Leadership – Lesson #1

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These past few weeks I’ve been listening to Read to Lead podcast. I came across it as I was looking for something that would help me in my quest to figure out which direction I needed to explore next. Being that I really don’t believe in coincidence, the podcast has introduced me to a number of great books and thought leaders. Better yet, it has introduced me to a number of great authors who are really at their peaks, each being an influential and successful entrepreneur.

The Read to Lead Podcast is based on the belief that intentional and consistent reading is key to success in business and in life.

As a leader in education, this is a foundational belief that I have had since I began teaching. I know that I would not have been able to make the progress nor been able to continue to grow as a teacher and an administrator without continuing to read and learn. Most of my reading was educational in nature until I ventured into social media sites and began to broaden my reading through recommendations of people within my PLN. Lately, having decided that I needed to change course, I was searching for insights and ideas, new experiences that would introduce me to things that weren’t necessarily educational in nature. This is when I found Read to Lead.

At the end of each podcast, the host, Jeff Brown asks each of his guests about a leadership lesson they’ve learned. These guests include Chris Brogan, Scott M. Fay, Dave Delaney and Todd Henry just to mention a few. Almost to a one, they all answered with a version of “Be good to other people. Help others. Build relationships.” As I listened to these, I wondered what educational leaders would say. If I were honest, I would probably have answered “Do what’s best for students.” Really, that’s probably what I would have answered. As I’ve listened to the podcasts, I began to realize that maybe in education we’ve tried to make things much more complicated than needs to be. As I listen to these leaders of today, it was clear that they genuinely were focused on helping others to get better. Do we really focus on making everyone around us better? Or just on most of the people around us? Do we have an entrepreneurial mindset of looking not to make ourselves look good but to help others? Do our divisions/districts focus on this from top to bottom or is this lost somewhere along the way?

Helping Others

Today I received an email from one of administrators I’m mentoring in the mentorship group that George Couros established this fall – SAVMP – about a situation. As I read through what was happening, I again wondered about the “helping others” leadership model which definitely wasn’t being followed. Why does it seem that many of the educational leaders are not understanding that in our social and connected world, the top-down hierarchical system doesn’t work? That to be effective, you must connect other people to something of value. In the case of education, connecting students to learning of value to the student is quickly shaping the change in education. Helping others is the cornerstone of this and teachers and principals, in order to do that, require new skills which in turn requires that schools, division/districts and states/provinces begin to shift away from the top-down, one-size-fits-all format. It’s becoming apparent that the traditional models of teaching and the systems of schooling are not able to meet the needs of many of the students within the system but the desire to retain “power” in some fashion limits what can be done in schools and in classrooms.

Let’s Look Outward – Our Navels Have Been Studied

I’m all for listening to the thought leaders in education and what is being said. It’s time, however, we looked around – raised our heads and looked beyond the nest of education. Not listening to Big Business and what they think of education but to listen to what thought leaders in other areas are saying from their perspectives and seeing how it might have cross-over potential and how it will help us help students find value in their learning. That’s why I believe such things as Design Thinking has so much potential in education because it has been successfully used in many different industries and situations. They focus on helping others, on creation and innovation. So if you have a few moments, I highly recommend Read to Lead Podcast.

#1 Leadership Lesson

Again and again and again – it’s helping others. A great example of this is someone like George Couros who continues to work to help others to make connections, to find value in what they are doing and bring about change and innovation in education. Helping others – who would have thought!

4 Comments

    • Reply

      George, it has been great to be able to be part of some of the work you are doing. Thank you for allowing me to take part and to learn from you as you work within your own division and with so many other passionate educators, sharing all the great work you are doing and helping others like me to join in and help other. Learn On!

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