Silver Lining in Cloud of Problems: Leadership Training 2013

Leadership is the basic matter that we have been commonly dealt with in everyday life, not only being a leader for ourselves but also be a leader for others in organization. This is why there were many people gathered in Cine Club on May 25, 2013. From Saturday morning to afternoon they joined the agenda called Leadership Training. Leadership Training is firstly designed to be compulsory for all EDSA staffs and as the consideration also for being the committee of English for Freshmen 2013. However, the majority of the participants were non-EDSA staffs. This was commented by Wahyu Galih Wicaksono as the chief of the committee, “It is a great loss not to join Leadership Training. By just paying a sum of money, actually this is the chance which doesn’t come often to get very useful knowledge from great speakers coming from successful leadership background. Not only succeed in their organization, but they also succeed in other field like in academic and business.”

“Leadership Training is actually a facility for EDSA staffs to build their leadership skills and learn about it together. More less it is like AMT and Upgrading but it is a slightly different, Leadership Training aimed to gather all EDSA staffs to learn about leadership, managing and solving problems in organization. This agenda could be also one way to bind all EDSA staffs together in togetherness”, he said.

This so-called Leadership Training was not only a kind of training that made the participants sit for the whole day listening to the speakers but there were practice and games also as this agenda was divided into three major sessions. They were material giving, problem solving and games.

Picture 1. Mr. Untoro Wahyu explained the aspects of leadership.

The first session of this agenda was chaired by Artine Ayu Utami as both MC and moderator. The speakers for this session were Mr. Untoro Wahyu, the chief of EDSA in 1999 and Mr. Muhammad Ibrahim or we usually call him Mr. Baim, the chief of HIMA PBSI in 2010 and HRD Department in FBS Student Executive Board in 2011. In the end of the material giving session, participants were allowed to ask questions to the speakers. Mr. Untoro Wahyu said that leadership has several aspects; there are confidence and risk taking, competence (vision and mission for life), care, teamwork, creativity and credibility. The part TEAM here in the word ‘teamwork’ can be explained by the meaning of team:

T : Together

E : Everyone

A : Achievement

M : More

Picture 2. Mr. Muhammad Ibrahim when delivering the material.

Brighten our knowledge horizon about leadership; Mr. Baim shared his experience in leadership by explaining what leadership is and who can be a leader. It can be drawn that leadership is to perform an act to engage one or more persons to be led in order to accomplish a mission which influencees that group of people to move towards their goal settings or goal achievements. Meanwhile, a leader has to be a strategic thinker that looks forward and creates visions, challenge, motivation, inspiration. To be a good leader requires not only good leadership but also good followership.

Picture 3. One of the participants of LT asked to the speakers.

Participants were divided into groups when it came to the problem solving session. Each group was given a problem that usually faced in organization or organizing events such as the professionalism in organization and how to overcome if there are two or more events held in the same time. After discussing it with the group, they presented the discussion result in front of the juries and other participants. The juries were Mr. Baim and the chief of EDSA, Mr. Fajar S. Zulkarnain. The others including juries and other participants were allowed to ask questions to the group who was presenting the solution.

Picture 4. The tired looks of the participants of Leadership Training.

The last activity of Leadership Training participants was the games. Here, the participants were divided into groups that were different with their former group in the problem solving session. The aim is to make participants could make new friends with more people and build good teamwork. There were four games played by participants. They were minesweeper, hole in the bottle, wild commando and bola kolong. The participants were very excited and very energetic after doing Dzuhur prayer and having lunch before the games session began. Each group had done their best effortws to be the winner in every game. In the end of the agenda, the group that got the best score accumulated from each game and the best group during the games received a reward and the title best leader was obtained by M. Ardia Rafiq Al Ghozali (Algo).

The priceless knowledge that we could learn from Leadership Training is greater than the quote that earlier delivered by Mr. Untoro,

“ To lead yourself, use your head. To lead others, use your heart.Always touch a person’s heart, before you ask him for a hand.”

― John Maxwell

as we could learn how to work with team to go to one goal and how to solve problems as every cloud has a silver lining, every problem has a solution. (Almira Romala/EDSA Press)