Why is leadership so important in student motivation?

Why is leadership so important in student motivation?

If you do not have leadership qualities, you cannot progress in the life cycle of man, which revolves around work (do), wealth (see), knowledge (talk) and leadership (measure).

Leadership is measuring in The Positive Spirit (TPS).

Let us start with a quotation.

What you have to do and the way you have to do it is incredibly simple; whether you are willing to do it, that's another matter. ~ Peter F. Drucker.

You should strive to gradually or slowly free yourself and the spirit within you from all forms of bondages and vices of the body and attachments to the material world around you so that you can concentrate exclusively on your education.

Many people erroneously believe that the mind and thinking are the highest faculties in a human being. In actual fact the highest faculty in a human is spirit or soul and relationships. It is, therefore, very important that you understand and appreciate the difference between thinking and being.

Thinking is mind stuff whilst being is soul stuff. Each of us is a soul and being is a state of relationship between one soul and another. For example, it is the relationship between a doctor and his/her patients. You cannot be a doctor unless you have patients, even if you have the knowledge and credentials to prove that you are one!

While the mind is all about logic, the spirit is all about relationships - the relationship between souls and how we measure and count that relationship. Quantities, numbers and the study of mathematics help us to study such relationships.

Here, we are going to talk about the `state of being, measuring and counting’, and how to change your negative being (spirit) into a positive one.

The opposite of measure is count. In every group there is always a leader who sets the measure for success and there are the followers who strive to achieve this measure of success. Hence in a study group or in a group of students, a measure of success in studies is always set by the best student. This student is the leader and the rest of the students are just followers who are just keeping a count of their results in order to achieve success according to the measure set by the best student.

Every group or organization, including peer study groups, will have a criterion to measure their performance. We recommend that you join a group that uses time as its measurement criterion. This criterion gives the group a greater amount of latitude to include both senior and junior students from the same, as well as from different classes, courses, faculties and colleges, irrespective of whether they are studying on a part-time or full-time basis. It also includes students studying through online tutorials on the Internet.

This standard or measure is set by the leader of the group. Always strive to be the best student or leader among your peers so that you can be the one who sets the standard or measure for success for the rest in your study group to follow. You must strive to be the leader. Strive to be the best. If you fall short, it does not matter as you have given it your best shot!

If you do not know how to measure, you will end up as a follower. Use time as your standard or measure and manage your time well.

To be the leader in your study group, you must gain a lot more positive experiences in answering difficult examination questions correctly under examination conditions. This will only be possible if you practice good time management, both inside and outside the examination hall.

How do you measure your success when studying? You should only measure your success by your time management or utilization and not by the marks you score in your test or examination. If your time management is good, you do not have to worry about your marks – it will be high.

Remember to manage your time well and compare your time management techniques with the other members of the group. In this way, you will be able to improve yourself, see your progress and rank yourself in the group.

Many students manage their time centred on education and examinations. In their time plan practically little or no emphasis and time is given to health (including safety and security) and motivational programmes.

It is only after they fall sick or they have experienced a major failure in their lives do they start to worry about their bodies and their spirit. They then go into a physical fitness programme and do a lot of soul searching... why not do it now, before you fall sick or experience a major failure in your life??

If you want to do this, your time management must revolve around life and not around education and examinations. Time management must primarily be around improving your character and health (including safety and security). If you can do this, you will have no problems in getting an all-rounded education and improving your results in your examination.

Now do you get the point? You must have the right measure to calculate the progress of your success. Your measure must be self-improvement – an all-rounded improvement in your character, health (including safety and security), education and examinations. This can only be achieved through better time management. Otherwise you will really go astray.

Now for the million dollar question… What is so special about our motivational book and courses??

Our motivational book and courses are centred on the leader or the best student in a study group.

Part 1. Leadership Characteristics (LC)

1(a). The Positive Spirit (TPS).

The leader and the study group must be interested in learning and education, and The Positive Spirit (TPS) must bind the whole group together. Exclude anyone who does not have this spirit in them as they will be a hindrance to your progress in your education.

1(b). A student’s motto.

In life, do not be evil; instead, be good or virtuous and well-mannered.

Our advice to all students is to change or reform your ways so as to be always Positively Self - Motivated (PSM), i.e. do no evil, see no evil, talk no evil and measure no evil. This should be the motto of every student in your study group(s). If you practice this motto habitually, you will achieve Leadership through Self-Mastery (LSM).

Self-Mastery is all about life and living your life the way you want to live it, as an independent person and not as a dependent slave of another. If you do not have self-mastery, you will end up as a slave or servant of another. How can you command and control another if you cannot do this for your very own self?

1(c). The unholy trio.

Will you be successful in your studies if you lack (1) leadership qualities, (2) skills and abilities for your studies and (3) you do not practice good time management?? This is a sure recipe for failure.

In our book we will show you that even if you have all these weaknesses you can still succeed in your studies by belonging to the right study group. It will also help you identify your weak areas and show you how to correct them.

However, if you have all the above weaknesses you will only make matters worse if you persist and mix with low achievers, failures and dropouts who are not interested in education.

Here, in Part 1, we will try to find out why it is important for a student to have leadership qualities and what happens when you lack such qualities. In Parts 2 and 3, we will deal with the other two issues.

1(d). Leadership qualities.

Why is leadership so important in student motivation? If you do not have leadership qualities, you cannot progress in the life cycle of Man, which revolves around work (do), wealth (see), knowledge (talk) and leadership (measure).

Thus, it is important that you should be discerning and keep away from evil natured people or groups. This is why parents always tell their children not to speak to strangers, especially those they meet through the Internet chat rooms. These strangers may turn out to be `wolves in sheep’s clothing.’

We hope that you now understand the reason and importance of knowing a person’s or group’s character well before you join and mix closely with that person or group.

Your motto is the magic carpet that will take you to success! To put it another way, it is the boat that will take you from one side of the river to the other. If you try to cross the river without the boat, you may drown if you are not a good swimmer! Mind you, even exceptionally good swimmers can get attacked by crocodiles that lurk in the river!

Leaders are independent whilst followers are dependent. For example, a student who depends on his or her mathematics tuition teacher to solve all mathematical problems is a dependent. Our motivational approach is centred on the peer group leader and the peer group members and a healthy competition to be the number one in the group.

If you do not have the competitive spirit how can you go up the hierarchy? All champions have a highly competitive spirit. They compete and fight to be the leader or No.1. You must have the spirit of a champion to be a champion. If you lack this spirit, you can have it by staying close to the leader or champion in your own group. The spirit or fire will then be kindled in you.

1(e). Responsible/ careful/accountable.

Responsible people will not waste valuable resources like time, appointments and activities, contacts and money. They will have a full accounting for all of these. The same principles will apply to any other valuable resources placed in your hands.

i. For time, maintain a calendar or year planner,

ii. For appointments and activities, keep a diary,

iii. For contacts, a telephone, address and e-mail list will be needed,

iv. For money, a simple cash account will suffice, and finally,

v. For information on other valuable resources, files, books or other registers should be used.

Whatever happens, take responsibility. ~ Anthony Robbins.

In other words, you must take responsibility not just for yourself alone, but for others in the group as well.

When we have begun to take charge of our lives, to own ourselves, there is no longer any need to ask permission of someone. ~ George O'Neil.

1(f). Self-reformation.

You must take personal responsibility. You cannot change the circumstances, the seasons, or the wind, but you can change yourself. That is something you have charge of. ~ Jim Rohn.

If you do not want to be a follower in a study group, then, you will have to develop leadership characteristics and traits and form your own group.

The leader will be a very influential person because he can not only self-reform himself but others as well. A follower, in contrast, will be an incorrigible person who cannot even reform his/her own self.

It’s not that some people have willpower and some don't. It's that some people are ready to change and others are not. ~ James Gordon.

A sustained, continuous and prolonged effort to change or reform yourself positively is a pre-requisite for success in your life and studies.

You must have the will power to bring about positive change or reform and sustain it for a prolonged period of time until your desired goal is reached or achieved. For you to be able to do this, you must have patience, persistence and perseverance. Students who fail or only achieve poor or average results do so because their motivation or will power is absent or short lived. If you want to be the best all rounded straight As student in your study group or class, you must have the will power to sustain your positive motivation for a prolonged period until your goal is reached.

Do not give up till you reach your goal. Winners never quit and quitters never win.

To have a better life, you must be a better person. Eliminate vices and cultivate virtues. Personal growth and development through self-improvement must be a continuous process throughout an individual’s lifetime.

You should strive to gradually or slowly free yourself and the spirit within you from all forms of bondages and vices of the body and attachments to the material world around you so that you can concentrate exclusively on your education. People fail mainly because of inherent weaknesses in their character.

Some educated people, despite the many skills that they possess, still end up as failures because of deficiencies in their character. Conversely, some lesser educated people with fewer skills seem to be very successful. This can be attributed to their good or strong characters.

Do not misunderstand what I am saying. If you have a university or professional degree and a good strong character as well, that will be the best. You will definitely fly higher than others without a degree.

The former group in the preceding paragraph, although educated, may not have initiative, willpower, discipline, patience, diligence or perseverance. Even the lack of one of these character traits can be disastrous.

1(g). Study group.

Do you belong to one or more study groups?

Being is belonging to a group and your rank within it. Thus, it is important that you know your group.

If you do not know the group that you should belong to, our book will help you find your group. Having known your group, you must know your level or ranking within it.

If you are not the best all-rounded student in your group and you aspire to be in that position, our book will show you the way to do so.

The study group that you belong to or the company that you keep is, therefore, very important for you to succeed in your studies.

You may counter this by saying...`I can study by myself.’ Yes, you can do this if you are an independent person with leadership characteristics and traits. On the other hand, if you are a follower, then what we have said above is applicable to you.

The answer is very simple.

If you are a follower, you should develop leadership characteristics and traits and become a leader, or otherwise, you should find a good leader and join the person’s group and remain a faithful, loyal and co-operative follower.

1(h). Teamwork.

As a student, you may be good in certain subjects and weak in others. For the subjects that you are good in, you will normally attract followers who will want to learn from you. However, for the subjects that you are weak in, you may want to establish partner relationships with other students who are leaders in those subjects for mutual benefit.

You must realize that good team work benefits both the leader and the followers. Collective action is just as important as individual action.

You must have teamwork within your study group which must be your primary group in your life. All other groups must be secondary groups only. If a secondary group takes precedence over your primary group, your studies will be in serious trouble. Sometimes even your very own family may have to be downgraded to secondary status during the entire course/period of your education. Put both legs in your primary study group, but only one in each of the secondary groups that you belong to.

As a general rule, do not mix with people who do not have the same goal as you. You should retreat or keep away from them. Remember the saying…`One bad apple is enough to spoil the rest in the basket!?!’ Conversely, a friend in need is a friend indeed. This is real teamwork - helping one another within your study group.

Other members in the study group must try to get as close as possible to the leader, as the leader’s influence will have a positive motivational effect on the study group members. For a student, the primary group should be the study group. To achieve this, you must only struggle up the hierarchy in the primary group. By being a loyal follower in the secondary groups, one serves the leader and assists in providing services for the benefit of the whole group. The student can then provide the needed services in the chosen primary group. This will enable him/her to slowly move up the hierarchy and become a leader.

1(i). Goal congruence.

Categorically exclude individuals who are not interested in your goal as they will be a hindrance to your progress. Work hard to reach your goal. Act is doing things that take you to your goal, whilst react is doing things that take you away from your goal.

Motivation comes from the word motive i.e. an intention or goal we set for ourselves.

You should set your goal clearly. Do not get too involved with activities that will not take you to your goal. The goal that you set for yourself must be in line with your abilities and natural skills.

To ask an arts stream student to study science will create a lot of stress within the person and can eventually lead to failure, ill health, depression and even suicide. Do not be too ambitious. Start with an achievable goal and move up progressively. But what is important is that you remember always that in the midst of every problem or difficulty lie great opportunity.

The reason most major goals are not achieved is that we spend our time doing second things first. ~ Robert J. McKain.

Nothing can withstand the power of the human will if it is willing to stake its very existence to the extent of its purpose. ~ Benjamin Disraeli.

What you have to do and the way you have to do it is incredibly simple; whether you are willing to do it, that's another matter. ~ Peter F. Drucker.

1(j). Suffering together in the group.

In a study group (peer group), members will act as a buffer in case anyone in the group `falls short’ or gets de-motivated. If this does occur, the others in the group will stand by and push or encourage that person to do his/her best. Group dynamics comes into play here.

To illustrate my point, I would like to compare this to candles.

One lighted candle can be easily put out when a gust of wind blows. On the other hand, had that very candle been part of a cluster of lighted candles, its flame would have been rekindled by the others. As the saying goes, `when we act as One, we can move mountains.’

There’s another saying which is just as popular...`the strength of the wolf is the pack, and the strength of the pack is the wolf!’ It simply means that every individual in the group is as important as the group as a whole.

A leader should have initiative, willpower, discipline, and diligence. He or she should also be able to perform duties and shoulder responsibilities and patiently endure suffering.

It must be a continuous struggle to be ahead of the pack. If you do not do that, you cannot be the leader; you will, instead, fall behind and just be a follower.

Suffering is the royal road to glory. No pain, no gain! You must look at suffering more as your fortune rather than your misfortune. The more sufferings you can endure, the better your life will be in this world. Those who cannot endure suffering will experience failure rather than success in life.

It is the lot (destiny or fortune) of man to suffer.~ Benjamin Disraeli.

Suffering is like the fire in which gold, our lives, is melted and purified. ~ Author Unknown.

Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls; the most massive characters are seared with scars. ~ Kahlil Gibran.

Part 2 - Skill and Abilities (SA)

2(a). Skills & abilities.

Are your natural abilities or skills a help or hindrance to achieving your goal in education? Every individual is blessed in some way. Talents or skills are given to each person.

First and foremost you must know where your talents and skills lie. If you do not know where they lie, our book will help you discover them. If misused or abused, they will be a hindrance to your education and you may end up as a failure in life.

The skills and abilities of the peer group leader and members determine the goal and academic performance of the group.

2(b). The 16 skills.

To be an independent leader, you must develop 16 skills, also known as skills and abilities. For example, if you wish to read and reply a letter, and you do not have reading and writing skills, then you have to depend on someone else.

The 16 skills are do, see, talk, measure, plan, draw, write and formulate. These skills must be performed both manually and with the use of machines (8 x 2 = 16).

Our book will help you to identify and develop all the 16 skills.

2(c). The 1st of the 16 skills (do/act) - get your act together!

The habits, rituals and routines of the peer group leader and members will ultimately determine the academic performance of each individual member of the peer group.

Similarly, mastering examination techniques is also mastering a skill, and this skill must become a habit, ritual or routine.

These rituals must give you sufficient positive experiences in answering difficult and challenging examination questions correctly, under examination conditions. This is the 1st of the 16 steps or skills. The remaining 15 skills cannot be mastered if you do not get this 1st step or skill right.

2(d) Rest and rejuvenate to perform your duties and to do productive work.

Duty first and then productivity; both combined and not alone. Rest and rejuvenate to fulfil your personal, filial, communal and social duties, and after that, to do your work productively. This will not be possible if you go by duty or productivity exclusively.

When you perform duties as a helper under the guidance of an experienced worker, you will pick up many skills which will be useful to you. These skills will eventually upgrade you from a mere helper to a productive worker.

You should not be too career-oriented as this would mean that you are only interested in productivity. Neither should you fulfil your duties all the time without any regard for productivity. Remember always that fulfilling your duties must be the first priority. Productivity comes after that.

Therefore, you must strike a balance between the two, i.e. duty and productivity together, and not alone.

Part 3 - Time Management (TM).

3(a). Time management.

All leaders must also have planning and doing skills. Leaders must plan and do and practice good time management. This includes control as well. So please spare some time to find out where you are now to plan your future carefully.

The ability to concentrate and use time well is everything. ~ Lee Iacocca.

Always practice good time management.

This will only be possible if you practice good time management – good time management inside and outside the examination hall.

Many good students get mediocre results because of wrong momentum and timing. Work consistently every day. Take one step at a time and do not slacken at any time. You must not go off in a tangent.

For example, a student may work very hard in the initial stages but loses steam during the intensive revision phase and as a result, does not reach peak performance during the examination. So it is very important to know when to slow down, when to speed up, and how to peak at the right time. Time and timing are therefore very important in a person’s life.

Our book will also help you to improve your time management skills.

You should plan well before you decide to embark on anything that you do. Only with good planning will you be able to attain the desired results.

Prepare a plan and act on it. Do not procrastinate or deviate from your plan. Plan your work and work your plan. Give emphasis to every step in the plan. It should be a step-by-step plan. When you study you should also learn in this way – in a step-by-step method.

A person who does not plan his or her work is actually planning to fail. Always check your progress in your studies with your plan and if the results are not satisfactory, take early corrective action. A student must always have a plan to achieve success in his or her studies.

A student with a plan will react positively towards the fact that the results achieved in his or her examination did not go according to the plan, and specific corrective action will be taken to gradually improve the results in the forthcoming examinations by improving the time management for the subject(s) concerned.

As such, one must always institute controls according to a plan. Control measures implemented without a plan will not work. At best, they will only work for a short while.

You will be negligent in your work or studies if you do not plan before you do it. Many students fail or do badly in their examinations because they do not have a study and revision plan. This is being unscrupulous or negligent in your studies.

3(b). Time as a measure of performance.

How do you measure your success when studying? You should only measure your success by your time management or utilization and not by the marks you score in your test or examination. If your time management is good, you do not have to worry about your marks – it will be high.

Every group or organization, including peer study groups, will have a criterion to measure their performance. We recommend that you join a group that uses time as its measurement criterion.

This criterion gives the group a greater amount of latitude to include both senior and junior students from the same, as well as from different classes, courses, faculties and colleges, irrespective of whether they are studying on a part-time or full-time basis. It also includes students studying through online tutorials on the Internet.

Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration. ~ Thomas Alva Edison

Our recommended Time Management Formula for success is 1% inspiration (plan) + 99% perspiration (do).

It only takes about 1% of your time to know your inspirations and your dreams (plan). The balance 99% of your time must be spent working hard to make your dreams and goals a reality in your life (do). That 1% of your time well spent can determine whether you will succeed or fail.

Remember to manage your time well and compare your time management techniques with the other members of the group. In this way, you will be able to improve yourself, see your progress and rank yourself in the group.

Many students manage their time centred on education and examinations. In their time plan practically little or no emphasis and time is given to health (including safety and security) and motivational programmes.

It is only after they fall sick or have experienced a major failure in their lives do they start to worry about their bodies and their spirit. They then go into a physical fitness programme and do a lot of soul searching... why not do it now, before you fall sick or experience a major failure in your life??

If you want to do this, your time management must revolve around life and not around education and examinations. Time management must primarily be around improving your character and health (including safety and security). If you can do this, you will have no problems in getting an all-rounded education and improving your results in your examination.

Therefore, at all times, strive to be the best student among your peers so that you can be the one who sets the measure or standards for success for the rest of the pack to follow, but if you fall short, it does not matter as you have given it your best shot!

Now do you get the point? You must have the right measure to calculate the progress of your success. Your measure must be self-improvement – an all-rounded improvement in your character, health (including safety and security), education and examinations. This can only be achieved through better time management. Otherwise you will really go astray.

Determine or find out all the quantities that are involved and express their relationship in the form of a mathematical formula. Having done that, you can then use the mathematical formula as your success formula to measure your performance.

Our recommended Time Management Formula for success is 1% inspiration (plan) + 99% perspiration (do).

3(c). Practice habits, rituals and routines.

To be the leader in your study group you must gain a lot more positive experiences in answering difficult and challenging examination questions correctly under examination conditions. The really good students are the ones who always answer questions to gain more positive experiences in answering difficult exam questions correctly under examination conditions.

Answering difficult examination questions under examination conditions is the criterion for performance measurement. This, thus, is the needed productivity for leadership in the group.

This should be a habit which should come very naturally when a student sits down to study – like a duck taking to water. These are the kind of students that you must keep company with.

Success is the sum of small efforts, repeated day in and day out. ~ Robert Collier.

If you carry on with your current normal routine activities, will it eventually take you to your goal?

Compare your routine activities with your planned practice ritual or routine and see if they are in agreement. In addition, you should also check with your goal to see if you are progressing in the right direction.

You can use your planned practice routine or rituals to improve your performance in your studies and examinations and make greater progress towards your goal.

Take a break to assess if your planned practice rituals and routines will give you sufficient experience in answering difficult examination questions correctly under examination conditions.

Remember, your game is only as good as your practice. Practice makes perfect! It takes ferocious concentration and unyielding commitment for continuous improvement. That means practice is required.

People create their own success by learning what they need to learn and then by practicing it until they become proficient at it. ~ Brian Tracy.

Success is nothing more than a few simple disciplines, practiced every day. ~ Jim Rohn.

3(d). Patience, persistence and perseverance.

Keep your act together and work consistently and patiently. Do not work erratically. Be always consistent. One must always have perseverance, never giving up when faced with problems or failures.

If I have made any valuable discoveries, it has been owing more to patient attention than to any other talent. ~ Sir Isaac Newton.

Rome was not built in a day. ~ Proverb.

An ounce of patience is worth a pound of brains. ~ Dutch Proverb.

Slow and steady wins the race. ~ Aesop.

When the going gets tough, the tough gets going. Most people, however, give up when faced with suffering and hardship. So you must never give up when the going gets tough. You must persevere until the tough gets going.

It's not that I'm so smart, it's just that I stay with problems longer. ~ Albert Einstein.

Sure I am of this, that you have only to endure to conquer. ~ Winston Churchill.

The mother of all virtues is patience, persistence and perseverance. At all times be patient and keep on going and never, never, never ever quit. If you quit before reaching your goal, you will not progress, and all your earlier efforts will come to naught.

In his later years, Sir Winston Churchill gave a speech at the English prep school he attended as a boy. When Churchill walked out to give his speech, he peered over the top of his glasses and said, “Never! Never! Never! Never! Give Up!” With that he sat down. Many students were disappointed, but the headmaster felt that this might have been one of Churchill’s greatest speeches. If one quality epitomized Winston Churchill, it was persistence. He never gave up. It was that attitude that inspired England in World War II to continue fighting when others might have surrendered.

Our book will show you how to develop patience, persistence and perseverance.

Part 4. Details of the Introductory Book.

The write-up that you have just read gives you only a little insight into our book. The next step is to purchase and read our flow-charted Introductory Book.

Title of the book:

Why is leadership so important in student motivation?

Integrated Book (Books 1 to 4).

Introduction to our book and what it can do for you.

First published 18th March, 2008

Second edition 21^st October, 2008

Third edition 17^th September, 2009

Published by Meenakshi Publications

Written by K.Sivaratnam

Editing and cover design by Vicky Sivaratnam.

Proof reading by Jerusha Sivaratnam.

Printed by: Q S Print

No. 10, Jalan SS15/8, 47500 Subang Jaya,

Selangor Darul Ehsan.

MALAYSIA.

Telephone No.: 03-5634-7007.

Fax No.: 03-5621-3244

E-mail address: qsprint8@gmail.com.

© 2008 Meenakshi Publications

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner.

The logo on the front cover is a registered trademark of Meenakshi Publications.

Motivational courses can be arranged by special request on a 1-1 or group basis.

The writer can be contacted as below:

Mailing Address:

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Handphone Nos.:

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