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True North

——Bill George(2007)

Be courageous and never give up

With the development of society, leadership has become the core strength of many enterprises or teams. This book puts morality as a loud slogan to the leadership level, which is really a bright light in the night. Therefore, utility fills the hearts of the world, becoming everyone's values, and affecting all plans and behaviors¹. However, after my reading I find the thought: being courageous and never giving up. “True North chapter 1” touches me and makes me feel that leaders need to move forward through courage and never give up.

As a professor at Harvard Business School, Bill George² applied the model of Oriental civilization to the practice of leadership improvement. He is an expert in leadership development. He attended the mindfulness leadership conference together with Tibetan Buddhist Zen master Yongjin Minji Rinpoche. The main topic is to explore the role of self-awareness and compassion in achieving effective leadership. George said: Mindfulness is a state of focusing on the present, perceiving ourselves, and perceiving our sensitive when facing a stressful environment. Mindfulness leaders can understand and get along with others more effectively, and motivate them to work towards common goals. In a word, they can become more efficient leaders.

Through his description, chapter 1 of “True North” makes me feel most is courage and never give up. Courage is the choice and will to face distress, pain, danger, uncertainty or threat. Under these complex situations and dangers, the subject can still be aware of the internal power, maintain self-confidence and deal with it calmly. Never give up is a belief and a spirit which means nothing in the world is impossible and it depends on whether we want to do it or not and whether we have the spirit of never giving up. As long as we believe in ourselves, never give up and strive to move towards the set goal, we will succeed. As a Princeton student, Wendy Kopp³ developed a passion to change K-12 education. She grew up in a middle-class family in the affluent suburb of Dallas and lived in a community with little education. As a senior student, Kopp's heart is full of the desire to change education, but he does not know how to realize it. However, she become the successful leader of education with enough courage. Actually, this story let me know how to be a leader and how leaders constantly challenging themselves, we need to have the courage to face them and many leaders give up when doing things because they are afraid of failure. In my experience, How great a leader is to lead his team. I remember that when I was young, my school used to organize a basketball game in our class. At that time, I was very timid because I could not play basketball at that time. And I did not tell the teacher that I do not know how to play basketball. When we were practicing basketball, my monitor realized that I was very new to basketball. He taught me how to play basketball. In the beginning, I wrestled every time I dribble. I didn’t have the courage to challenge. I was afraid of injury and more afraid of affecting everyone’s performance. However, my monitor taught me patiently and asked me to train hard to face my psychological fear of basketball. In the face of the monitor's encouragement and my confidence, I had enough courage to overcome my inner fear and practice basketball hard. I train hard every day after school. Because I know that even if I fail the game, this is still a challenge in my life. Finally, our class won first place. Our monitor didn't look down on me or abuse me because I couldn't play basketball, but spent a lot of time teaching me to play basketball every day, which not only increased my love for basketball, but also improved my confidence and told myself that I could do so many things. This is really a very warm thing for me when I was a student. Meanwhile, under the guidance of the monitor, I learned to play basketball, and I have more confidence to try things I haven't done, which makes me a better myself.

Furthermore, when it comes to never giving up, I saw his story: Jeff Immelt⁴, CEO of General Electric. At that time, in the face of fierce competition, the Plastics Department signed several long-term fixed price contracts with major customers including American carmakers. Immelt tried to raise prices, but progress was slow, and his efforts negatively affected the relationship between General Electric and General Motors. This increased the pressure on Immelt to produce results and asked Welch to solve the problem directly with General Motors CEO Roger Smith. It was a difficult year for Immelt, so when he reviewed this experience, he pointed out: "no one wants someone around to leave or go through a trough. Therefore, I am inspired by him to let me know that we should keep doing our things with clamming down. Furthermore, in our daily life, when we encounter difficulties, we will be encouraged by others or ourselves, but why are we so far from success? Because we see the difficulties and hardships too clearly, these obstacles are like insurmountable mountains that deter us. Then, simply cover our eyes, concentrate on the road we want to go, ignoring the dangers and troubles around, and often exceed the expected goal when we open our eyes! No one likes to lose and we should have the fighting spirit of never giving up, and the focus of this spirit is to walk tenaciously! This reminds me of my poor health and the need for regular exercise when I was a child. But every time I run, I would be out of breath soon, so I can only run 800 meters at most and I realize that this is not up to the standard of exercise. Therefore, I began to run every morning, from the first 800 meters to 900 meters, to 1000 meters, and finally I could run 2000 meters at one time. At that time, my body began to become strong. Actually I tried to give up, but I wanted to know if I could really do it. I told myself every day that I will stick to this. Through the encouragement of myself every day, I finally did it. This experience inspires me, because I like challenges, which is undoubtedly a new challenge for me, so I tell myself that I want to complete this exercise task for my own health and confidence. Maybe because of my health, I told myself that I needed to exercise, which strengthened my confidence.

To be honest, I am deeply attracted and convinced by Bill's concept, because it is not just a concept of life, but tells us to recognize ourselves, being loyal to our heart, maintaining our true self, and improving our leadership with our sincerity. However, when we experience more and more, we are more and more influenced by the world, and have more and more choices. We should constantly adjust ourselves to adapt to the changes of the surrounding environment, and finally find our position in the world. As long as our recognize ourselves and really understand, we can achieve almost any goal in life and overcome any obstacles⁵.

Reference:

1. the definition of the book, <http://www.truenorthfcu.org/>

2. Bill George ,Sep 14, 1942 (age 79)<https://www.billgeorge.org/>

3. eNotes Editorial,May 6, 2015,true north, summary, <https://www.enotes.com/>

4. True north,your journey to leadership,P32<the second paragraph>

5.True north,your journey to leadership,stepping up at 21, P28<the second paragraph>