Week #10 Final Class today

Well....I am so sad we are having final class today.

I have learned a lot of important things through this course.
I chose this class because I was just curious, but this class gave me more than I expected.

Firstly, we learned posture.
Be looked confidence and relaxed.
We did handshake many times, presented ourselves with appropriate posture with smile.

Secondly, we learned many negotiation skills.
We have done I assume five or six negotiations. I cannot imagine I was able to negotiate! because I always compromise it. The most memorable negotiation was hotel one. I could cooperated with my buddy and reminded me of my childhood because it was kind of similar to some of playing so it was fun.

Thirdly, we have learned many tips from Shackleton! I loved keep reading the book, because I could learn new things every time as reading forward. For conflict, I remember we discussed like a conflict in a group! It was the very discussion in which I could hear how other people are thinking about conflict, and how different people are thinking.

And, we have learned a lot from essay and presentation. I enjoyed all of presentations! All of you look confident!!!!! Personally, throughout writing an essay, I have learned new things from women leaders.

In addition to that, we have learned many things from Mr. Kitashiro, Hibiya sensei. Great to hear from real leaders!

Lastly, we have learned too many things from KEN!
He is one of the most admirable teachers I have ever met. He is a true leader who gave us rewards and cheered us up, who always encouraged us and made us smile, who always took care of us with warm heart, and who gave us support anytime in class or we visited him. I appreciate what he has done to us :)

And I should not forget thank you for all of you in class for making this course truly enjoyable.
This class would be the best class I have taken and I did not imagine I was able to learn about leadership at university!!!

Hope all of you overcome finals and have a great spring break! We are going to be sophomore soon! whooooo!

Thank you again :)

Week #9 YAY!!

So finally, I finished all my essay and presentation!

I want to look back my topic.

My topic was how women success as leaders.
I chose five women CEOs of famous companies in the U.S., and found out three features all they have in common: education, family, and experience.

1. Education
They all graduated from university.
For example, Meg Whitman, CEO of HP, graduated from Princeton University and while working at company she went to Harvard University and got MBA.
For another example, Indra Nooyi, CEO of Pepsi. Co, graduated from two colleges in India and while working, she got master degrees in Public Policy at Yale School of management. 

I told you that all of you have chance to become CEO of famous companies in the U.S. like Nooyi!

2. Family
All of them are married and four of them have children.
I thought having family is interrupting for women to pursue their careers, but surprisingly, this is not true for the five CEOs..
They manage their time by making list of priority and also get support from their families by getting them understand what mothers are doing.

3. Experience
All of them experienced being in leading post either in companies they are managing now, or in other companies.. 
It was interesting that Marissa Mayer, CEO of Yahoo!, had worked for Google and created a lot of great tools on Google browser! 
Moreover, Meg Whitman actually had worked at six companies including Walt Disney's Company!
On contrary, Virginia Rometty has worked for IBM for her entire business life. Mary Barra has too.

So...these are the common features they have.

And I showed you a list of the rate of women senior executives. 



The top is China. Some of you noticed that there are a lot of Asian countries....why?

I found someone answer to this question.

 "The pioneer economies where economic growth is high have greater diversity in their senior management teams. Women are playing a major role in driving the businesses’ growth, bringing balance to the decision making process and the smooth running of their companies,"
(http://www.cfoinnovation.com/content/china-ranks-top-women-proportion-senior-management)

I am not sure if this is true, but it is one possible answer that why Asian countries have such a high amount of women senior executives.

Anyway, what I want to emphasize is that creating environment for women to work more:) maybe by changing current system or by encouraging men to participate house chores more and more.

Week #8 Gust Speaker

Yesterday, we had a charming guest speaker, Ms. Junko Hibiya, a president of ICU.

I want to write down what she said briefly.

1.Learn another language.


If you have as many languages as possible, you can communicate with more people!

2. Find your passion!



You will be able to find no matter what you are specialize in.
To find your passion, you have to be an intentional learner.

3. There is money somewhere, so seek it !



Never give up anything because you don't have money.

4. Study abroad.


5. Everything is possible.
できる！！


6. Exercise (Do something regularly!)

In order to keep your health balance, it is important to avoid stress.

That's all.

Most interesting story for me was her story as a woman.
As I mentioned, my essay (which I will hand in tomorrow!) is about women leaders, it was interesting to hear how women were treated in her young age. She said that when job hunting, women and men were prepared separate room, and women were told there would be no chance to work. However, this is the point I respect, she looked for what she could do. And luckily, she had a chance to go to graduated school in the U.S.. Moreover, she became a professor and now president of ICU.

Hibiya sensei reminded me of my grandmother who passed away when I was nine years old. I heard that after graduating university in Japan, my grandmother went to the U.S as well. by ship, Hikawamaru, and studied method of teaching English for two years. She taught English at some university. (Actually, she was a ELA teacher at ICU for very short time!) I don't know her story that much, but I heard that she was respectable as a teacher and as a woman.


So....tomorrow is the due date of the essay! Hope everyone is doing alright!

Week #7 Leading At the Edge Ch. 10 (Last strategy!)

Our last lesson from Shackleton is...

Strategy 10:
Never give up- there's always another move.



In this chapter, the author explains how important not to give up, which leads you to another big chance. I learned two key points from this chapter.

The first one is having good peers.
Having good teammates who always encourage around you is necessary for not giving up. Shackleton's team practiced this by supporting each other; "Its members were able to draw from each other. This support and creativity enabled them to persist when, individually, each might have given up." I think this could be happened because they had spent much time and they understood each other.
From my experience, living in dorm can be one of these things. For me, it was the first time to live apart from my family, and it was so hard to do everything by myself. While preparing for class or doing homework, I have to take care of my laundry, my meals, cleaning duty and so on. It was hard for me to fulfill both task. In addition, since I tend to be homesick, I struggled with mental problem too. However, in the dorm, there are 31 other girls living together. Therefore, I can talk to them whenever I want them to hear, which soothes my stress and enables me to keep doing what is right. Also, they each has each problems, so by sharing these, I can be a supporter for them too. As time goes, I can do everything more efficiently:)
Having good friends or supporter is good to move advance!

The second one is being calm as possible.
When facing problem, Callahan thought that "identify the problem...lashings working off." Not to quit what we are facing, we need to identify the problem and think what you can do for that. The author also says that "it requires recognizing what works and what doesn't. When a strategy fails acknowledge it and find another one.When the obvious moves are exhausted, keep looking for new ones. Do not dismiss any idea, no matter how far fetched, without thoroughly considering it."
By being calm, you can see problems clearly and you are able to find new strategy or resolution for them.

This article teaches us important qualities to be a leader.
http://elitedaily.com/money/entrepreneurship/the-5-things-a-great-leader-would-never-do/

I am so excited on next Monday!!!!
Have a great weekend!

Week #7 Class on Monday

Yesterday, Mr. Kitashiro gave us motivational speech.

It was interesting to hear his background. 

I will write 3 important qualities I learned from him.

1. Patience

I think he is a tough man. He said that he was slow in promotion among peers. If I was him, I would be hasty and give up working. Furthermore he even said whatever his situation is, he just did his best and put all his energy into it. 

2. Optimism

In speech, he repeated "be positive!" and  "be optimistic!" many times. He practices ATM any time. For example, he can make a decision quickly which might be risky and even if the plan fails, he thinks that the mistake is not that significant, which doesn't collapse the world. What a positive thought! I used to think I am too optimistic, but he is more optimistic than I am! 

I think his Christianity is one of the most influencing facts that makes him such a positive. It was surprising that he said "Don't worry even if you fail the test." I simply cannot do that because grade is important for me as a college student!

3. Being yourself

He is him. When I asked him there are any role models as a leader, he answered me no. I was surprised at that answer because I tend to make role models to confirm whether my decision is right or not. (Also, I tend to follow what the role models are doing.) However, he said there were someone such as boss from whom he learned, but he did not have any models whom he follow. 

I learned a lot from him besides these three qualities. 

I liked his way of thinking and his way of giving a speech. Even though he is short, he looked very confident because of good posture. In addition to that his way of speaking was great too; it was clear, polite, and strong. 

Also, as we discussed in today's class, Mr. Kitashiro's speech links to Shackleton. I thought true leaders have great qualities in common. I hope I can be like them someday:)

Week #6 Leading at the Edge Ch9

This chapter's lesson is
Be willing to take the Big Risk.

In this chapter the author talks about risk taking.
At last, the author mentions that "leaders at The Edge need to be comfortable with the discomfort of risk."
I firstly thought that every time when I began to be in new environment, such as new school, new club, or new place, I always am uncomfortable. I assume everyone feels same way. However, looking back my life, I have tried to jump into new world. Moving to abroad is one of the examples. When I was in 2nd year of high school, my father told my family that we were going to move to NY. Even though, I really wanted to move away from the high school then, I became worried about my life at new place after deciding to go with my family. Since I started to think about my future seriously (entrance exam for university), it was big risk for me to quit the high school and even go abroad! However, I could not think living apart from my family, I went there with them and started new life there.
Life in the U.S was not that easy thing. I struggled with my English and relationship with the others. Because I wanted to improve my English, I did not want to be with Japaneses friends. Nevertheless, it was hard for me to get into American students there whose relationship was made from elementary school. As second year started, I decided to join girl's swim team. For me it was big decision, because I am not that good swimmer as teammates, who was in tea ceremony club at high school in Japan. Moreover in winter term, I joined track and field team. (I do like running, but I am not that fast runner) Only reason for such was making friends and improving my English through experiencing club activities in different country. Even though my record was not that good (comparing with others), I was and still am satisfied with what I have done. I could grow not only physically but also mentally.

There were many times I had to think about risk especially in the U.S. While I always worried about what if I could not accomplish it, I tried to be positive about risk and thought it as a chance.

This video is truly motivational. Please check it out :)

Week #6 Leading at the Edge Ch.8

This chapter's lesson is...
Find something to celebrate and something to laugh about.



So, in this chapter the author talks about how celebration is important for motivating the team. The author says that Shackleton's care for celebrating atmosphere contributed to creating "an upbeat mood and a way of thinking about life that sustained the men through the grimmest of times." Even though it was a tough time for the team especially after the ship sinking, the team was able to maintain optimism because of the atmosphere. I was surprised that Shackleton made something fun literary every week such as Dog Derby and Midwinter's Day. I think these events soothed the tension among teammates and made them relaxed.

In addition, the author suggests to find something to laugh about. I think this is very important thing when we are in tough time. For example, when I get tired, I feel like I cannot do things anymore, and I become lazy about studying or whatever I have to do. To resolve this, I forget about everything and just watch some funny movie or TV show so that I can be relaxed and be more optimistic. For another example, after finishing big project or difficult project, I always give something such as sweets to celebrate and reward what I have done. It is good for myself to maintain positiveness and keep moving forward.

Lastly, I would like to introduce you a beautiful quote by Victor Hugo.

"Laughter is the sun that drives winter from the human face."

Hope you have a great Friday! ;)