Leadership for Change

Aside from being a bit uncomprehensible, there were some good points to the lecture. I liked the point about setting goals for change that were SMART-Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevent, and Time bound. In looking back on my goals over my life I have realized that the ones that I have failed to reach have had missing parts of SMART. If it was not time bound I felt like I had all the time in the world and never did it. Often they were just too far out of reach, unattainable, and I knew it, but forged ahead into failure anyway. Ambiguity is probably the wost of them all for me. Now that I know all the things to look for I think that I will be better able to make changes.
The concept about the vital behavior was also a good point (even if I couldn't look at the slide for fear of passing out at the sight of the worm). It was like what I discovered when I was reading my leadership book. When you fix one small thing you can solve a larger problem. If you try to think of a positive aspect about a person that is getting on your nerves you will have more love for them, more tolerance, and be in a better mood that will make you less likely to get annoyed again so easily.
Leadership really is all about change, trying to make things better. The best kind of leadership is a selfless one where you try to change yourself and processes so that others benefit and things are better. You can't force others to change but you can influence them to change themselves. If it is done in love and with real concern for their well being it works so much better than when you try to force change upon them. In fact forcing only makes them more stubborn in their position to not change at all. I liked the quote she had on her first slide: "I haven't the slightest idea how to change people, but I keep a long list of prospective candidates in case I should ever figure it out." -David Sedaris. Sometimes we wish we could change everyone to our benefit, but a more appropriate and attainable goal is to change ourselves, our own perspective and behaviors.
I can understand the three areas of influence that are: personal, social, and structural and all the importance of using them all when appropriate. At times we need to connect to someone on a personally level, connect to the things that they can do and what they believe in to make changes and at other times more influence is need by social and peer groups that are looked up to. Structural has always been my first thought when it came to change, but I now agree that rewards and discipline should not be the first line of defense, but the last. There are other and better ways to make change-having people want to change on their own for their own reasons. As Eisenhower said, "Leadership is the knack of getting somebody to do something because they want to." I hope that as a leader I can inspire people, including myself, to make good changes in life that benefit others.