Kung Fu Panda: What an animated movie taught me about leadership

If you are an honors student at ASU, you might have heard of HON 394: Deductive Logic, Leadership/Management Techniques.This class will make you think, share your own values and opinion on different things about life, learn something new, and see things from a different perspective.

If you are an honors student at ASU, you might have heard of HON 394: Deductive Logic, Leadership/Management Techniques. Dr. Dean Kashiwagi and his son, Dr. Jacob Kashiwagi, teach this class. There are a variety of students from different majors in this class and I’m happy to be taking it with a few business students like me! This class will make you think, share your own values and opinion on different things about life, learn something new, and see things from a different perspective.

One day in class when I heard that we’re watching Kung Fu Panda, I thought, oh great, I don’t even like violence so watching a bunch of animals fight for more than an hour doesn’t really appeal to me. But when we got to the scene where Oogway disappeared and brought some sense to Master Shifu, that’s when the movie got me. In HON 394, we learn about Information Measurement Theory (IMT). It’s about making things simple and using the information that you have to reduce risks and predict future conditions.

This class helped me realize that I had been thinking of the wrong things when it comes to a person’s control and influence toward another individual. I know that we are accountable for all the things that we do; I know that at the end of the day, it’s all up to us. What I denied to accept was the fact that no matter who surround yourself with or let into your life, at the end of the day, it was you who did it. Nobody forced you to do it; it was all up to you.

To be a good leader, you must believe in your people, or your team. A great leader would encourage and nurture its team and make them even better.

To be a great team player, you must value yourself and accept that you are different. Each one of us is unique so trying to be like the person whom you think is good is boring, exhausting, and doesn’t make sense at all. You must embrace who you are and strive to make wonderful things because life is just too short to focus on what others are doing.

This class has been a very different experience for me and I’m sure that there will be a time in the future where I’ll say, “Oh my gosh, Dean was totally right!” When I take on a leadership role in one of my organizations at W. P. Carey in the next semester or two and when I work for that future company, I’m happy to be taking all these lessons with me. I definitely recommend this class!

Oh and one more thing: Don’t be afraid to fail and take risks. Don’t hold yourself back anymore: stop blaming others or your lack of resources, and stop living in the past. Write down your goals, (or you can even draw them out!), and keep working toward them. I highly encourage you to meet and talk to students who aren’t your friends and make lasting connections with them! Get out of your comfort zone because putting yourself in situations where you’re likely to fail in is the only way that you will achieve success.