Personal leadership
Let our attitude be the attitude of a true professional! This is how Donna Chittick, Bryan Druiventak and Ruben Chi, in dialogue with me during the conference Each One Teach One defined the attitude that makes one a true professional in the hiphop scene:
- Always perform 100 percent. Don’t be easy on yourself. Commit to lifelong learning.
- Articulate what drives you, and make sure your daily actions are connected to your main motivation.
- You can’t be a professional on your own. You have to be part of a community of professionals.
- As a result, it is important to understand where you are standing, and to which generation you belong. You have to be able to say thank you to the people you were learning from, and you have to be able to serve the younger generation with your knowledge, while learning from that generation as well. Each one teach one!
- In the end the audience and the wider community will tell you if you are a true professional. Your professional status has to be recognised by more people than the people of your direct peer group. The word professional is not a label that you can continue using once it is given to you. You need to check in with your environment on a regular basis. Do they still see you as one? The first 4 bullets are instrumental to this last bullet.
