“I continue to explore ways to speak out while simultaneously implicating, rather than distancing, myself in the process. In other words, I am learning to speak not as an ‘authority,’ but as a learner, and to speak with humility as someone also implicated in the dynamics that I am simultaneously trying to undermine” (Russo 47).
I’m sure that many of us have been in a situation where you thought you were doing the right thing for someone, but then having everything blow up in your face when you realize that this individual (or group) did not want your help. Being an athlete that has always tried to help the new guys learn how things are done on the team, I never really took into consideration who they were or what kind of background they came from before joining the team. During my Junior year of high school, finally being an upperclassmen and having some type of authority on the team was something I didn’t know how to use at first. I thought that I would be able to tell the underclassmen how things are done and expect them to follow what I had to say. Little did I know, I became that guy on the team who thought he knew it all and was eventually brushed off. While I was trying to help, the manner in which I tried put a separation between myself and the rest of the team. After realizing who I had become, I took a step back to think about what I was doing and what I needed to do to become a better teammate. I put myself in their shoes and thought that I would hate the guy that tried to tell me what to do without actually doing it myself. From then on, trying to not be so much of the “authority” figure I was but becoming someone that had to go through the same trials as my teammates created that leader role that I was striving for. Later on in my life, I came across a TedTalk that talked about leadership. Bob Davids, the speaker, gave an example about how leadership worked for Dwight Eisenhower during WWII. Eisenhower’s example of how a chain would react when being pushed versus pulled is something that I thought tied into Russo’s statement. While you might know what is best for others, you don’t know for certain what will happen if you were to push this group of people towards a goal, however if you were to become involved and pull them along with you towards that goal, you know exactly what will happen. As seen through Russo and Eisenhower, while you might have the best intentions to help others, that manner in which you do so will determine whether you actually help them or not.
TedTalk by Bob Davids: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQrPVmcgJJk
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