Week 1: Overview

From the title of this course, I was imagining a class focused only in leadership, but the actual course was focused not only in leadership but also in communication, which was a happy surprise for me.

What I liked and was memorable was the video clip of Bodhhisatva.

The video clip was wonderful, but what I thought was that actually doing this might be very very difficult. Especially making one person laugh from zero. If I had to do the man who starts to laugh, I will need to practice my laughter to sound like I am really having fun. Better the laughter is, it would be easier to make others laugh, too.

Less difficult thing to do may be to try to be the second one to start laughing. It isn't hard to imagine that two people laughing are easier to join than only one person laughing. This may be related not to leadership, but team-membership.

Another thing that was interesting in week one was the advice I got from you in speaking in front of others. The advice was that I was leaning on one of legs, and I continuously changed the leg I lean on so I seemed restless and insecure.
I want to give an excuse for that, which is that I wasn't ready enough and I kept thinking what I should talk, but from now on, I'll focus myself to stand in a symmetry and stable way in times of talking in front of people.

Week 1 was fulled with new things.

Week 1: HBR Social Intelligence and the Biology of Leadership

This week, I read HBR "Social Intelligence and the Biology of Leadership" by Daniel Goleman and Richard Boyatzis.

The article was about social intelligence of a leader. Humans have organs called mirror neurons, spindle cells, and oscillators in their brain, and they are the biological evidence for leaders with social intelligence success. Mirror neurons are organs in the brain that mimic, or mirror, what others do and react as you actually did that action by the other person. So, if a leader always smile or show happy feelings, the mirror neurons in the team members will work, and the members feel as they are smiling and in a good mood. Spindle cells are cells that are used when judging something in a very short period of time. The reason this organ is important is that intuitions, or first impressions, can be said that they are quite reliable and vital. Oscillators are organs that lets humans make "harmony" with other people. It can be said that making an effective team in a good mood is not an impossible thing.

Reading this article, what I thought was that the importance of social intelligence is obvious, and this article was not something that brings me something brand new. However, in the discussion in the class, we discussed what is our weakness and strong point in leadership, which was the part I didn't read carefully because thinking about this will be very subjective and not useful. I realized being subjective is OK, the important point is to think about yourself. 

I thought that my strong point is attunement, especially listening to others. In complicated discussions, I always try to listen to what others are saying, and ask whether my interpretation is right or wrong if that was possible. On the other hand, my weakness is that I'm not good at talking with people in different positions, especially someone in a position higher than me. I often get nervous and try to say something before thinking enough. To overcome this, I think I have to relax more. To relax, one way for doing this may be just to get used to it.

This article didn't really bring me some new facts, but it was a good opportunity to think about my own social intelligence.

Brief Introduction of Me

Hi, my name is Kengo Aihara.
For my first blog post, I'd like to introduce myself briefly.

I came from Yokohama, and I live in Yokohama even now(so it's quite a long way to ICU from home...).
I belong to Melody Union and Jazz Funk Key station, which are band circles in ICU. I play guitar, and my favorite musicians are the Beatles and the Strokes.
I also like reading books, and one of the books I have read recently is "The World According to Garp".

I chose this course because I thought leadership and communication is what I want, and what I need. Also I really want to improve my writing skills.
The other courses I'm taking this course is Introduction to IR, Micro Economics, and GE Economy and Economics.

It is very nice seeing you all, and let's spend a good time!

See you in class.