Today really centered around one theme: "How do you define good leadership?"

We had the chance to regroup at class this morning and each present what we found as far as our stove research. We found some things some other teams did not find, and other teams found things we did not find, so it was very productive and very good knowledge sharing. We then had a short opportunity to work on coming up with some designs.

At the conclusion of the design brainstorming sessions, we had a lecture from Dr. Schuhmann about leadership. While I've heard talks about leadership before, including from Dr. Schuhmann, I really enjoy these types of discussions, and each manages to touch on some different piece that I haven't exactly heard before. At the conclusion of this presentation, we were left to go on another Field Challenge, this time to ask strangers the question posed above: "How do we define good leadership?"

This was another wonderful opportunity, and we also got new teammates for this exercise. I had a chance to work with Charles and Hasna, and the discussions we had as we went around Rabat were wonderful. We attempted to explore different sections of Rabat than we had explored on the day previously. This took us through the streets, to an elementary school, and eventually to the school of our peers: Ecole Mohammadia d'Ingenieurs.

Here I had the opportunity to ask this question and get answers from the perspective of students and of faculty and staff. Throughout the day, we had been asking people whose qualifications ran the gamut: small children, students, young men and women, older men and women, military personnel, policemen, staff at the mall, and all kinds of different perspectives. This was a great exercise as it allowed us to see a number of differences and similarities in answers.

One interesting observation was that there is no direct translation of the word "leader" into Arabic or Darija, so that almost left us to define the word just to ask the question. Some took this to just mean "manager" and referenced the individuals for whom they worked, but others took it to mean more of what we stereotypically think a leader is, someone who doesn't necessarily have to be a manager, but has other qualities. I really enjoyed this day, and the chance to all assemble back at Ecole Mohammadia was great. A number of other teams were also there at the end of the day, and I had more of a chance to interact with Ibtissam, Youssef, and others who were wonderful to spend time with. The week was starting to go by awfully fast, though!