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Leadership
Newer Entries »Reflections on a Conversation
Sunday, April 18th, 2010
On Tuesday last I had the opportunity to visit with Julie Biddle’s urban principal endorsement program candidates at Antioch University by Skype. We were struggling with this notion of framing leadership as larger than person or role, but as reciprocal, purposeful learning in community. Here are a few of their reflections:
• I love the idea of changing my idea of leadership – it’s changing already. I really look forward to this journey and am already enjoying the text. Enjoy a text? What’s that?!
• I used to think that Principals have an S on their chest – Super Human. Now I think that I must develop the skill of building leadership capacity in others.
• I enjoyed meeting Linda and the conversation not only drew me into her journey – onto the road of liberation but also caused me to begin reflecting on my journey of building capacity in leadership. Linda’s statement of leadership toward purpose and change begins my journey. I am looking forward to breaking old paradigms and building more capacity.
• I used to think committees consisted of a few teachers in a building but after reading Linda’s text and talking with her I learned that communication could flow laterally as well or better than top-down.
• One of the most powerful things I’ve learned is that leadership is about learning together. Our conversation with Linda made me realize the importance of the small acts of leadership and the power they have.
• I found it extremely important to see that Linda’s road to this point was genuine and not just philosophical data.
• I used to think that is would be much more difficult to move a school from quadrant to quadrant. I now think that this will be possible. It is evident that our initial move must be in increasing communication if we are to begin to make progress.
• Our conversation with Linda and my reading so far have given me a better appreciation for her definition of leadership. I have not considered the smallest gesture of individuals, such as asking a specific question or sharing insight as a form of leadership. I need to adjust my attitude or response to some people to be more open and receptive.
• I used to think that certain staff members had leadership abilities and should be provided with opportunities to lead in the school. I now know that in order for a school to build capacity and sustainability, everyone must have an opportunity to lead whether formally or informally. I believe that involving everyone and including them in decisions helps to develop ownership, accountability and pride in the operations of the school community. I have also come to realize that community is about healthy relationships that foster unity and shared purpose throughout the organization.
Thanks Julie for sharing these!
We are supposed to leave for Spain this week…but with the Iceland Volcanic ash cloud over Europe, we’re not sure. Perhaps next week I’ll be writing from Spain….
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Liberation, Empathy and Democracy
Tuesday, March 2nd, 2010
My entry today is a little heady, but I promise I’ll alternate the theoretical with the practical and enjoyable–as well as mistakes I’ve made along the way.
I believe that re-imagining learning and leadership is bonded by themes of liberation, empathy, and democracy. These are the fibers that connect leadership and literature as well. I’ll start with a little bit about me, then the journey into the task of reframing leadership.
When I was growing up in a small Kansas town, it was books that became reflective mirrors, that fed my imagination. Jo in Little Women and Elizabeth in Pride and Prejudice–as well as my non-conventional mother–taught me about strength.
As a younger child, Lassie and Black Beauty, took me on a journeys from fear and tension to resolution. Wonderful mentors along the way challenged me to think beyond the limits often experienced by a young girl coming of age in Kansas in the ’50s. John Kennedy, and a personal conversation with Hubert Humphrey, taught me to believe in democracy and the role of government in people’s lives, although those beliefs are often strained these days.
Yet, it was my experiences in probation, social work, teaching, administration, and international work, as well as work in the university, that led me to understand the basic principles of liberation and empowerment and how those ideas must play out in a new view of leadership. How I arrived at Constructivist Leadership, the notion that leadership is “reciprocal, purposeful learning in community,” and thereby distinguishing it from “leader,” one who performs acts of leadership.
I learned of the consequences of working in organizations such as schools with a formal leader who was autocratic, seeking dominance and power. This type of leader, subtly defining leadership as the ability to control the work of others, results in the colonization and infantilization of those involved. Humans simply do not grow and develop, move into adulthood, when they are dominated. This has been the fate of many teachers in schools and workers in other organizations.
Leadership must be liberating, empowering of individuals, for it is those who can experience empathy, who can move outside of their own haunted worlds to feel compassion for others. Literature, as well, liberates by freeing our thoughts to imagine and think about anything that we want to think. The mind is freed by literature; the mind is freed by leadership that empowers.
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