Leadership and Self-deception book response - Mai Esther Dimte (HLD)

            

When I first started reading the Leadership and Self-deception book, my first thought was that this book will talk about leadership and how it relates to social work directly. I expected the book to be about business and how we can recruit people. What surprised me most was how important we see ourselves and how we see other people. In addition, I was amazed when Lou and Tom stepped down from their positions and took off to apologize to Kate and Joyce. It is always very difficult for me to apologize to others especially if they are younger than me or if they have less education than I do. I literally found myself in the box.

            As I write this, I would like to be able to capture the essence of the book and transfer it to another topic in order to show higher critical thinking skills. I would like to use personal stories and examples from my life experiences in hoping to strengthen my points of writing this.

            In life, a lot of times we end up doing what we don’t want to do, we end up asking more for trouble when we think we are fixing it and we just want to blame other people so that we may feel justified. According to this book, we do all of these things simply because we are in the box and are too blind to see the goodness of others. We ask God for wisdom yet we are too lazy to study hard. We pray for wealth but we are not eager to work hard. We point out other people’s mistakes yet we are not willing to admit our own weaknesses.

            I love how Lou talks about the letter he sent and how the letter he received from his son was a source of healing for him. When he makes the time for his son and writes a letter to him, not only can his son feel the presence but also Lou himself can feel the love in it. I can certainly apply this to my personal daily life. I use the Bible to communicate with God. I read it as it is a love letter and a reminder from God. I learned that when we prioritize God, He makes a difference in life significantly. God is always out of the box. He never expects us to do more sin yet he forgives us and always opens his arms for us. He doesn’t blame us for our sin. Jesus clearly told us in the Bible to love our neighbor as much as we love ourselves. He also encourages us to treat others as we want them to treat us. If we are a follower of Jesus then we should not be as selfish as we are right now. We need to stop being too busy and only interested in ourselves. We need to be humble and do good things to others instead of betraying ourselves wrongfully. After I read this book, it really opened my eyes and allowed me to see other people individually. It challenges me to be consistent in the way I talk, treat others or react towards people around me. It also shows me that as a good Christian, we shall never pretend to be kind when we are not. For instance, everything we do, we must do it from our heart not because we have to but because we love to. This is the way we can stay out of the box.

            Now that I have read this book every time I want to blame other people, I will always have to question myself who am I to blame? Am I the problem or are they the problem? Will blaming someone resolve the problem? This is exactly what the book makes me want to practice when I am around my colleagues and friends as well as loved ones. I also understand that making an assumption is not healthy as it only makes the problem bigger. I would definitely encourage my readers to be mindful of the people around you. I would like to tell you that no one is blameworthy or perfect yet we can only do better. I would like to empower other people as much as possible. I would like to suggest for us to see even our enemies as people and not as objects.