Leaders are not born, but made. Are optimists born or made? Leaders are not born they are made

An individual in a crowd is a grain of sand among a mass of other grains of sand, uplifted and carried away by the wind. Most people are fickle in their own beliefs, doubt the correctness of their actions. With the advent of the leader, all uncertainty disappears. The unshakable self-confidence of the leader generates the immense trust of others. They say to themselves, "He knows where he's going, let's go where he knows." And as soon as living beings are gathered together in a certain number - it does not matter whether it is a herd of animals or a human crowd - they instinctively put themselves under the authority of the head. The mass is an obedient herd that cannot live without a master. Usually leaders are not thinkers, they are people of action. They do not have insight, as insight leads to doubt and inaction.

The picture of relationships between peers in kindergarten groups is quite complex and ambiguous. Some peers who are inventive in games are treated with sympathy and strive for them, while others are shunned, despite their having the same qualities.

Children's leaders, sometimes more than teaching staff, set the tone for the lives of children in kindergartens. The authority of the leader and the power of his influence often exceed the influence of adults.

According to the characteristics of behavior and some properties of the character of preschool children can be divided into the following groups:

leaders and organizers with a strong sense of purpose;
activists who have personal initiative with the optional firmness of their character;
performers;
singles living their own lives;
rebels entering the struggle against the leaders, against the institutions adopted in the collective;
hunted members of the team (according to G. Fortunatov).

The presence of these small groups within the team is explained by the selectivity of human communication. Some children are looking for the society of the most mobile, active peers, others are attracted by quiet, passive children. Some feel more confident next to the strong and decisive. Others, on the contrary, prefer to be friends with the weak, timid, finding satisfaction in patronage.

A preschooler leader is, first of all, an active, enterprising person who is able to change the external situation and coordinate the activities of others, organize and lead them.

Studying the relationship of children, the researcher A. S. Zaluzhny identified a typology of leaders, which he divided into situational (intellectual leader, organizer leader, emotional leader, etc.) and permanent. The conventional wisdom that some children are “naturally” incapable of leadership is far from the truth; in fact, every child can be and is a leader under appropriate conditions, now one, the next moment another, etc. In other words, in In various specific situations of group life, individual members of the group stand out who are superior to others in at least one quality, but since it is this quality that turns out to be necessary in a given situation, the person who possesses it becomes a leader.

Thus, the emergence of a leader is the result of a place, time and circumstances in which a person must show the qualities necessary for this particular situation in such a way that the result meets the expectations of the group. When evaluating the success of a leader's activity, it is not so much its objective result that is important, but the recognition of this success by other children.

Are leaders born or made?

Is it possible to develop the leadership potential of an individual? If possible, how to do it? There are two points of view. The first assumes that a leader must be born, that training and education does not play any role. This assumption is based on the fact that humans have seven innate instincts: self-preservation, procreation, altruism, exploration, dominance, freedom, and dignity. A person is born with a genetic program of adaptation, with his calling, which is fate ("one who was born to crawl cannot fly"). From what kind of instinct takes the first place in a particular person, his typology according to the dominant instinct depends.

The second point of view is that innate needs are also influenced by living conditions and the nature of education, therefore, leadership potential can be developed, although this requires certain inclinations of a psychophysiological nature (for example, good health, developed attention and memory, the ability to think productively). ).

The development of the leadership potential of the individual from early childhood, from our point of view, is due to the interaction of biological (features of temperament and health) and social factors.

1. Physical health

Health is a state of the body in which all its organs function properly and normally. The leader performs the functions of an initiator, organizer, inspirer, therefore, he first of all needs to have a strong nervous system, be hardy, energetic, physically strong in order to show a high degree of general behavioral activity.

2. Taking into account in educational work the individual characteristics of the temperament of children

Each temperament has its positive and negative sides. With any temperament, there is a danger of developing undesirable properties: in a phlegmatic person - lethargy, indifference to the environment; choleric - intemperance, harshness; in a melancholic - isolation, insecurity, shyness; in a sanguine person, dispersion, etc. Thanks to the plasticity of the nervous system, temperament can be influenced, but measures of influence should be selected such that would develop the strengths of temperament.

Success in working with melancholic and phlegmatic people involves reliance on the encouragement of even a slight manifestation of speed, acceleration of pace, mobility, quickness, as well as praise for the manifestation of such qualities important for success as poise, tolerance, the ability to concentrate for a long time, and often accuracy, diligence. It is necessary to develop activity, mobility of children gradually, taking into account their real possibilities in increasing the pace. It is easier for these children to express themselves, to assert themselves in artistic activities (musical, visual, etc.), in quiet games, designing, modeling, in classes in small groups, with children who are friendly in nature and close in sociability.

With regard to children with a choleric temperament, it is important to maintain and direct their energy to useful things, to exclude from the situation that which overexcites the nervous system, but at the same time it is necessary to develop and strengthen the process of inhibition by organizing calm activities and exercises, to achieve restrained behavior, the ability to reckon with around and not offend their vanity.

In children with a sanguine temperament, stable attachments, interests should be formed, they should be taught to complete what they have started, pay special attention to the quality of activities, prevent superficial and careless performance of tasks, more often control the actions, actions of the child, offer movements that require concentration, accuracy, restraint . At the same time, one should not be overly zealous in limiting the motor activity of choleric and sanguine people.

Specialists in the field of physical education of preschoolers recommend that in relation to children with an increased need for physical activity, do not infringe on it, but regulate the intensity, nature of movements (offer movements that require concentration, accuracy, restraint). For this purpose, it is useful to teach such children precise movements - throwing at a target, rolling a ball over a limited area (floorboard, "path" of cords, a gymnastic bench, etc.), catching a ball, all types and methods of climbing are useful. It is important to fill the motor activity of such children with a certain content. The absence of it is accompanied, as a rule, by incontinence, loudness, and aggressiveness of children. The aimlessness of movements quickly tires not only themselves, but also those around them.

3. Formation of the internal autonomous position of the child

It has been established that a sense of autonomy begins to develop at two or three years of age and intensifies by the age of four or five. At this age, independent actions lead the child to realize his separation from the adult, independence and, at the same time, the limitations of his abilities. The research interests of the child distract him from the adult, and the feeling of fear and danger returns to him. Therefore, the main function of parents and educators is to provide a safe field of activity and meet the protection and security sometimes required by the child. In case of overprotection or lack of proper protection, independence is replaced by indecision, lack of confidence in one's competence, frequent seeking help, which leads to the consolidation of a subordinate, dependent position in the future environment.

4. The child's experience of success in activities

At the age of three or four, children strive to independently achieve results in activities and, having achieved the desired, they immediately strive to demonstrate their successes to an adult, without whose approval these successes lose their value to a large extent, and joyful feelings about them are significantly overshadowed. A negative or indifferent attitude of an adult to the demonstrated result causes affective (emotionally strong) experiences in children, encourages them to seek attention and a positive assessment with redoubled energy. Having received the desired approval, the child feels pride in his achievements, which, in turn, increases his initiative, confidence in the ability to act independently and the level of claims. The more often a child feels pride in his achievements and the more diverse the areas of application of his abilities, the more intense the process of the child's interaction with the social and objective world and the formation of active - leadership - behavior.

5. Realization of the claim to recognition and the pursuit of superiority

After the emergence of an emotional attitude towards oneself as "good", a new socially necessary formation arises in the child - the desire to be recognized. The claim to recognition is one of the most important human needs. It manifests itself in the fact that children are increasingly turning to adults for evaluation of performance and personal achievements. The claim to recognition also manifests itself in the fact that the child begins to vigilantly monitor what kind of attention is given to him, and what attention is given to his peer or brother. Children strive to ensure that adults are satisfied with them, and if they deserve censure, they always want to correct the existing relationship with adults. The unfulfilled claim to recognition can lead to undesirable forms of behavior, when the child begins to deliberately invent lies or brag.

By the age of five or six, the sphere of achievements, merging with the sphere of attitude towards oneself, contributes to the emergence of children's pride - a powerful incentive for self-development and self-improvement. Children become very jealous of the success of their peers and are very reluctant to admit their superiority in anything.

It is generally recognized that the most characteristic form of behavior for children is a playful form of behavior. When one child plays with another, he always strives to win. A. I. Rozov, watching the games of children, noticed such a paradoxical fact: the lion's share of playing time is spent not on the game itself (muscle development, realization of potentialities, familiarization with social norms, etc., according to common psychological theories of play) , but to disputes over who "fairly" considers the winner, the "legality" of a goal scored or points awarded. In the game, on the one hand, the child wants to be "like everyone else", and on the other - "better than everyone else." The desire to be "like everyone else" to a certain extent stimulates and pulls it up to the general average level. A. I. Rozov notes that it is no coincidence that children shy away from games in which they do not achieve success, that is, they do not give grounds for a sense of superiority.

The desire for leadership is nothing more than the realization of one's potential, the desire for superiority over people in one's familiar environment. It is noteworthy that the problem of leadership disappears only in the case of loneliness (there is no one to achieve it over), and since a person grows and develops in interaction with people from early childhood, the desire to surpass others haunts him throughout his life. This desire, of course, acts as a stimulating factor that awakens energy; it activates the personality and endows it with perseverance and perseverance in overcoming difficulties.

Leadership initially involves competition, so conflicts are possible between children. Here, teachers and parents can choose one of two strategies of behavior: an active judge (an adult anticipates the possibility of a conflict and neutralizes it in time) or non-intervention (giving children the opportunity to resolve their own conflict situations, hoping that in this way the child leaders will gain experience solving problems by interacting with equal opponents).

So that obtaining approval does not become an end in itself for children, the task of parents and teachers is to create an attitude (for themselves and for the children's team) that each of the children is the best in something. Then, in order to become a leader, children will not fight for a "place in the sun", but will try to show their imagination, their creative and individual abilities.

6. Features of the parent-child relationship

Based on the theory of attachments, founded by J. Bowlby and M. Ainsworth, the experience of relations with the mother, received in early childhood, largely determines the further social life of the child. According to this theory, if the primary object of attachment (mother) provides the child with security, reliability and confidence in his security, in the future he will easily establish secondary attachments with other people.

In early childhood, the key characteristic of an infant is determined by how the object of my affection perceives me, which is most often the mother (“I am the one who is hugged, who is looked at, who is smiled at, my crying is quickly reacted to,” etc.). Thus, for unloved, offended children, I acts as an object that does not deserve the love and attention of others, and the object of affection (mother) - as demanding, forbidding and cruel. The less secure the connection with the mother, the more the child tends to repress his desire for other social contacts. Optimal relationships and "self-image" develop in children whose parents care for them, provide emotional support, and at the same time allow and support independent activity and autonomy of the child.

The nature of the emotional connection develops very early and has great stability. With age, the model of relationships that was fixed in infancy and, as a result, the attitude of the individual towards himself, become more and more familiar, stable and practically not amenable to conscious control.

7. Evaluation of the child's activities by adults

The prevailing for children of older and younger groups is the overall positive (or negative) assessment of a peer (“he is good” or “he is bad”). Children often indicate that their comrades are successful in various activities ("draws well", "does a good job", "dances well", "dresses quickly, fastens and ties everything himself"), on the features of their peer's appearance. In some groups, where the teacher pays special attention to the behavior of the children at dinner, the children note - "he eats well."

Ya. L. Kolominsky was one of the first to find out that children first of all realize and evaluate those qualities and behavioral characteristics of their peers that are most often evaluated by the educator and on which, therefore, their position in the group depends.

At the age of six or seven, self-esteem begins to form. The criteria used by a child in self-assessment largely depend on the teacher and parents, who, unfortunately, are far from always objective. The main reason for the emerging low self-esteem of the child is the desire of parents and teachers to draw generalized negative conclusions about his personality as a whole based on individual actions and misconduct of the child. The reason for inflated self-esteem is that parents immediately attribute the slightest success of a child to the outstanding qualities of his personality.

Thus, a child with low self-esteem usually has increased self-criticism, he does not believe in himself, therefore he does not make due diligence and efforts to achieve success, including peer recognition. A child with high self-esteem, on the contrary, overestimates his abilities and also does not try very hard. Children with high self-esteem feel more confident, they are bolder, more active in showing their interests, abilities, set higher goals than those who, other things being equal, underestimate self-esteem.

Are optimists made or born?

It is believed that life is easier for optimists because they always believe in the best. And you can immediately see them: they are always in a good mood, everything works out for them ...

And there are people who spend most of their time in a depressed state, and somehow nothing sticks to them, and there seems to be nothing to rejoice at.

And everyone wants to live with a sparkle in their eyes.
How to become such a cheerful person, and is it possible at all?

The father of positive psychology, Martin Seligman, says he came to understand the importance of optimism in the body's resilience and adaptation as a result of years of studying failure (interesting, huh?). His experiments on the so-called learned helplessness are widely known and have become classics of positive psychology.

Seligman took three groups of "participants" - dogs, rats, and later humans - and subjected them to either shocks (in the case of animals) or unpleasant effects, such as noise (in the case of humans). The experiment included three stages.

At the first stage:

the first group had the ability to turn off the shock or sound, and all of its members safely learned this;
the second group did not have the ability to turn off stimuli;
the third group, the control group, was not exposed to any influences.

At the second stage:

the two experimental groups were again subjected to shock or noise. This time, both the first and second groups were given the opportunity to learn how to turn off the stimulus. Again, the first group learned this. The third group experienced no shock or noise, and nothing changed in them.

But interesting things happened with the second group.
Most of all its participants - dogs, rats and people - could not learn to turn off the source of the stimulus when they were given the opportunity to do so. Dogs, for example, simply huddled in the corner of the kennel, although they could easily learn to turn off the shock or noise. They developed that same learned helplessness.

That is, at the first stage of the experiment, they realized that they had no power over anything, they could not achieve anything, no matter what they did. And when in the second stage of the experiment they had such an opportunity, they did not try to change what was happening.

Similar experiments over the years produced similar results, but there was one difference that gave Seligman and others the key to positive psychology. The difference was this: no matter what happened to them, about a third of the second group completely refused to admit their helplessness. Despite everything, they continued to believe that they could influence something, that they could achieve something, or that there was some other way out of this situation. (Seligman, 2011; Carbonatto, 2009).

Over the course of a number of years, Seligman and his colleagues began to pay more and more attention to the study of the way of thinking of this same one-third of the second experimental group, both during the experiment itself and in general in life.

In one of the experiments, the second group was given a task that could not be completed under any circumstances. After a certain time, during which the group tried to cope with the task, interviews were conducted with its participants. Questions were asked about attempts and failures. Most of the group was in a slightly depressed state.

Those who were not in this state gave similar explanations of why the failure happened. For example:

“Probably there is some kind of temporary glitch in the system,”
“Today it didn’t work out, but maybe it will work out tomorrow”
“It didn’t work out here, but I’m doing well in other areas of my life.”

None of them attributed failure to their own incompetence or stupidity (Seligman, 1992, pp 19-28)!

And here you probably already thought: but if I’m not like that, then I’m born like that, and nothing shines for me, and my life will pass in melancholy and sadness.

After analyzing many meters of taped responses, Seligman came to the conclusion that it was possible to "vaccinate" people against such learned helplessness, against depression and anxiety, against giving up when they met with failure, by teaching them to think like those optimists.

This kind of learning, called “optimistic explanatory style” (Seligman, 1992; 2011), has three extremely important components:

Duration over time.
Do we think that this event will continue for a long time or not. Pessimists believe that bad events will last for a long time, while optimists think just the opposite, that bad times are about to end. For example, an optimist who has lost his job believes that he will be able to find it fairly quickly.
Ubiquity.
How specific or comprehensive the event is, or in other words, how much space it occupies in our lives.
Pessimists believe that difficulties follow them in all areas of life, while optimists are quick to point out that difficult circumstances exist only in a certain part of their lives.
An optimist, for example, may have lost her job, but she will note that she is in good health and is supported by the people around her. Or she may say that "things are bad" only in the area of work and do not extend to other aspects of her life.
How much we take things personally.
And it doesn’t matter whether this refers to blaming yourself if something bad happened, or praising yourself for some achievement.
Optimists constantly attribute the causes of failure to something external (like the participants in Seligman's experiment who said the task could not be completed because of a temporary glitch in the system, not because they were incompetent).
Pessimists, on the other hand, blame themselves even where they are not to blame.
The same optimist who lost her job says she did a good job but she was made redundant because the organization was going through hard times (Seligman, 1992).

How optimistic do you think you are?
What, not much? Dont be upset.

Even if you are not a born optimist, you can learn optimism by examining the events in your life in terms of these three approaches.

Take care of yourself, the way you think.

How often do you say that All is your life terrible?
What is Always is this happening?
And what never Is there anything good happening in your life?
Or what is it all because of you?

To begin with, be surprised how often you think this way. :)

And then try to be critical of these pessimistic thoughts of yours.
and try to think Seligman. :)

Happy change!

The article uses materials from the work of M. Flagerty,taken from http://www.aipc.net.au library

Do you want your child to enjoy going to school?

DatsoPic 2.0 2009 by Andrey Datso

Selective relationships between children

The question of the reason for the power of an individual over his own kind was also asked by the ancients. The topic of leadership has attracted the attention of scholars for many centuries. Confucius, Aristotle, Plato, Machiavelli, Montesquieu, M. Weber, 3. Freud and many others tried to penetrate the mystery of this phenomenon.

An individual in a crowd is a grain of sand among a mass of other grains of sand, uplifted and carried away by the wind. Most people are fickle in their own beliefs, doubt the correctness of their actions. With the advent of the leader, all uncertainty disappears. The unshakable self-confidence of the leader generates the immense trust of others. They say to themselves, "He knows where he's going, let's go where he knows." And as soon as living beings are gathered together in a certain number - it does not matter whether it is a herd of animals or a human crowd - they instinctively put themselves under the authority of the head. The mass is an obedient herd that cannot live without a master. Usually leaders do not belong to the number of thinkers - they are people of action. They do not have insight, as insight leads to doubt and inaction.

According to the characteristics of behavior and some properties of the character of preschool children can be divided into the following groups:

1) leaders and organizers with a strong sense of purpose;

2) activists who have personal initiative with the optional firmness of their character;

3) performers;

4) singles living their own lives;

5) rebels entering the struggle against the leaders, against the institutions adopted in the team;

6) hunted members of the team (according to G. Fortunatov).

A preschooler leader is, first of all, an active, enterprising person who is able to change the external situation and coordinate the activities of others, organize and lead them.

Studying the relationship of children, the researcher A. S. Zaluzhny identified a typology of leaders, which he subdivided into situational (intellectual leader, organizing leader, emotional leader, etc.) and permanent. The conventional wisdom that some children are “naturally” incapable of leadership is far from the truth; in fact, every child can and does be a leader under appropriate conditions, now one, the next moment another, etc. In other words, in In various specific situations of group life, individual members of the group stand out who are superior to others in at least one quality, but since it is this quality that turns out to be necessary in a given situation, the person who possesses it becomes a leader.

Are leaders born or made?

Is it possible to develop the leadership potential of an individual? If possible, how to do it? There are two points of view. The first assumes that a leader must be born, that training and education does not play any role. This assumption is based on the fact that humans have seven innate instincts: self-preservation, procreation, altruism, exploration, dominance, freedom, and dignity. A person is born with a genetic program of adaptation, with his calling, which is destiny (“one who is born cannot crawl to fly”). From what kind of instinct takes the first place in a particular person, his typology according to the dominant instinct depends.

Success with your own hands [How to take life to a new level] Verbnyak Pavel

Are leaders born or made?

The good news for all of us is that leaders are not born, leaders are made. Many of you may know Fedor Ovchinnikov, an entrepreneur from Syktyvkar, known for the Power of the Mind video blog and currently building a network of Dodo Pizza pizzerias. His path was not easy, but he did not give up, which he told me in a personal conversation.

Fedor was in the book business. If there were difficulties, he read the biography of Sam Walton - it gave him strength. Learning about the situations that people came out of, about what they managed to achieve and how they did it, he looked at his own path in a new way. And when Fedor completed his business, left with practically no money, his mood was overshadowed by the fact that four years of his life and a lot of energy were wasted on building an unsuccessful business.

He needed to be determined and choose a further path. People around, including parents, advised me to stop “doing stupid things” and get a normal job. At such moments, the biography of Ray Kroc came to his mind, who, up to the age of 52, had no luck with doing business - he constantly failed. And only at the age of 52, the man put into practice the idea that turned his whole life upside down - he created the great McDonald's company.

Of course, this story was most welcome at a time when it is important not to give up and continue to look for your path.

After leaving the book business, Fedor needed an idea that would motivate him in the long run. As a result, he came to the conclusion that it was necessary to develop a business that could potentially grow to a huge scale. Then he began to identify his interests and realized that he wanted not to negotiate with each client, but to create a system. It was a pleasure for him to hone business processes, to build a business machine where everything was debugged as much as possible.

Next came the turn of choosing a market: it had to be in the growth stage and at the same time be stable, marginal. Mass public catering and elite restaurants corresponded to this criterion. And Fedor started making pizza. According to him, this is not just a sale of an everyday product, but the transmission of certain values: service, speed, taste.

Now, when Fedor's company is developing, he constantly checks himself: what things can be delegated to others? According to the entrepreneur, there is a real struggle going on in him: you always want to do something yourself, but it becomes clear that then you will not have time to implement other things. Fedor compares work by proxy with walking on stilts. You are uncomfortable, you can stumble, but still you go faster because the steps are longer.

Currently, Fedor is a successful entrepreneur, he is building a franchise network of pizzerias and is not going to stop there.

People should perceive you as a dynamic, charismatic person. Respect is the key to highly effective leadership. How others respect you determines their willingness to follow you. Fedor Ovchinnikov did not give up after the failures in the first business and began to build a new one. Although it was more difficult for him than for many, because he publicly spoke on the blog about all his affairs, including unsuccessful ones.

Become the kind of leader that people would follow willingly, even if you don't have a title or a leadership position.

From a purely psychological point of view, every event and phenomenon is created twice: first in the mind and then in reality. Focus on the positive. Be steadfast spiritually so that nothing can move you from your planned path to success. Imagine what you want and firmly believe in it. Everything is bound to happen.

Leaders think and talk about solutions while led people think and talk about problems.

This approach does not seem difficult, but few do it. John Kennedy in his youth, and even in his mature years, was ill a lot and could well get used to complaining about life, to refuse to fight. However, he managed to overcome physical infirmity and become the most charismatic and attractive political leader in US history.

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