Hakuna Matata

Source: http://www.theguardian.com/film/2011/oct/06/the-lion-king-3d-film-review

I recently went to see The Lion King Musical and was inspired by the story. The Lion King, a story about a lion cub named Simba, whose power hungry Uncle Scar, killed his father, convinced Simba it was his fault, and told him to run away from his problems into the jungle. There are some days where I feel just like Simba, where I think running away is the only answer to my problems. And I'm sure there are days where you feel similar as well. But Simba eventually had to face his problems, and was able to save Pride Rock. And just like Simba, we too need to face our problems and find ways to sustain ourselves in tough times.

When Simba decided to face his Uncle Scar and come head on with his problems he had his family and friends, a crazy monkey named Rafiki, and faith in his strength of mind, to help sustain himself. You could say that these things were his Hakuna Matata. The things that helped him realise he didn't need to worry because he would be able to deal with these issues. This got me thinking, what things do I use to sustain myself? What do I do to conquer my own Pride Rock? What makes my Hakuna Matata?

There are three things that always get me through.
1. Friends
2. Sad Movies
3. Reading Books

Friends.
Just like Simba I rely on my friends. There is nothing better than asking hearing a different perspective on your situation from them or even just hanging out to take your mind off what's going on. And getting a hug from your friend is probably the best thing of all. My friends always find ways to make me laugh and help me realise that, hey maybe things aren't all that bad.

Source: http://youqueen.com/life/personal-development/how-to-want-what-you-have-and-adopt-the-attitude-of-gratitude/

Sad Movies.
As strange as it may sound, when things aren't going all that well I like to sit and watch sad movies. There is something oddly therapeutic about crying your eyes out to The Note Book, sobbing loudly whilst watching Titanic or balling when Mufasa is pushed off the cliff in The Lion King. I find that watching sad movies lets me release my stress and sadness. I walk away feeling clearer and can face the challenge with a more open mind.

Source: http://www.shape.com/weight-loss/weight-maintenance/gaining-weight-blame-your-favorite-tearjerkers

Reading Books.

When I read, I lose myself in another world. I imagine myself sitting and watching the whole story unfold in their world. When I read Harry Potter, I was at Hogwarts watching it all happen. When I read Twilight, (I was young, I didn't realise how terrible it was) I was at Forks High School with Bella and Edward. Books let me distract myself from what I'm having to deal with. Instead I deal with the imaginary problems of the characters in the books.

Source: http://www.futureofeducation.com/profiles/blogs/7-inspiring-and-motivational-books-to-read-in-2015

These things are what make up my Hakuna Matata, my problem free philosophy. They help me worry and stress less, and just deal with the problem head on. Everyone has their own Hakuna Matata in their lives. Identifying them helps us deal with stressful situations and sustain ourselves. So today, I leave you with a question. 

What does Hakuna Matata mean to you?

Source: LionKingSongs

Old geezer

"Youth is not a time of life; it is a state of mind; it is not a matter of rosy cheeks, red lips and supple knees; it is a matter of the will, a quality of the imagination, a vigour of the emotions; it is the freshness of the deep springs of life." Samuel Ullman

When I began university, I thought that the most important change in global issues came from the physically young. It makes sense, the youth are the future of our world, so why wouldn't their contribution be more important?

And to an extent, I was right. The most important change IS from today's youth. But youth has a very different meaning to what I originally thought.

These are people within my life, that I consider leaders of change in global challenges. Some are from organisations such as Rosies, a mission that works with the homeless. Others lead in smaller ways, such as the education of others on Indigenous Australian rights. 

All are of different ages. All are making a difference. And all of them are youthful. How can this be, you may say? Youthfulness is not dependent on age, rather it is dependent on attitude, (Landone 1988).

The old geezer- someone who is unnecessarily critical of new things and approaches problems with anger and frustration.
The young one- someone who is open to creating and receiving new ideas, and approaches problems with vigour and optimism.

When we are facing a challenge, we can come at it with two different attitudes. We can either be the old geezer, unwilling to listen, or we can be the young one, open to new things. Successful leadership is making sure the young one wins out against our inner old geezer.

"Let your passion drive your approach to leadership." Yap Soo Huey

By embracing our inner youthfulness we are letting passion drive our actions. People are attracted to this enthusiasm and will be drawn to us and the global challenge we want to overcome.

Our actions affect the people we are bringing with us on this journey towards change, and so the youthful and passion driven approach is important. If they seem disinterested we should take a step back and consider our own attitude. (Shankman, Allen, Haber-Curran 2015)

The reason their disinterest may be because we seem disinterested and are letting the old geezer win. By being excited and interested in what we are working towards, we encourage others to feel the same, (Bennis 2000).

Think about it, when you see someone who is enthusiastic and happy, it's hard not to feel the same way. Passion and positivity is contagious, and embracing our youthfulness helps us spread this to those we are leading towards change.

To get a real understanding of how youthfulness influences our ability to solve global challenges lets take a look at an example.

The United Nations contains leaders from many countries that create resolutions they agree to follow in order to help solve global challenges.

In Libya in 2011, the then current leader, Colonel Ghaddafi, began large scale systematic killing of those against his regime. In order to stop this the United Nations needed to consider R2P, responsibility to protect. This document outlines the responsibility of a country's government and the international community to protect the citizens of that country. These ideas are fairly new in terms of dealing with unjust killing and are highly contested.

In using this new idea, the United Nations had to fight with their inner old geezers who were telling them to stick with the status quo and use old policy and ideas. They didn't let the old geezer win, and intervention in Libya was allowed to occur, to stop these killings.

There is also a smaller division in the United Nations that is present in Australia called the United Nations Youth Australia.

Last year when the G20 was held in Australia, they held a Global Development Summit. Here young Australians had the opportunity to learn about economic prosperity, and could contribute their ideas on what the G20 should focus discussions on. After the summit, the organisation compiled a letter with all of the ideas discussed and sent it to the G20 talks where it was used to help guide their approach to the challenges of economic prosperity.

This initiative took advantage of the young Australians who had embraced their inner youthfulness and hence had passion and energy when looking at these issues.

We can see the United Nations knows being youthful is about your attitude, and that having a youthful attitude can mean the difference between success and failure.

When you walk away today, take this with you;
Youthfulness= attitude + passion NOT AGE
You can be a 'young one' or and 'old geezer'.

And last but not least...

Don't let the old geezer win.

References:
Text:
Landone, B 1988, Beginning Youth, Society of Metaphysicians, United States
Shankman, M, Allen, S & Haber-Curan, P 2008, Emotionally Intelligent Leadership, Jossey-Bass, San Francisco
Bennis, W 2000, Managing the Dream: Reflections on Leadership and Change, Perseus Publishing, New York
Video:
United Nations 2011, UN urges Libyan authorities to respect freedoms, ensure protection of civilians, online video, viewed May 26 2015, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w1C0BBfzxKc
UN Youth Australia, Global Development Summit - Your G20, online video, viewed May 26 2015, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y0wIB2MTGog

The lone nut

"Change doesn't happen from the top, to make change you need to let individuals take control." Felicity Ketelaar.

When we think of leadership, we think of ONE person, directing a group of people to achieve a particular goal. We seem to think that it's the role of a lone nut, ONE person with a crazy idea for change, with many followers. But in fact leadership is a team effort.

Leadership begins with the actions of one person, but ends with the empowerment of the followers. This concept is called distributed leadership. The idea is that making a change in an issue does not rely on the leadership of the lone nut, but instead relies on the combined leadership of a mixed bag of nuts. To create this combined leadership, the initiator needs to encourage others to step up and take charge when their expertise is needed.

"Distributed leadership is not something 'done' by an individual 'to' others, or a set of individual actions through which people contribute to a group... [it] is a group activity that works through and within relationships, rather than individual action." (Bennet et al. 2003, page 3)

When the initiator encourages collaboration and teamwork, and allows other people to take their turn as a leader, the goal that everyone is trying to achieve can be reached much more easily. We only need to look at Gru's minions to see this.

Dave, in the beginning is directing the minions so that he can screw on the light bulb. They fail at screwing at doing this because they are relying on the leadership of an individual. But at the end of the clip we see them adopt collaborative leadership and all the minions are able to use Dave as a lightbulb.

This example is a bit silly, but we can take a look into our local community for some inspiration. I recently had the opportunity to interview Felicity Ketelaar, who works for the Refugee and Migration Review Tribunals. These tribunals are currently undergoing a massive change, they are trying to nationalise the organisation.

The tribunals consist of two fairly autonomist offices in Sydney and Melbourne, that have very different cultures instilled into their current systems. In order to nationalise the tribunals, people need to stop thinking of the two offices as separate and instead think of them as one unit. They also need to adapt the separate cultures so that they create a unified one.

People tend to be fearful of big changes like this as they are comfortable with the status quo and unsure of what the result could be in the future. To help people feel like the change isn't being imposed on them Felicity, as part of her role as a change leader (in charge of creating a smooth transition) for the Melbourne office, has given leadership roles to different areas within the tribunals, she has empowered the mixed bag of nuts. 

People on all levels of the organisation have been given roles, from administration to higher level staff. It allows all people to view the move towards this change as a joint effort. They are able to take control of the situation and hence this process of making the change is a result of everyone's combined opinions and ideas.

"Identifying a change champion in individual work areas benefits that particular area and gets people on board." Felicity Ketelaar.

This distribution of activities to different areas of the organisation through change champions (leaders of transitioning the change in their particular area) has allowed, so far, a smooth transition, with most people getting on board. Felicity has made sure that the people at the bottom don't hold her up, instead she holds up the people.

Felicity has found that this kind of environment is difficult to create. She has noticed that it is easier to create when people are genuinely passionate and interested in the issue at hand.

In most workplaces people are all there for different reasons and so find it difficult to align their interests towards a common goal. Their different motivations make it difficult to lead them towards an end goal. This is where, as the initiator, communication and knowing the types of people you are dealing with becomes really important in distributive leadership.

The initiator needs to be able to adjust their communication style to suit the people they are talking to. This allows everyone to work towards a common goal and hence encourage them to take on leadership roles to optimise teamwork, (Carter, Bishop, Kravits 2012). 

Leadership is not just about directing a group of people, it's about creating an environment where people are not afraid to take on leadership roles when it is needed. 

Being a leader can mean being a bit nutty, but it is not about being the lone nut, rather it's about having a mixed bag of nuts.

References:

Text:

Bennet, N, Wise, C, Woods, P, Harvey, J 2003, Distributive Leadership: A Review of Literature, The Open University, United Kingdom

Carter, C, Bishop, J, Kravits, S 2012, Keys to Succes: Teamwork and Leadership, Prentice Hall, New Jersey

Video:

Michael Hughes 2010, Leadership From A Dancing Guy, online video, viewed 12 May 2015, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hO8MwBZl-Vc

Kieu Minh Hieu 2013, Teamwork- Minions- Despicable Me, online video, viewed 12 May 2015, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DvVEeoKrm48

Universal Pictures Home Entertainment 2014, The Nut Job- Featurette- Teamwork, online video, viewed 13 May 2015, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s1Rqf82zoiI

Images:

Hakimi, N 2009, Leader Empowering Behaviour: The Perspective, online image, viewed 14 May 2015, https://repub.eur.nl/pub/17701/EPS2010184ORGHakimi.pdf