Tag Archives: mentorship

You can’t have both

Sometimes you have to choose. You reach a fork in the road and you have to make a choice. Too often kids try to take two paths at the same time. They want the benefits of two competing options and so they try to do everything. Two sports with game times on the same day is a perfect example, but there are many more ways they try.

The hardest thing to tell a kid that wants to ‘do it all’ is to just pick one. Sometimes it’s a good life lesson to have them try both paths, but sometimes it’s better to draw a hard line and say ‘you have to choose’. Sometimes trying both means being successful in neither.

Successful people don’t spread themselves too thin. They don’t try to be the best at everything. They don’t half-commit to more things than they can handle. For a kid, sometimes a guiding hand is needed, and an ultimatum. As an adult it’s about drawing those lines yourself. It’s about being able to say ‘No’. It’s about understanding that you can’t always add more and still add value.

Sometimes the choice needs to be either/or, not both.

I teach leadership not followship

It was my second year as a teacher and my Vice Principal pulled me aside late in Semester 1 and asked me if I’d be interested in teaching a couple leadership classes instead of Physical Education as my electives in Semester 2. I think another teacher was slated for this and it was a change he wanted to make. He told me that it would be a great opportunity for me because I would co-teach it on Day-1 with an experienced teacher, and then on my own with another class on Day-2. He made it seem like I’d be doing him a favour saying yes, but I thought I was the one getting a golden opportunity offered to me. And it was!

The teacher I got to work with was Dave Sands. Dave became my first mentor, and to this day one of my most valued friends. We meet weekly for walks and today we were talking about old times and I brought up how much this opportunity transformed my teaching career. I ended up doing my Masters thesis on Student Leadership, and a large part of my leadership philosophy was developed from this opportunity.

“I teach leadership, not followship.” 

This was a quote Dave often said to students. It was the mantra of the course, and something not just said, but lived. Dave would run activities and lessons that encouraged students to pull the lesson out on their own. And whenever there were activities run by the class, they were authentically student run. There would be a prompt, “Here’s what we need to do,” or “Let’s plan this event,” then students would design the activity or schedule, then after then event there was always a reflection afterwards.

Students ran the events. Students stepped up, tried new things, succeeded and sometimes failed… but they always had ownership, and always learned from their experience. When Dave left, it left a void that I felt I couldn’t fill on my own. I distributed the leadership of student leadership across other teachers and we developed an out of the schedule leadership program that about 1/3 of the Grade 8’s signed up for each year. As it grew, so did the distributed model of giving others leadership over different aspects of the program.

From my Master’s paper:

“Leadership is getting others to do What the group needs to get done, Because they want to do it.” …

A Working Definition of Leadership

Before being able to investigate what meaningful student leadership is or can be, there needs to be some consideration as to what leadership itself is. It is evident that any currently usable definition of leadership would in fact be very different than a usable definition from only thirty years ago. Senge (1990) sees the traditional leader of the past as the charismatic decision maker and/or the hero. In this view, myths of great leaders coming to the rescue in times of crisis perpetuate the view of leaders as heroes, and “they reinforce a focus on short-term events and charismatic heroes rather than on systemic forces and collective learning” (p. 8). Senge sees current leaders in a different light, he sees them as, “designers, teachers, and stewards. These roles require new skills: the ability to build shared vision, to bring to the surface and challenge prevailing mental models, and to foster more systemic patterns of thinking” (p.9). These new skills require leaders to be thinkers and learners.

The quote I started this paper off with is an adaptation of Dwight D. Eisenhower’s quote, “Leadership is the art of getting someone else to do something you want done because he wants to do it.” I adapted this quote several years ago to better fit with the times as well as to fit with my own ideas of shared leadership. The focus on a ‘top-down’ leader in Eisenhower’s quote was very appropriate for its’ time, however, today it is more fitting for a leader to be concerned with the group’s or team’s goals.

The quote, subtly but poignantly reworded, states, “Leadership is getting others to do, what the group needs to get done, because they want to do it.” Within this quote there is: a suggestion of influence, getting others to do a task; a suggestion of service, aiding the group rather than just the leader; a suggestion of inclusion, doing what the group wants; a suggestion of teamwork, working within a group; and, a suggestion of motivation or inspiration, getting people to want to assist you or the group. A lot of literature on student leadership focuses on the first three points, influence, service and inclusion. Literature focused specifically on either teamwork or motivating others, as principal themes, tends to relate to managers, primarily in the realm of business and not nearly as much in education.

In considering a definition of leadership that functions well when considering student leadership in a middle school, I think that leadership pertains to getting students to be of service to others, while teaching them to effectively influence and motivate others. This can be successfully accomplished when students work in inclusionary groups or teams that create and take advantage of opportunities to act as servant leaders.

Creating leaders, not followers. That’s the underlying lesson. Too often leaders run activities such that they are the lead and those around them follow. “Students we need to… and we need people in the following roles… and here is the ‘to do’ list… and …and …and.”

It’s more than just a subtle shift to change this to providing students with an authentic leadership opportunity.

Prompt: Here is the task/activity/opportunity. How shall we do this?

Activity: Authentically planned and organized by students.

Reflection: How did it go? What went well? What could have been better? What would you do differently if we did this again?

Empowering students. Letting them lead. Teaching leadership, not followship.

Level 5 Leader

One of the big takeaways from Jim Collins book Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap and Others Don’t is the idea of a Level 5 Leader. The biggest feature of this leader is that they strive to develop those around them, and they want nothing more than to have the company do better after they leave than when they led. This is a noble and truly desirable thing to want. It’s not always what we see though. Lee Iacocca left a vacuum of leadership behind him. Donald Trump wants to be known as the greatest, and today emphasized wishing Joe Biden ‘Luck’, because in his eyes only luck could explain any future success.

It’s sad to see leaders who care more about themselves and their image than the successful path they leave behind. These are not people you want to be led by, or even associate with. They poison the environment rather than nurture it.

Mentors that I’ve had have always looked to not just help me, but let me stand on their shoulders. They have desired to see my success. When this is authentic, it is inspiring. This is behaviour we want to see emulated in the world.

It’s interesting that when a leader’s intentions are not in servicing those they lead, it shows, even when they are doing or trying to do something good. I’m not talking about just making good versus bad decisions, every leader does that at some point… I’m talking about intentions and motives not being right. I’m talking about making selfish decisions, or choosing notoriety over shared success. These are not actions of a Level 5 Leader.

I don’t understand the draw of loud, bragging leaders, but many seem to find their way to the top. The challenge is that while they may make it to the top of a good company or organization, they are not the leaders that will make the company or organization great.

Giving myself a break

Yesterday after school I had a long conversation with a friend, and he shared some feedback I really needed to hear. I’ve been on a healthy living journey for a couple years now, and things have been going well. But as we opened up to each other about how things are going, I mentioned to him that there is a goal that I’m just not moving forward with. I told him that despite 2 years of things being positive, I can’t seem to make a shift with this goal.

That’s when he told me to give myself a break.

He reminded me that although I’ve been improving my health, I have not been on a fully positive journey for two years. He remained me that it wasn’t until February, just under a year ago, that I was running 3 schools, working ridiculous hours, and feeling overwhelmed. He reminded me that only a few weeks after that we were on lockdown for a global pandemic we are still dealing with.

He acknowledged that I’m in a good place, meeting many of my goals and that even now work is extremely busy. And he told me that he has mentioned me to his partner, telling her that I’m someone that is really doing well right now. And he told me that he knows many others not doing nearly as well right now.

I needed to hear this.

I can’t beat myself up for not doing more right now. I need to give myself a break.

How long before ‘Un’school is the kind of school most kids choose?

This Hyderabad-based edtech startup aims to help students ‘un’school themselves

This is an example of disrupting higher education that I wrote about recently.

An affordable online learning ecosystem which provides a course, mentorship, projects, and guaranteed internship opportunities.

I’ve wanted to see opportunities like this at Inquiry Hub (at high school). Not for every kid, for kids that want it. But I also think that as we create these opportunities, more students will want it… if not in high school, certainly instead of an overpriced college education.

How is ‘un’schooling going to change the look of schools and universities in the future?