On March 22, 2012, the first meeting of representatives was held at the Beopak-gwan (General Lecture and Law Institute Building.) The conference began brightly because the number of attendants reached a quorum. During this meeting, one of the main issues, an open ballot on the reopening of representatives’ opinions of pros and cons was controversial. Some students insisted that opinions have to be open in order to allow representatives to make more responsible decisions. Although this item was shot down with 26 dissenting votes, it gave me a chance to think about what the leader’s role as a representative is. Besides, I was impressed by watching the representatives’ passionate attitudes towards maintaining their own colleges’ profits.
Like these representatives in universities, there are a lot of leaders such as a Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of a corporation and a politician in society. They not only manage their organization and its members internally but also represent their own groups’ interests externally. Henry Mintzberg, a scholar of management, said there are ten roles of a leader. The ten roles are again divided into three categories; human relationships, information delivery and decision-making ability. The representative role was the most impressive one among the roles of a leader participating in a meeting of representatives. This role focuses on developing a network with other organizations, delivering the internal organization’s information or opinions and making decisions regarding others.
Therefore, in these situations, leaders should act carefully because their behavior or expressions represent their respective organizations. Surely, leaders cannot always put up with expressing personal emotions because leaders are also human beings. However, when people cooperate and different group members work together, there are behaviors that can be approved or not. Therefore, when leaders represent their groups’ opinions, they have to be careful and unbiased by personal feelings. While attending the meeting of representatives at UOS, I could find leaders of colleges logically insisting their request and interests, not losing one’s reason. I feel it is the most impressive role of leader during making 115th magazine.
What about you? What else role do you think is essential to be an effective leader? In the Cover Story, we will cover what desirable leaders’ image is. I think students’ opinions are different because what they consider importantly is different. Also, as previously I said, there are so many various roles of leader. What’s your opinion about leadership?