Acintya Shenoy, Week #11: Great Responsibility
It’s undeniable that being a leader automatically comes with great power. You’re given, to some extent, power over the actions of the people you lead. With this power comes great responsibility—you have to focus on growth and improvement, prioritizing everyone’s success over your own goals. The foremost duty of a leader is to utilize the influence they have on the people they lead to uplift them—that is the responsibility that Uncle Ben tells Peter about.
As someone who has been a captain of American High School’s color guard for what will be four seasons by the end of March, this responsibility defines what I do during rehearsals. My primary role is teaching people and helping them improve their skills—not only for their personal benefit, but also for the success of the entire group at competitions. How I use my power as a captain directly correlates to how much everyone enjoys their experience, and how much we can accomplish together.
Recently, a friend of mine in color guard gave my number to her friend, who was interested in joining. I love getting recruits, because it makes me so proud to see more people get into the sport—so naturally, I was elated. The friend texted my number, introducing herself and saying she had some questions. I responded back, introducing myself and saying I was happy to answer any questions.
The next day, I checked my phone, and to my surprise, there was no response.
Huh. That’s interesting. Maybe she’s just busy?
The next day rolled around—no response.
I won’t judge, she’ll probably get back to me soon.
Day after day, I kept waiting for a response. I fired out a few more follow-up texts, telling her I was free to talk whenever she was available. Still no response.
By this point, it was the end of the week. Course request forms had already been submitted, and a melancholic realization dawned on me—by this point, she'd probably decided that she didn’t want to join.
I was heartbroken. How could I let this opportunity get away from me? I like to think color guard changed my life, which is why I’m really adamant about spreading it to more people. Usually, when I recruit people, they’re pretty open-minded and eager to try something new. This was the first time I’d been subjected to something horrible while recruiting—rejection.
As I wallowed in my disappointment, I began to realize the limit of my influence as a leader. Sure, I can do a lot of things with my power. I can uplift people and help them grow as performers. But at the end of the day, I’m no Spiderman. There is a limit to my power just as there is a limit to all power; sometimes I won’t be able to get the things that I want despite trying my hardest, and I’ll just have to accept the loss.
With great power comes great responsibility—and also great humility and awareness.
ACINTYA WAIT THIS IS SO RELATABLE my dms are currently flooded with me sending application forms for an organization I’m running to either people who took the initiative to reach out to me or people I wanted to recruit myself: not getting a response (especially after they themselves took the initiative to reach out!) feels horrible. Having been on both sides of the conversation, I think we should, knowing the other person has feelings too, at least send a message saying we’re not interested anymore if that does happen. You talk about the powers of a leader, and while I completely agree with you on great responsibility accompanying great responsibility (if it’s in a Spider-Man movie it has to be true:) don’t get bitten by a spider though), I think the person on the other side of the table, in the specific scenario of recruiting as the high school students that we are, has some power over us socially with the threat of “ghosting” us. This obviously isn’t a problem for Jeff Bezos at Amazon because of the prestige we associate with it, but that may not be true for less established organizations like those that high school students lead. I really appreciated your honest self-reflection at the end of the blog, as it helped me think about the “humility” and “limit[s] to my power” I’m learning about through leadership. In your writing, your use of allusions to spider man and your honest personal anecdote really engage the reader throughout the blog and make it really interesting and relatable. I also love your use of italics to exhibit the mental struggle you were going through. Thank you for an awesome piece!
ReplyDeleteI can absolutely relate to what you discuss in your blog, but in a different context, as I teach taekwondo to kids of all ages. When I teach, I try my best to keep all of the students excited and engaged, but I've come to learn that it is only possible to a certain extent. As a female teacher that isn't incredibly strict, my students don't feel particularly scared or intimidated by me, leading to them feeling more free and comfortable. As a result, some of the students, especially the ones our age, feel as if they can do whatever they want during class, and think that they don't have to respect the teacher in any way. There's only so much I can do to encourage them to participate in the class if they genuinely don't want to be there. I can't physically force them to participate the moves or punish them in any way if they don't. It's a different story for the younger age range of kids. There's some that don't really feel an interest in martial arts, and as a result, half-heartedly participate or just act out. Maybe there are some tricks to teach that I haven't learned yet that come with experience, but I've come to realize that I don't have the power to change how they feel about certain things, like martial arts. On the other hand, there have been so many students that are extremely excited to come to class, and some have even asked if they could teach at the dojang. I've learned that although I don't have the power to influence everyone's life, I definitely have the power to influence some kids' life, which is still an amazing feeling. Like you mention, I think becoming a teacher has changed my life like color guard changed yours. Passing the torch on by inspiring others is something I aspire to do in my life as well, and as long as there is even one student who is, I'll be really happy.
ReplyDeleteHi Acintya! First let me just say congratulations on being captain of our school's color guard for 4 seasons now. That is such a huge accomplishment and as you stated in your blog comes with a lot of both power and responsibilities.
ReplyDeleteI love how you used your own experience as a leader to prove uncle ben’s iconic line “with great power comes great responsibility” but also to show that a good leader understands that they do not have the power to control everything, as much as some leaders try to. This personal connection was enhanced by the inclusion of italicised phrases which allowed me to truly understand how you were feeling as you questioned and eventually realized that she had ghosted you and was not going to be trying out. This allowed us as readers to connect to the situation you were going through and was really well done.
It is always a terrible feeling to be rejected and I hope the next time you are recruiting it is a much better experience. I loved reading your posts and can't wait to read the next one!