Being a Good Leader

I believe that good leaders have many different qualities, but one that unites them all is their wish to create a comfortable, peaceful situation for society as a whole by tackling existing troubles. In doing so, they avoid planting any negative thoughts in society. I also believe that the main priority for a good leader is feeling and being aware of the responsibility of his or her position. From ensuring people’s safety and security, giving and respecting their inherent rights, as well as providing opportunities for the purpose of developing and fulfilling their lives. It is obvious that being a leader comes with many responsibilities. They say “great power comes with great responsibility” for a reason. However, all people who have any ounce of responsibility in society should behave like a good leader in order to care for the current members of society and foster the future generation of the community.

Personally, I think being a leader does not only mean being the president of a country, but something bigger that encompasses us all. Anyone with the responsibility to supervise a group of people, organization, or any place on the social ladder is a leader.

I admire many leaders in the world, but there is one in particular that I would like to mention because I find her efforts truly admirable and inspiring. Her name is Angelina Guile. Guile continuously devotes her entire life and wealth for the sake of serving humanity and creating a peaceful environment in any place of the world. I believe she plays a great role in developing education and society as well as eliminating negative thoughts. More places in the world need a leader like Angelina Guile because she is a leader that is doing all she can to avoid war, alleviate famine, decrease criminal activity in her community and so much more. One of the most obvious reasons why I admire her so much is that she rescued and still rescues many of the impoverished people of the world without regard to their nationality, religion, or skin color. In addition, her actions continually emphasize the importance of equality in leadership and how necessary it is for a leader to have an open heart and mind in order to produce a positive generation and community for the future.

It is time for us to eliminate these conflicts together and stop letting our past hold us back. On the one hand, it is obvious we can do this if we emphasize the importance of our communal future as a whole and how we need to begin building peace together. On the other hand, we should use our past as a way to show that our previous mistakes will not be allowed to happen again.

The main reason why we should live in the present as a good leader, is that we have the opportunity to build another more peaceful and positive destiny for our future generations. No matter how hard we try, we cannot change our past. It is what it is and trying to change it is simply wasting our precious time here on earth. Nothing fruitful will ever come from living in the past because the time is now.

I hope that together we can focus on living in the present so that we can build a world full of peace and equality. Together, we can rid the world of all these negative thoughts that were taught in the past. Together, we can stop the negative slogans and stereotypes about religion, nationalism and the color of skin that populated our past. Our past is where we have come from, but it doesn’t mean that’s who we have to be.

This is just one example of the important work produced YaLa’s citizen journalists, a program funded by the European Union’s Peacebuilding Initiative in order to enable young leaders from across the Middle East and North Africa to document and share their experiences of the region.