SHOOT FOR THE STARS    

Stevanus Satria is a recipient of the Di Yerbury Scholarship for study abroad. He attends Singapore University of Technology and Design. Recently, he attended the Global Leadership Programme (GLP) to MIT in Boston.

"Maybe if I shoot for the stars, I'll hit the moon." This, in essence, is what I learnt from the 6-day stint at The LeaderShape Institute. It’s about dreaming big for the greater good and working towards that dream, taking small steps and not to give up no matter how tough that dream is.

It all began with Day 1, which was themed “Building Community.” We were seated in a large room we would later call the "Learning Community" where we received an overview of what we would receive for the next 5 days in this Program. We were then split into our "Family Clusters," a smaller sanctuary where we could be more open and share more personal experiences. A short reflection soon ended our first day.

The second day was all about "The Value of One, The Power of All." Through activities conducted by Project Adventure, we learnt how valuable cooperation is in solving everyday problems, no matter how small they are, and more about our personalities and leadership style through the DiSC Personality Test, where each letter embodies a different style/personality – Dominance, Influence, Steadiness and Conscientiousness. The rest of the day was spent on how each style/personality thinks and behaves, and how other styles can leverage the strengths as well as work around the weaknesses.

Day 3 was when our visions were born. It was the day we really looked at what’s wrong in today's world or what can be improved, and tried to marry these with what makes us tick as an individual. We learnt that great things come from individuals who dreamed of these things. We watched Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have A Dream" heart-wrenching yet empowering speech. We drew upon the vividness of his dream and looked deep into ourselves to find what change we really want to make in this world. Then there was "Videre!" where we learnt how obstacles and challenges that arise from changes that are occurring in this world may distract us. Nonetheless, when we closed our eyes and tried to get a glimpse of our vision coming to reality, oh how beautiful the world will be with all our desires to create green energy and happier earth coming to fruition.

Power play summed up Day 4: "Bringing Vision to Reality" and Day 5: "Living and Leading with Integrity" for me. Day 4 was more about external power. We learnt about stakeholders: people who are potentially involved in our vision realization, how power influences people's behavior and how who holds the power may not be as clear cut as we thought it is in the society. All these contribute to our stretch and manageable goals which are milestones we create towards the realization of our vision.

Day 5 was more about internal power play: ethics and dilemmas. We started off exploring our core values and sub core values. One new concept I learnt was that values are categorized as ethical and non-ethical. Whereas ethical values are those that conform to social norms, non-ethical isn’t equivalent to unethical; it doesn’t imply that non-ethical values are unjust. We realized that not all our values align well, and in some circumstances these conflicting values may make decision making really difficult.

"Staying in Action" aptly wrapped up our time at the LeaderShape Institute. The sixth and last day included our commencement, making us officially LeaderShape Institute graduates. We were encouraged to practice whatever we’d learnt at the Institute in our daily lives. Personally, I will start by using the DiSC and vision creation to better improve my personal and team's performance in group works, especially the Electric Vehicle Challenge. Adaptability will also be important, and so "Videre!" will be the lesson I fall back to when managing challenges. Most importantly, I hope that all that I learnt at the LeaderShape Institute will be able to aid me in managing conflicts in my smaller groups as well as the larger community of Global Leadership Program participants.

And thus, adios Camp Wonderland and hello Cambridge!