Article Summary- Leadership

Summary
The article that I read was called The Potential of Story in Leadership and was written by Sarah Nonoon. The article was about an alternative high school that had a lot of communication problems between the staff. It said that during their meetings there would often be a lot of yelling, people not talking to each other, or people not even showing up. This was inhibiting them of having a productive meeting and the director often had to make all the decisions. Sarah Nonoon went to one meeting to try and make the staff back to how it was a couple of year ago and make this school as successful as ever.
Impact
This is important because the students at this school should get the best teachers they can have, and since the meetings weren’t going so well before, they really needed someone to step up and fix this. The author, I think, was the leader in this story. She talks about putting your past behind you and just working now. She also talks about how important it is to be an effective listener. I think that the author is trying to reach other teachers so that if they are in the same position as these teachers, they can figure out how to fix it too. I think that this will affect anyone who is working. Because in almost every workplace, you will find conflict and whether or not it affects how you work, it is still important to resolve those conflicts. A lot of people work, and even if you don’t, you can use the information she tells you in every aspect of life. This article is about leadership because she really stepped up to help this school. Also every teacher at this school stepped up to because they realized that they want to change the way the school is running now.
Opinion of Article
I think that what Sarah Nonoon did was very good. She didn’t work with the school, but still she cared about it and wanted it to run smoothly. She worked with the faculty, even though it took a lot of time, to resolve differences and teach them good communication skills. She didn’t have to do this, but obviously the staff and teachers weren’t going to step up. I think that Sarah Nonoon, from what I can tell, is a very good leader.

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Blog Four

In the last part of the book that I read, it talks a lot about the Hotel Mille Collines, which is the hotel that Paul worked at. In a very poor and unwealthy community, the hotel was very modernistic and wealthy looking. It made sure that the people who visited would get very good rooming. That stood out to me, because you think that the town would use the money to make the families more wealthy but they are all very selfless because they put that money towards making other people's stays good.

I think that my aunt is a lot like the people in Rwanda because she has good hospitality. Whenever I'm over there, she always makes sure that I'm comfortable and she makes a lot of good food. Another person that I think is like Paul, is my mom because she always stresses the importance of education in my life and wants me to do good in school.

I think that it's very important for us to learn about leardership because some people have obviously heard about being a good leader, but don't know what steps to take to become one. By watching these videos or reading these stories, people get an idea of things they can do to become a good leader.

So far in my book, Paul Rusesabagina has continued talking about the history of Rwanda and the farther that i have gotten in the book, he has talked more and more about the present. Right now he is the late 1900s and has talked about who has controlled Rwanda and about how that changes the country. I think it's very interesting to read about how the country changes each time a new ruler is installed. I disagree with the way that the country was ruled because it had the potential to become a really successful country but instead, failed.

Paul Rusesabagina always talks about being kind and caring. “I said, 'I'm not coming with you, because so far I'm the only person who can negotiate with the killers,” (page 54 An Ordrinary Man). This quote meanst that he cared about all of the people he had in his hotel and he didn't want to see them slaughtered, even if that meant he had to risk dying.

"Eight hundred thousand lives snuffed out in one hundred days. That's eight thousand lives a day,. More thatn five lives per minute. Each one of those lives was a like a little world in itself. Some person who laughed and cried and ate and thought and felt and hurt just like any other person, just like you and me. A mother's child, every one irreplaceable." (Page 4 An Ordinary Man).

I chose this passage because I never really thought about this. I know that each day, many people die. You can hear about those peopled who die, and you just kind of shake it off becaues you didn't know them, or anyone that knew them. But if you think about it, they had a family, and it could have been someone you knew. I wonder what murderers would do if they took the time to think about the person they're gonna kill and thought about they're life.

A time I had to make an ethical descision was when my friends wanted to go somewhere, but I didn't, so instead I went home. It was boring being at home well my friends were having fun, but I knew I made the right descision.

Since my last post, not a lot has really happened. The author has continued to talk about the history of Rwanda, and about how the conflicts of the Hutus and Tutsis came to be. It talks about it's neighboring country and how when something happens in one country, it almost always happens in the other country too.

My views haven't really changed since I last read the book. I still think that what Paul Resusabagina did was very good, and he is a very good ethical leader.

I think that a time I was put into a leadership position when I was in student senate in middle school. Back then it was pretty cool to be in student senate, and the first year, people acually did speeches and tried really hard. I thought it was neat how I got to be on it and make a lot of decisions about fundraisers and our middle school dance. There were only four people in my grade that were on it, so to be chosen I felt was a pretty good leadership role. I feel like I did okay in this position, I could have done better. I missed some of the meetings, but I still helped out. I don't think I would change any decisions that we did because I felt like they were pretty succesful for a middle schooler to do.

Well I haven't really got to the main part of the book, where Paul saves the people in the hotel. But in his childhood, he was a leader too. Since he was the first person in his school, it was a big step for him. "Each day I walked a mile up the hills to my school." (Page 13). He could have easily followed his parents and older siblings footsteps and not gotten a good education, but instead he wanted to change and even if it was hard at first. He said that it definitely paid off in the end.

First Blog

The book I read was about Hotel Rwanda, and it's the autobiography of the guy who ran the hotel. When he was briefly describing the genocide, it shocked me because of how bad it really was. He was the first person in his family to learn how to read and write and I thought that that was pretty cool because even though his family didn't have a lot of money, they knew how important education was.
It kind of reminded me of some people that you meet, that are very welcoming and make you come in their house and have good hospitality. In Rwanda, you always welcome people into your home, and so that is why Paul Resusabagina welcomed all of those people into his hotel, even though he would have been killed by the other Hutu people.

My Post

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