Clark Expedition has been called “undoubtedly the greatest pathfinder this country has ever known.” Just like Hazel, Meriwether Lewis led a group of followers into unknown territory. The two guides faced many difficult situations that they were able to overcome since they had the qualities of a notable leader. Both of the journeys were rough, but because of the brave leaders both expeditions were successful.
“On leadership” was written by John W. Gardner (The Free Press, New York, 1990). He used seventeen chapters to explain and describe essential components for the leadership should be in a successful organization. This book not only has significant influence now, but also for the future. Below are my understanding about this book, which was divided into two parts. For the first part, I will pick up some perspectives which influence me most from this book. For the second part, which is my comments and critique about this book.
Along with their friends, Gene and Finny play games and joke about the war instead of taking it seriously and preparing for it. Finny organizes the Winter Carnival, invents the game of Blitz Ball, and encourages his friends to have a snowball fight. When Gene looks back on that day of the Winter Carnival, he says, "---it was this liberation we had torn from the gray encroachments of 1943, the escape we had concocted, this afternoon of momentary, illusory, special and separate peace" (Knowles, 832). As he watches the snowball fight, Gene thinks to himself, "There they all were now, the cream of the school, the lights and leaders of the senior class, with their high IQs and expensive shoes, as Brinker had said, pasting each other with snowballs"(843). Another of the principal themes in this novel is the theme of maturity.
To begin with, as I described the first thematic pattern, I mentioned that Gene was the cause of Finny breaking his leg. When Finny broke his leg, the doctor told him he would never be able to be the athlete he once was, and that piece of information was heavy-hearted for him to hear. Finny basically lived as an athlete. He would always play games, make up new ones, as long as they weren’t competitive, and as long as there wasn’t a winner. Finny liked games where no one won and lost, just like the game he made up, “Blitzball”. In “Blitzball”, you would catch a medicine ball, and everyone else playing in the game would try to run and tackle you down, so you either ran away, or passed the ball to someone else. Now without a healthy leg, Finny would never be able to do that again, and he would never be able to be the way he wants himself to be. When Finny began to train Gene, it wasn’t because that he was a good friend and that he needed someone to take Finny’s place. The main reason Finny trained Gene for the 1944 Olympics, was because he wanted to share his dream of the 1944 Olympics that he would originally train for. In fact, Finny trains Gene as if Gene were a part of Finny, giving Finny an immense amount of joy and satisfaction when looking at Gene, or basically looking at himself. As mentioned in the first
According to Ken Blanchard, “In the past a leader was a boss. Today’s leaders must be partners with their people. They no longer can lead solely based on potential power”.
There are almost as many definitions of leadership as there are persons who have attempted to define leadership (Stogdill, 1974). Therefore, it is very difficult to understand what leadership actually is. According to John Sculley leadership revolves around vision and ideas and has to do more with inspiring people towards direction and goal. A leader is a person capable of inspiring other people to do things without sitting on top of them with a checklist. Precisely, leadership is a process whereby an individual influences a group of individuals to achieve a desired goal (Northouse, 2012). Distinguishing between leaders and non-leaders is hard as there exists no clear understanding of what differentiates leaders from non-leaders. Leadership and authority are constructed socially by superiors and subordinates, followers and peers.
Our world is filled with many successful leaders. The gift of being a leader can be learned; however some individuals have a natural born talent to be a leader. Each leader has his or her own unique leadership style. The gift of being a leader can be learned. Certain individuals are born with a charismatic style and can easily be a leader. A successful leader is one who can inspire and motivate people towards a goal. Martin Luther King Jr. was an individual with a born gift to lead people. The following paper will discuss how Martin Luther King Jr. was able to inspire and motivate people with his effective leadership style.
“A leader or a man of action in a crisis almost always acts subconsciously and then thinks of the reasons for his action.” (Jawaharlal Nehru) Leaders throughout history have been idolized as the magnificent humans with the ability to sway the heart of man with both silent and thunderous footsteps. One such man being Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Shakespeare dictates that a leader is cunning, sharp minded, and a caring person who is prepared to dedicate their life to a goal and to the people they care for; the reason be “right” or “wrong”.
Throughout this class, we learned that leadership can be defined in many ways by different authors. The definitions depend on many things and different variables. One way of we can attempt to define is through characteristics of the leader, the followers, and the situation (Yukl, 2013). Yukl, 2013 defines leadership as being “the process of influencing others to understand and agree about what needs to be done and how to do it, and the process of facilitating individual and collective efforts to accomplish shared objectives” (Yukl, 2013 p.7). The character of the leader influences situations and followers in different ways. The characteristics of the followers also call for a different type of leadership style
When Finny trains Gene for the 1944 Olympics, Gene becomes more mature. Through Finny's coaching of Gene, Gene acquires many characteristics of the already grown-up Fi...
Leadership describes a characteristic that often helps others that need guidance. A true leader exemplifies strong initiative and notably different from others. A leader starts something new for people to try out instead of old traditions. Being a good leader helps prevent bad things from happening. If a person conducts themselves as a follower that person places themselves at risk of participating in the wrong thing. Followers cause harm to many people in Shirley Jackson’s “Lottery”, the villagers follow their leaders by practicing the same old traditions that cause harm or even death. People need leaders instead of followers. Followers potentially get hurt by following the wrong leadership.
The term ‘leadership’ has no definition, for it is defined different ways in the minds of people. A leader will ingrain a sense of positivity and necessity towards the set goal using the power of written and spoken word. The qualities of a leader differentiate between between each society.
A great leader expresses unbreakable confidence in even the most extreme circumstances. People are naturally attracted to leadership because it signifies assurance. For this reason, leaders are great at gathering people into their cause. When a great leader stands up for something he or she believes in they send others into a state of awe. A great example of expressing pure confidence would be the daring Martin Luther King Jr. when he stood up for civil rights. Although his life was