[On Success] What it means to be a leader[关于成功]做一个领导者意味着什么

As a freshman at Harvard, I believed that a good leader has vision and understands how to manage her team to execute that vision.  Four more years of leadership experience has convinced me that this simple answer is missing several components of what it means to be a leader.

The turning point was when I joined the executive board of Harvard Undergraduate Women in Business (HUWIB) as the fundraising chair.  Seeing the previous chair struggle with leading our team towards raising the nearly $100,000 needed for programming, I realized that I needed a different strategy.

During my tenure, I identified three key tasks for myself as the chair: to empower, develop, and appreciate my team members.

First, I realized that a leader must have the humility and willingness to ask for and accept advice from her team.  People perform at their best when they have a voice in the vision.  Thus, rather than simply outline a vision and the tasks to execute it, I asked my team to advise me on our vision.  Indeed, the most innovative ideas came from my team.  For example, one of my associate directors came up with the ingenious idea to offer sponsorship of our activities fair booth.  To further this sense of empowerment, I borrowed a leaf from Google’s book and implemented 20% time—20% of our meeting time would be devoted to brainstorming new initiatives.  Not only did 20% time lead to further creative ideas such as fundraising for a summer intern award grant, but it also became a key motivator by empowering my team to contribute to our vision.

Knowing that you are learning and developing through the projects you accomplish is the second great motivating factor.  To this end, I strove to set goals with my team on each member’s personal skills and leadership development.  For instance, I had several individual meetings with my IBC director to cultivate her into my right-hand woman.  Knowing that our 1000-person Intercollegiate Business Convention would be her project and that her hard work was contributing to her personal development as a leader helped her lead our team to a record IBC.

The final key to leadership is appreciation.  Each of us has “discretionary energy,” and it is our job as leaders to release that energy.  More than any other incentive, a simple thank you or congratulations can go a long way towards motivating achievement.  Thus, each time a team member secured a new sponsor, I made sure to publicly congratulate them to our committee and our executive board.

This combination of empowerment, development and appreciation led our team to raise $120,000 in sponsorship for the year.  On that note, I encourage all of you to share your leadership experiences with us here in the CP network, so we can grow and learn together.作为哈佛的一年级学生，我认为，一个好的领导者要有自己的眼光并知道如何管理她的团队来执行这一愿景。四年多的领导经验让我明白这个简单的答案遗漏了一些作为领导人应有的重要元素。

让我对这一问题看法有所转变是在我加入哈佛大学商学院女子联合会的理事会，并当上筹款主席后。在看到前一任主席在为了活动项目筹集10万美元赞助而四处奔走时，我意识到我应该有一个新的策略。

在我的任期内，作为主席，我为自己确定了三个主要任务，授权给我的队员，开发我的队员和感谢我的团队成员。

首先我意识到，一个领导者要有谦卑的态度和意愿去征求并接受下属的意见。只有在最终决定中有话语权时，人们才会在实现目标的过程去表现的最好。因此，我要我的队员规划出我们的愿景，而不是简单地告诉他们我的决定。事实上，最具创新的想法也确实来自我的队员。例如，我的一位助理负责人提出了一个奇思妙想，提供给那些赞助商我们活动的展示位以作为赞助的报答。为了让“授权”这一任务执行的更好，我从谷歌的书里借鉴了一些方法。我用每次会议的20%时间来让大家进行头脑风暴。而这20%的时间不仅仅让我们有了很多创新的主意，如为暑假实习生项目筹款的办法，同时这20%时间也通过让我的队员有了在决定中的话语权，并因此成为他们的关键动力。

知道可以通过完成一个项目来学习和发展是第二个大的激励因素。为此，我与我的团队每个成员都以个人技能和领导力的发展为努力目标。举例来说，我和我的IBC主任有几个单独的会议，培养她成为我的得力助手让她知道我们的一个有1000人的商务会议是她的项目并且她的辛勤工作会让她有个人发展。得知这些帮助她成为一个领导者，带领我们的团队创造IBC的纪录。

最后一个做领导人要有的关键就是会感谢他人。我们每个人都有“酌情能量，”作为领导者释放这能量是我们的工作。一个简单的有关组员获得的成就的感谢或祝贺超过任何其他的激励，可以激励他们继续努力下去。因此，每一个团队成员获得了新的赞助商时，我一定要我们的委员会和执行委员会公开向他们表示祝贺。

就是这个授权，发展和感谢结合的领导方法让我们的团队一年筹集了12万美元的赞助。关于这一点，我鼓励你们所有人可以在这里的CP网络分享你的领导经验，这样我们就可以一起成长和学习。