Community Service
I have recently performed ten hours of volunteer community service. Fiveof these were at a Good Will retail store where I straightened upmerchandise and helped people find what they were looking for. The otherfive hours were at a nursing home taking care of the elderly. At thenursing home, I interacted with the elderly to keep them company, toentertain them with games of Bingo and to make them feel better about beingin the elderly care facility. At first glance, my volunteer work doesn'tappear to have much to do with leadership development. However, on furtherreflection, leadership is really about helping others and my volunteerexperiences are important to developing my leadership skills. For thisreason, I strongly advocate community service as a way to develop goo
Today's management environment is more participatory than older, top-down business models where the boss barked orders and expected everyone tojump accordingly. Bothare about the gratification that comes from helping others. Nothing ismore motivating to inspire one to help others than to actually work withthose that are so obviously in need and to experience the reward of beingable to make a small difference. The reward for the volunteer workI performed and the reward for managerial work are one in the same. At the nursinghome, my gratification came in helping reduce the loneliness and sufferingof older people and at Good Will I enjoyed donating my labor to a non-profit organization benefiting the disadvantaged. The reward for themanager might be to help an employee get a promotion or attend trainingthat will improve their skills. It really made me understand how fortunate I amcompared to others. Empathyinvolves the ability to understand the circumstances that others are in. The reward that comes from empathy fora community service volunteer and for a manager is the knowledge thatyou've done all you can do to help a person reach their potential despitetheir shortcomings. Therefore, I believe that community service isinvaluable for developing empathy. Empathy is an often cited characteristic of a good leader. I firmly believe that the desireto help others, my definition of what makes a good leader, has to come frommore than just a text book or a managerial training course. People need to be accepted and recognized for their contributions despitetheir short comings.
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community service,
nursing home,
leadership skills,
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Acceptance Essays
