COVID-19 Warning:
I really liked reading the Harvey piece and thought a lot of the questions he raised regarding leadership are relevant questions we should be asking ourselves right now amongst this pandemic. One point in his first question, “who are we” that struck out to me was the line, (it should be ) “understood that it is more important to know who you are than where you are going, where you are going will change as the world around you changes.” (Harvey 206) While this is a critical question leaders must ask themselves to assess their influence during different times, I think it is something that everyone should ask themselves. I find this to be incredibly relevant right now, as many of the things I and other classmates set up for ourselves for the rest of the semester and summer have been canceled due to the outbreak of the virus. Before the virus, I had accepted a position to intern for a company I really cared about, signed up to be a counselor at Camp Kesum, and was accepted to go abroad in the fall which was something I have been looking forward to since high school. Now, the recruiter I had been in close contact with for months leading up to my offer said they will likely not be having their program this summer, Kesum will be online if it were to happen, and my abroad program is up in the air. It can be very discouraging at times, to think of all the time I spent to make these things become realities to no longer being able to accomplish the things I planned to. However, the point Harvey made that really stuck out to me is to keep these values at your core and not let the externalities of the world affect those values. The world is constantly changing all around us, largely in ways we cannot control. While this can be discouraging, I agree with his point that knowing who we are is the best way to prepare for uncertainty and remain motivated to accomplish the goals we set out for ourselves.

Another part that really stood out to me in this reading is the distinction Harvey made between ‘where are we going’ versus ‘how will we get there?’ When looking at political campaigns, I always get frustrated when candidates have blanket statements to try and enact some sort of change but do not detail how they attempt to bring about that change. I think people as a whole romanticize the idea of long term change, but rarely realize or maintain the steps they need to achieve that goal. I think this is relevant to micro levels of people giving up their ‘New Years Resolution’ by February, or on macro levels in creating legislation for acts they care about. The ‘where we are going’ question has the end goal in vision, but the ‘how we will get there’ question focuses on the steps needed to get there.