节目资讯
刊物:空中英语教室
日期:2014-03-03
难易度:High
关键字:assumption, take charge, regardless, narrow-mindedly
Hello.
Today we are discussing A New View of Leaders.
What assumptions do you have about how leadership should be?
Do you picture leaders to be tough and confident?
Do you picture them to make quick decisions?
What about when they are in meetings?
Is the leaders' opinion the most important one always?
Are you a leader?
Do you listen to your teammates or just dominate every discussion?
Let's continue learning about some assumptions of leadership that could be
changed.
A New View of Leaders.
Good leaders have the ability to listen closely, regardless of teammates'
positions in the company.
Leaders' goals should come first.
Without a doubt, leaders have personal goals such as building a professional
identity or gaining status within an industry.
But when leaders narrow-mindedly pursue such goals, they fail to encourage the
success of their teammates.
If real leadership is about making other people better, then leaders should
spend as much energy supporting teammates as they do pursuing their own personal
goals.
(Chinese).
And now let's go to our teachers.
Thank you, Michelle.
Well, let's continue looking at that first assumption: What leaders have to say
is important.
Of course if you want to keep your teammates or employees motivated, then you
need to listen closely to what they have to say.
Right. We read that good leaders have the ability to listen closely, regardless
of teammates' positions in the company.
Gabe, what are you doing?
Oh, don't mind me, Carolyn.
I'm just listening closely to what you're saying.
But why are you standing so close to me?
Well, isn't that what listening closely means?
How can I listen closely if I'm not close?
Gabe, that's not what this means.
You can go back to your spot now.
Oh.
Yep... Maybe we should talk about that phrase.
To listen closely just means to listen carefully and pay attention to what
someone says.
Hmm? What?
I said it means to pay attention to what someone says.
Gabe, were you listening closely to me just now?
You know, Carolyn, I was close, and then you told me to go back to my own spot.
But you didn't hear what I said after that?
Well, no... I guess I wasn't listening closely.
Good! Ah, Gabe wasn't listening closely.
Well, I guess that's good.
It proves the point. And friends, do you listen closely when people are talking
to you or are you thinking about something else?
Hmm, like me.
Well, we see a key word in that sentence: regardless.
This means it doesn't matter what position your teammates have in the office,
you should still listen closely to them.
Why is this an important reminder, Carolyn?
Hmm, because too often, someone will only pay attention to people he thinks are
important,
and he doesn't pay attention to those he thinks are less important.
Right. But it's important to treat all people with equal respect, regardless of
if they are the CEO or an intern working at your company.
Well, we see another assumption about leaders here: Leader's goals should come
first.
And right away we read: without a doubt.
When you say "without a doubt," that means there is no question about something;
you don't doubt it.
So when our lesson says leaders have personal goals such as building a
professional identity, that means that we know this is true and we don't doubt
it.
Now how else can you use the phrase "without a doubt"?
Well, you could say this is without a doubt the best French restaurant in town.
Or without a doubt, Amy is the most stylish girl in our class.
You are improving in your English skills without a doubt.
So keep it up.
Now we read here about people building a professional identity.
What does that mean?
"Build" is another word for create or make here.
It has the idea of improving something.
For example, people build their resumes with different job experiences.
Right. You build on your past experiences to create your resume.
And it's OK to build your professional identity or try to gain status within an
industry.
Just make sure you don't narrow-mindedly pursue those goals.
Yes. And if you do something narrow-mindedly, you don't really consider the
views of other people or have sympathy for them.
Sometimes we just use the word "narrow-minded" to describe people who are not
open to ideas that are different from their own.
Hmm. Are you a narrow-minded person?
Or are you the opposite, open-minded?
Well, if you are a leader narrow-mindedly pursuing your own goals, you might
fail to encourage the success of your teammates.
I hope you don't do that.
Right. Don't fail to encourage your teammates.
When you fail to do something, that means you don't do it.
You do not succeed at doing something.
Of course we hope to succeed, but sometimes we fail to do some important things.
For example, sometimes I want to make changes to things we film here on the
show.
If I fail to communicate to everyone on my team about these changes, then some
people will be confused.
I don't want to fail to do that.
Or maybe you need to pay rent for your house every month by a certain time.
Sometimes people fail to pay their rent on time, or even worse, they fail to pay
the rent at all.
Well, if you're a leader, don't fail to encourage the success of your teammates.
Don't forget to encourage them.
We read: If real leadership is about making other people better, then leaders
should spend as much energy supporting teammates as they do pursuing their own
personal goals.
Yes. Everyone's goals are important.
Right now it's time for us to do something else that's important - Visit Liz in
the Grammar Gym.
And then we'll join Linda for the Editor's Summary.
Hello, friends.
Welcome to the Grammar Gym.
My name is Liz.
Here's our Grammar Tip sentence.
If real leadership is about making other people better, then leaders should
spend as much energy supporting teammates as they do pursuing their own personal
goals.
Our focus today is on the sentence pattern: If... is about..., then...
Notice how there are two parts to this sentence pattern.
Part 1: Part 1 focuses on what something should be or what something is expected
to be.
And part 2, it's about what should happen if people understand or accept part 1.
So in the case of today's sentence, the writer is saying that part 1, if people
expect a real leader to be a person who helps other people to become better,
then part 2, leaders should spend the same amount of energy on teammates as they
do on themselves.
Let's look at some example sentences.
If the company party is about giving people a chance to meet the boss in person,
then the entire company should be invited.
Or: If the charity event is about getting people to save paper, then the
planning committee shouldn't be printing so many flyers and posters.
If you turn to today's Grammar Tip section in your Studio Classroom magazine,
you'll find more example sentences there.
And that's it for today.
This is Liz from the Grammar Gym.
See you next time.
In day one of our BUSINESS article, we see that there are a lot of assumptions
about what business leaders should be like.
But there are other qualities that are also necessary but not so obvious.
While it is true that they need to take charge, they also need to listen to what
their teammates are saying, no matter what position those people may be in.
They also need to encourage the success of their teammates along with their own.
These are just two of the new views of business leaders that we learned about
today.
Thank you, Linda.
Well, after today's lesson, what do you think?
Do you still have the same assumptions about leadership or have your assumptions
been adjusted a little?
Well, we're not done learning about this new view of leaders, so come back next
time right here at Studio Classroom.
We'll see you them.
(Music).