Leading expert in leadership and medicine, Dr. Sanjiv Chopra, MD, explains how leadership is an everyday opportunity for everyone, not just historical figures. He details how individuals can lead within their families, communities, and professions, highlighting the inspiring example of a young pre-med student who founded a global sight-restoring organization, Unite for Sight, which has performed over 82,000 surgeries.
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Everyday Leadership: How to Lead in Your Community and Career
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- What is Everyday Leadership?
- Leadership in Daily and Family Life
- Leadership in Your Civic and Religious Community
- Professional Leadership in Medicine and Science
- Inspiring Example of a Young Leader
- How to Find Your Leadership Purpose
What is Everyday Leadership?
Dr. Sanjiv Chopra, MD, redefines leadership by moving the focus away from famous politicians and historical figures. He argues that the common mistake is to only discuss iconic leaders like Gandhi, Churchill, Nelson Mandela, and Abraham Lincoln. True leadership, according to Dr. Chopra, is accessible to everyone in their ordinary, daily lives.
Leadership in Daily and Family Life
Dr. Anton Titov, MD, raises a crucial question about personal and familial leadership. How can one be a leader for oneself and for the benefit of one's own family? Dr. Sanjiv Chopra, MD, affirms that this is the foundational level of leadership. Exemplary leadership begins with self-mastery and extends to creating a positive, guiding influence within the home, setting a powerful example for loved ones.
Leadership in Your Civic and Religious Community
Leadership opportunities abound in local communities and places of worship. Dr. Sanjiv Chopra, MD, emphasizes that you can lead in exemplary ways within your church, temple, synagogue, or mosque. Civic organizations like the Rotary Club also provide a powerful platform for community leadership and service, allowing individuals to make a significant local impact.
Professional Leadership in Medicine and Science
In a professional context, leadership is essential. Dr. Sanjiv Chopra, MD, specifically mentions leading within a division of gastroenterology, cardiology, or surgery. For those in research, leadership extends to the laboratory, where a principal investigator guides assistants and colleagues in molecular biology experiments. This professional guidance is a critical form of everyday leadership that advances science and patient care.
Inspiring Example of a Young Leader
Dr. Sanjiv Chopra, MD, provides a powerful example of youth leadership with Jennifer Staple. As a 19-year-old pre-med student at Yale, she was saddened by patients going blind from treatable conditions during an ophthalmology elective. She founded Unite for Sight with 29 other students. In just eight years, the organization has provided over 82,000 sight-restoring surgeries and seen more than a million patients, leveraging a network of over 4,000 volunteers.
How to Find Your Leadership Purpose
The story of Jennifer Staple illustrates how a powerful experience can reveal one's life purpose. Her commitment was so profound that she deferred her admission to Stanford Medical School to dedicate 80 hours a week to her mission. Dr. Sanjiv Chopra, MD, notes there are many other examples of extraordinary young people, aged 17 to 19, who are leading in amazing ways, proving that age is no barrier to impactful leadership.
Full Transcript
Dr. Anton Titov, MD: Say a word "leader". Images of politicians and civil rights advocates and leaders come to mind. But for most people, the challenges of leadership come in daily ordinary life.
Dr. Anton Titov, MD: How to be a leader for oneself?
Dr. Anton Titov, MD: How to be a leader for the sake and benefit of one's own family?
Dr. Sanjiv Chopra, MD: That's a great question! The mistake made often by many of us who speak about leadership or write about leadership is to talk about the most amazing leaders in history. I'm guilty of this too.
Dr. Sanjiv Chopra, MD: We talk about Gandhi, and we talk about Churchill, and Nelson Mandela, and Abraham Lincoln. The current Pope is a pretty amazing leader. There are amazing leaders around us, Aung San Suu Kyi from Myanmar.
Dr. Sanjiv Chopra, MD: The point is: all of us can lead. We can lead in exemplary ways. You can lead at the level of your civic community, in your church, in your temple, in your synagogue, in your mosque.
Dr. Sanjiv Chopra, MD: You can lead in a Rotary Club, in your division of gastroenterology, cardiology, surgery, in the lab where you are doing experiments in molecular biology. You have assistants, you have people around you. You can lead in exemplary ways.
Dr. Sanjiv Chopra, MD: One of the fascinating things to me now is to see the examples of young people who are leading in amazing ways. There's a young lady by the name of Jennifer Staple, 19 years of age, pre-med student at Yale.
Dr. Sanjiv Chopra, MD: She does an ophthalmology elective for a month and she's very saddened to see people who have grown blind from treatable, preventable causes of blindness. Who are these people? Poor people in New Haven who didn't go to see a doctor.
Dr. Sanjiv Chopra, MD: Only when they got close to being blind or becoming blind, they went to see an eye doctor. She comes back to Yale and with 29 other students forms an organization called Unite for Sight.
Dr. Sanjiv Chopra, MD: In the last eight years they have done more than 82,000 sight-restoring surgeries, they have seen more than a million patients. She has more than 4,000 volunteers; they include nursing students, medical students, web designers, professors of ophthalmology.
Dr. Sanjiv Chopra, MD: She found her purpose in life by having that experience and she's a young leader. She got admission to Stanford Medical School and she said to the Dean of Admissions: "I want to defer admission for a couple of years, I need to work for 80 hours a week on my organization and my mission."
Dr. Sanjiv Chopra, MD: There are many other examples I can tell of extraordinary young people, 17, 18, 19 years of age who are leading in amazing ways.