The Last Lecture Throughout “The Last Lecture”, Randy Pausch describes some of his life experiences. There a numerous lessons that can be learned from Randy. Randy is a man who cared for the people around him, pushed them to be better and always worked hard to reach his goals. He was inspiration to everyone and truly cared for his family and his book is truly motivating. In his last lecture, Randy build the foundation of his lecture based on his childhood dreams. From the beginning, Randy points out that it is important to have dreams and goals. Goals and dreams give a sense of purpose to your life, and push you to be your best. Randy had the dream of being a Disney Imaginer and he did not take no for an answer, and during his teaching career …show more content…
Within his position as a professor he had many opportunities to push people to achieve their goals. As a leader, Randy wanted people to achieve their goals. A student that worked for him said that Randy, “rode him hard and had very high expectations, but he also knew I had his best interest at heart” (118). Randy would stick up for people he believed in and would motivate them to do their best. In Randy’s virtual reality class he was overwhelmed by the quality of the work they had produced within the first two weeks, when he sought advice as for what to do, his mentor told him, “go back into class tomorrow, look them in the eyes and say, ‘guys, that was pretty good, but I know you can do better’” (123). He didn’t limit the abilities of his followers, he motivated them to do more.
In leadership motivation is essential, and when a leader is invested in the goals of their followers, new heights can be achieved. Another lesson I learned, is the importance of having a mentor. Throughout Randy’s career he was always reaching out to mentors to guide him. In his personnel life, he and his wife were going to a counselor to learn how to better deal with the situation of Randy’s cancer. Even as a leader, there is always someone who you can learn
As an administrator, I have the opportunity to mirror this same attitude in my performance. Through classroom visits, I have to take advantage of the lessons and instruction I see to what the most effective teachers do. Regular teachers and students are often enclosed in a box and don’t always have this opportunity to see the world outside those four walls, but it is important for them to see this as well. The transparency that social media and today’s technology brings us allows the teacher and student to be innovative in how they approach lessons, not only for ourselves, but for kids and adults all across the world. Ultimately, it’s important as a leader and building administrator to remember “what is best for kids” and to allow them to experience growth from everyone around them, even if it’s from the negative
Randy Pausch was a professor of computer science who did pioneering work in human-computer interaction and virtual reality at Carnegie Mellon University. The Last Lecture which covered a variety of topics was a whimsical and impassioned speech given by Dr. Pausch truly reflecting his courage and leadership. The talk is summarized in the following paragraphs along with comparisons to the Kouzes and Posner Leadership model, and how I can take back these strong life guiding principles and put them to practice in my own life.
There are so many examples of Pausch working hard to achieve his goals and dreams in this book. As a child, Pausch stated that one his childhood role models was James T. Kirk of “Star Trek.” I learned so much by watching this guy in action. He was the distilled essence of the dynamic manager…” (Pausch 50).
“All our dreams can come true if we have the courage to pursue them.” This quote from Walt Disney addressing the concept of achieving dreams is very accurate, and can be seen throughout literature today and in the past. Dreams can give people power or take away hope, and influence how people live their lives based upon whether they have the determination to attack their dreams or not; as seen through characters like the speaker in Harlem by Langston Hughes and Lena and Walter Younger in Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in The Sun.
I spoke earlier about creating a method in order to improve the workplace for employees in order to increase the success of an organization; this is a project that requires a lot of attention to detail and plenty of consistency. Being an individual with great recognition of detail and efficiency is something that this program needs because that is what the field of Human Resource Management and Development is all about. We need individuals in this field who pay attention to the details that others may miss out on, and individuals who are not afraid to keep going after a couple of failed attempts. If you are wondering why, it is simple because these are the people who at the end of the day to make a greater difference. Simply put, I know this because I have experienced it throughout my undergraduate career at Binghamton University, through my leadership role on campus by organizing forum, banquets and on campus events and it is something I hope to bring to the Human Resource Management and Development program here at
As I have developed in my job, school, and as a person, I found that I enjoyed helping others and want to become a leader. This paper will further describe how my experiences and background have shaped the leader I am today.
I have learned valuable leadership lessons that I can use and even tell others about as well. My goals in life are vast because I want to accomplish a lot in my life and I think leading my life the right way, is important. My goal as of now, is to continue education to receive a Master’s degree in Forensic Psychology. I’m motivated to push through more education to reach my goals of becoming successful in psychology because that is what I want in life. I want to help others and be successful in something that makes me happy in life, because it is not about the money. I think knowing about different leadership styles and types will help me in the future with jobs and dealing with employers. My objectives for my future are to eventually graduate my Master’s program, get a job, and to just live a good, happy life. I will attain these things with hard work and determination that I already possess inside of me, I’m very hard on myself at times because I want to do the best I can and I think that will continue to make me successful in life. Two things I will do to continue leadership in my future are one, to obtain an internship or field experience while in my program so I can learn how to lead when I become a professional in the psychology field and two, continue to learn about leadership from my job and volunteer position at MADD.
Leaders are considered as an important part to any successful organization because the leader is not just being a successful leader but also to bring achievement to the organization and its employees. “Leadership is the ability to influence a group toward the achievement of goals.” (Robins, page 221). Leaders insist employees on entering training courses to improve the productivity, and to expand their knowledge.
It is Important to remain teachable before, during and after your leadership position. With leadership comes great responsibility. I have been blessed with a great work ethic, I was disciplined with as a Child and bringing it into my young adult years has helped me a lot. My passion has been in Early Childhood, my passion is what drives me to be the leader I want to be. Every leader should want to lead to where their followers surpass themselves.
Although there are many outstanding, albeit necessary qualities of a good leader, it is the leader’s beliefs in which greatness is given its first breath, fostered by action, and spread throughout the institution. A great leader believes in encouraging, not destroying; in setting the precedence instead of yielding to prominence ; in collaboration, not division; in giving, not taking; and in having high standards and volunteering to be the first of many to be held to them. A great leader does not take advantage of the people being lead, but instead, creates an advantage for the people by giving them the opportunities to lead. Only when people take ownership of an institution will passion be cultivated, action be taken, and greatness be achieved.
Perhaps the most important qualities of a leader are passion and motivation. Especially when leading a group for a particular cause, a leader must be personally attached to that cause. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., for example, is a legendary leader because he fought for a cause that directly affected him. had he not been pushing for a personal reason, his actions would not have been as passionate. This would have caused a lack in motivation, another essential leadership quality. A leader faces many roadblocks and opposition and thus, must be motivated to continue fighting and leading. A leader’s attitude and opinions are valued by the group and therefore, if a leader is motivated, the group will be, too. The continued actions and successes, no matter how small, which move the group closer to its goal also help its motivation and drive.
To become a truly effective leader, one must encapsulate the various behaviors related to the aforementioned course learnings in his/her persona and demonstrate such behaviors daily. This course has allowed me to identify four behaviors that all leaders must portray to be effective. The first of which is that a leader must be inspirational. To do so, a leader must set the appropriate vision and direction for the organization and provide a path to achieving defined goals. Additionally, a leader must induce the proper levels of motivation so that each employee has sufficient incentive to work towards the organization’s goals. As discussed in the class, motivation can be accomplished by factors such as rewarding hard work and providing the correct opportunities to employees. While these are motivating in that employees desire to be fairly compensated and to be doing work they deem valuable, inspiration comes more from organizational culture. A leader will be inspirational by setting a tone that appreciates each employee’s contribution, no matter how small in scale it is. Further, employees are inspired when they work collaboratively in a group setting and can capitalize on individual strengths to drive organizational goals.
Growing up I have always taken on leadership roles. I was always the organizers of group projects and was team captain of my club and high school soccer team for several years. This past experience with leadership roles has lead to me developing several of valuable traits associated with leadership. For example, I have strong communication and problem solving skills, which have helped me in my past leadership positions and will continue to be an asset in the future. Although I have had experience in leadership roles in the past, I learned through this reading that there is room for a considerable amount of growth. One thing that was a valuable lesson for me was that leaders must be followed as well as follow others at times. I have always took control of situations and tried to lead others, but now I realize that sometimes even leaders need to take a back seat and let their followers take some control. I will employ this in the future in the clinical setting to ensure that all of my subordinates or colleagues feel they have control and power over the decisions being made. This is definitely an area I intend to grow in and utilize in the future to enhance my leadership abilities. In addition, another lesson that I will put into practice in the future is building meaningful relationships with my colleagues. As a
I want to ask you guys “what were your childhood dreams?” Walk over again in your memory, and think what were your dreams when you were young, naïve, and reckless. We believed we could be anything or anyone that we wanted. We were bold enough to say it out loud, “Yes, I can go to Harvard.” However, as we grow older, whenever somebody ask us “what do you to do when you grow up”, even though it is a simple one question, we often find ourselves afraid, hesitating, shrinking back and embarrassed to say what we truly think. At last, we will answer them, “I don’t know.” Listening to what we said, the grown-ups say, “These students don’t have visions.”
"A leader is an individual (or, rarely, a set of individuals) who significantly affects the thoughts, feelings, and/or behaviors of a significant number of individuals” (Gardner, Howard 2012). An essential part of a leader lies in their ability to motivate and influence people to follow their lead. Leaders are both men and women who have the ability to influence others in a community, control situations, connect with others and persuade others to follow them or the goals they define. To be a good leader one must set a good example and make correct decisions for difficult choices. I myself am implementing leadership skills into my every day life. Leadership skills are all around us. They can be applied to any situation where one may be required to take the lead. This can be