Pinoy Pan de Sal

Take This Leadership
and Learn From It

God has given me new responsibilities. I guess He got tired of my avoiding leadership positions. I've been avoiding them for quite some time now. I admit it was fun to be free of the leadership burden. Mas masaya ang walang pananagutan.
I started being a leader early and maybe that’s why I got worn out by the time I was in my late college years. Leadership has always chased me. I was a working student in one of the branches of Jollibee. I was really curious of how it felt to be working. I don’t really need it but I could use the extra money. Brushes were expensive and when you’re a serious art student you’d only want the best ones. I got promoted after only two weeks. You can imagine the wrath that my co-workers felt towards me. I was made one level tougher during those times.
In CBN I was catapulted to a senior position after only two years. This was the most stressful job I had so far. But I cannot count the things that I learned when I was there.
And so I accepted the job here in ASCM simply because I wanted to be relieved of the burden of leadership. I was demoted (of which I blissfully accepted) from Senior Graphic Designer to a mere Graphic artist. My work hours were lessened – from 72 hours to a happy 30 hours. Free at last! But not for long…
Being a leader is a tough job. It has its advantages like you get to decide on things and you get to choose what color your office should be. The best thing I like about it is that you’re put in a position where you can influence people and affect their lives in a positive way. Wow! That’s one big responsibility. The heaviest thing about leadership is that when you’re the leader, everything is your fault. Everything will rise and fall on your leadership.
It’s a very critical position. You’ve got to ask God constantly for wisdom. You can’t afford to be disconnected from the source of it. Once you stop communicating with God you’re drained of all you’re strength.
There is one fear that I have. Since I started this kind of work I have this feeling that I’m loosing my creativity. Before it takes only minutes for me to conceptualize artworks but now I wait for it for days. I used to have images and colors and typography whirling in my head waiting to be unleashed just waiting for the right project, now, I feel, its gone. This creative block happened before and it usually comes back after a few days, but now it been weeks and I still feel emptied. Aside from this my creative angst is at its highest so I feel artistically paralyzed. I just pray that it will all come back.