An Influence of Good

Mission Statement:

“To be an effective influence of Good in a way that my actions would reflect my words wisdom and my righteous counsels, so that the people that I have influence on will be encouraged to stand for and do what is morally and ethically right.”

Throughout my 26 years of life, I had experienced leading a number of people, whether at church, school, or in a group of friends. I have been successful in some of my leadership strategies, but there were also times when I think I could have done a better job at handling and influencing people to do well. In writing this essay, I am aiming on understanding my leadership style better, through knowing the cause of my choices and seeing the effect that I would usually have on people that I lead over, and how I can use this evaluation to plan a better strategy with the help of the things that I have learned in this course, to become a better leader in the future. It is my goal to be an effective influence of good to as many lives in the world that I would have the opportunity to touch.

To start my self-evaluation, I would like to touch on the tool that I have learned available in our modern age that helps people determine their personality types and guide them to take better action in dealing with people who have the same and different characteristics as them.

It was in the late 2018 that I heard of an MBTI Test and its effectiveness in determining a person’s character traits and skills, and guide a person into their chosen career. As interested in psychological test as I was, and since I also want to know which career fits me best; I decided to take the test and go to the career counseling center to know more about my personality. I did this, even when it was not a requirement on any of my classes at the time. Even though the questions were confusing and I sometimes think that my choices clashes between each two sets of personality, with the help of the career counselor, I was able to determine that I have an ENFP personality; in which I prefer Extraversion, Intuition, Feeling, and Perception. However, when I read about the character traits of an ENTP individual, in which the person prefers Thinking over Feeling, I also thought that the description matched me well at times. The counselor then told me that this test is just a guide and sometimes people tend to adjust their personalities and develop other characteristics in an environment that they live in over a period of time. I agreed to what she said, since I have had a lot of experiences that I think affected how I perceive things, and how I act and react on things and people that surround me.

I could say that I have always been a leader in different segments of my life. Although I am the third and the middle child in my family, I was blessed with an intelligence at a young age that made me feel like I can, at times, perform better than my older sisters. I would usually try to reason and argue with people’s idea, and I think I have carried that attitude even until now that I am older. This is also the reason, why I think I fit accurately with the characteristics of an ENTP personality type, since unlike the ENFP personality that is encouraging and motivating among the people that they have influence on and that they work with, ENTP personality types tend to contest their ideas with their peers and they tend to challenge opinions and beliefs that they think were conflicting to their beliefs. Even though I am encouraging and motivating around the people that I work with, there were a lot of times when I couldn’t really help but argue and contradict an existing ideas, because for me, it gives the team an opportunity to critically think about our work and not just settle on the first or common belief that we initially have.

Although argument is a good way to encourage thinking and effective collaboration among team members, there are times when I thinking I have been over doing it, and all I contribute is opposition in our team. I have also done it with my relationship and I realized that it is not always the best thing to do. I have learned through experience that it is sometimes better to try to understand other people’s perspective, rather than just forcing them to conform to our own beliefs. When I asked other people how they perceived me as a group member and as a friend, most of them would say that I have a very strong personality, and that I would be stubborn while standing firm on my belief and standards. My friends would say that it is good to stand to what I believe in, but sometimes, it is also better to develop tolerance towards other people and accept that my idea is not always right or the best. Even my parents have corrected me on this, especially when I would always have a reason in everything that they were calling me out for, and then I would always question that things that they would ask me to do. There has also been a time, when some of my high school classmates would smart shame me for sharing what I know about a topic discussed, and they would call me as “miss know it all” when I voice my opinion.

These experiences might have affected my personality as I continue on through life, because there have been a period of my life where I have been too shy to voice out what I think I know, and when I am too cautious to contradict other person’s opinion. One factor that I believe have affected this as well was our family’s transfer from one place to another. It happened when I was on my 4th grade in Elementary. Because of a family issue, my parents decided to transfer to a province, 12 hours away from our first home and start a new life around new people. Although I was able to learn the dialect they speak in that area quickly, I was not prepared to some of the students’ attitude and personalities in the school that I got transferred to. I did experience bullying and was forced to be silent about it. That was also the place where I first experience smart-shaming from other people. I have also believed that I would never be better than some of the students in our school, because a student’s merit depends on the longevity of the student’s residence in the school, and because teachers are usually influenced by the parents in the grading system of their kids. Although I believe that the honors in our class are all smart students, I just think that I did not have a fair chance in getting those academic awards, than when I was in my previous school. I believe this has affected my enthusiasm in learning and achieving result. However, this was the time when my leadership skill was acknowledged by one of my teachers and I was given a Leadership award on one of our recognition ceremony. I have also learned to adjust and fit it with the students that I studied with, and I was able to get over the bullying, although at times there were still some students who would try to put up a fight because they wouldn’t like my personality. I survived nonetheless, and I can say that I still had developed some leadership skills like delegating tasks to people and being responsible in our report. I have also been the alto leader during this time, which has also influenced my love for music, and my belief that growth and improvement is constant, as long as a person is willing to practice and be disciplined in their chosen field.

All the while that I was learning and experiencing these things at school, I was also developing my leadership skills at church. Since I like music and performing, I have worked my way to being our ward’s chorister where I get to lead the congregation in singing the Hymns during our sacrament meeting. I think one thing that I learned in this experience is the importance of being prepared to lead, and of knowing the piece that I would be leading the people to sing; so I know how to lead them well, and so that I will not just be following anybody’s tempo or rhythm. I have also been a young women leader, and along with these experiences and my seminary and institute classes, I was prepared and went on to serve a full time missionary service in the Philippines Quezon City North Mission. Before that, I have also served part-time missionary service in my home missions in Cavite (The place where my family previously resided, and where I returned to help with my father’s business) and in Naga (The place where we transferred, and where I went back again while waiting on the process of my mission application).

During those part-time mission services, I learned to be a follower; where I trusted my trainers well and I tried to inculcate their wisdom and learnings throughout the service. And since I had this prior experience in the field, I did not have any problems adjusting to my first area during my full time mission. I have even been leading my trainer sometimes, and we even got to have 51 lessons in a week when she let me decide where we go and who we teach. However, I did not know at the time that my trainer has been having a hard time, since all I wanted to do is to go out and work, and she felt like I did not trust her enough as my trainer, and that she is not good enough for me. She might have been depressed over that, but she never let me know it. I realized from that experience that I need to be observant of other people’s personality and feelings as well, and that I need to compromise some of my standards and expectations to collaborate more successfully and effectively with the people that I work with. I was able to do it with one of my next companions and when that happened, our work was not just more productive, it was also more enjoyable and effective for both me and my companion, and the people that we work with. Although there were other times when I couldn’t adjust my personality with my other companions and trainees, I think of those times as a lesson for me right now, whenever I encounter people with the same personalities as my mission companions, and I would usually think of a way where I could have done better in our companionship and I try to apply that in my recent relationships.

And then I got here, as a student at BYU-Hawaii. Out of my 8 companions in the mission, I only had one “non-Filipino” companion, and she is a Tongan sister from Australia. I didn’t have an American Companion, except for my first companion during my short term service. I have worked with American missionaries before, and I have also taught Korean students after my mission, but I think living, studying, and working with people from over 70 countries throughout the world is a whole new environment for me. Because of this, there were times when I feel like it’s harder for me to express myself, and to share my ideas; especially when there are people who seemed to not be so welcoming of other people’s ideas at all. I feel like I have had a dose of my own medicine from when I was young.

I acknowledge that most of the students here were excellent students from their home country and some of them are confident and sure enough of their big contributions in the history of the world. I also know that some of them were born with privileges and were unconsciously given the perception that they are better than everybody else. Moreover, I am also aware that I have developed an ethnocentric thinking, and learning of all the things that some group of people did to demean the Filipino people, I have unconsciously developed an unreasonable hatred and mild hostility towards these groups of people. This thinking and feeling had actually caused me to not work so well with a lot of people from other cultures during the early period of my stay here in BYU-Hawaii. Although I make friends with people from other countries, I couldn’t help but judge them of their culture and generalize the people of the same nationalities with a person’s characteristics. I had a hard time opening up and expressing my feelings and ideas. However, as I learned to open up and get to know more people, personally and without prejudice, I was able to adjust my belief and perception towards each person that I associate with, whether at work or at school. Although there were times when I would feel a need to argue with a person’s idea and personality, I would start to think of my previous relationship and how I failed to handle a certain situation well, and I would assess the best course of action to take; and when I do that, I learned that I can actually have a harmonious relationship with other people, even if they are Filipinos or not, while at the same time not sacrificing my beliefs and having a chance to share my ideas. I learned to be more open, and from being an introvert on a certain period of my life, I can feel that I am become more and more extraverted again as I continue to understand other people’s perspective and effectively sharing my own.

Right now, I am working at the schools club dining facility, where I am the only Filipino student working with other students from more than 10 countries. I have been to this job for 3 months already, since I transferred on campus after my internship last summer, and I still experienced my “adjusting” phase where I would first keep to myself and not interact with other people unless they initiated a conversation. But I have since passed through that, and I have been able to work with most of the people in our department well, and I was also chosen by my supervisors to attend a leadership training that would help me grow in my career at our workplace. I have also been a part of various groups this semester, and although I did not accept any leadership position in any of my groups, I realized that I have worked effectively observing and leading in the background as I counsel with my group mates about the ideas that we have with regards to our group assignments. I still reason with some of my group mate’s ideas and I am happy that I get to help my team mates think critically about our topics and discussion, which makes our group projects and assignments done better than if we just go on our first ideas.

I have since been more confident to influence more people that surrounds me, especially when I realized that I am much older than some of my classmates. I believe that with age comes experience and learning, and when I learned to express myself correctly, I was able to present my ideas well, and participate in good arguments, and give good contributions that helped me and my group members become successful in our tasks. Although some people think that I look younger, they realized that I am mature enough when I give counsels and words of wisdom about life. I am glad that I pursued in developing knowledge and wisdom as I go through life which now gives my words credibility when I share it to other people. However, I am aware that there are things that I needed to work on, so I can become more effective in leading and influencing other people. I am still working on being more open and getting all the prejudices out when I interact with other people. I also know that I need to delegate more tasks to some of my team mates and encourage them to do their best so they can grow.

Overall, I think that my experiences, from when I was in my grade school years and along with my church callings and responsibilities, have given me opportunities to lead, influence, and learn from other people. And even if I think that I mostly have a competitive personality, as my MBTI result suggests, I also am capable of influencing other people to do better. Actually, I have experienced being able to motivate other people to make the right choices. Even when I didn’t realize it, I had friends who have told me that they have chosen to do the right thing because of my counsels and my example. I believe that if I learn to be more open, tolerant, patient and understanding towards all the people around me, myself included, I would be able to influence more people to do things that are morally and ethically right. I already know how to stand firm on what I believe on and use all the reasoning there is in the world to win an argument. What I need to develop more is the values that would help me become a good motivator and "influencer" through my own examples, so that when people see me, they know that I am living the principles and standards that am standing firm on. For me, that is the basis of being a good leader.

#leadership

#influence