Leadership Lessons Where You Least Expect Them!

Because you didn't follow up on my leadership lessons from animals suggestion, I thought I would share one with you that was brought to my attention by master's students in Quesnel a few years ago. Dr. Seuss was a very wise man who tackled huge themes in an engaging way. Take a look at this old favourite, and see how it speaks to you as a leadership text! My purpose is to provide you with a bit of fun that you can justifiably label as "homework", but also to set the stage for finding leadership concepts everywhere.

The Inner Work of Leaders

I have been having students in the current "Leading for Change" course read the introduction and first chapter of a book by Barbara Mackoff and Gary Wenet, "The Inner Work of Leaders: Leadership as a Habit of Mind". This book is available to you through the UNBC library as an electronic resource - you can find it easily in the online catalogue and you just need your 14 digit library number and your 4 digit PIN to have access to it. I would like you to read the opening to this book to help you understand why I've asked you to look at your leadership in a personal way, through your Self-Portrait assignment. In your first posts, both of you have identified specific leadership lessons in personal experiences - this reflective process is the "inner work" that supports strong self-understanding that translates, in social situations, to more effective leadership. In comments to this post, I would like you to select quotes from this reading and connect them to your narratives and the "life lessons in leadership" that you've shared. I think it works well to use a comment as a paragraph - one main thought per comment! This reading will also take us nicely into the Leadership Mindsets book by Kaser and Halbert. The examples from the lives of leaders in the Mackoff and Wenet book are similar to those in "Mindsets". For me, the main lesson in both, as well as in Senge's books about the 5 disciplines of systems thinking and Covey's 7 Habits of Highly Effective People (also his principle-centred leadership, based on the 7 habits), is that, as leaders, we think in certain ways and develop the beliefs that are the foundation of our actions. This thought is expressed more strongly in a different way, in a concept that is central to the field of school improvement: We cannot have sustainable change in practice without a corresponding change in beliefs. We'll come back to that idea, I'm sure!

A Risk, A Life Change, A New Adventure....



This year, I had leadership lessons come into my life unknowingly. Now in reflection I am able to see how these lessons have impacted me and my views as a leader. In March 2010, I was faced with the reality that I might lose my job with the school district in Prince George as the threat of school closures fell on everyone. My husband and I decided to start looking for jobs out of the province of British Columbia in order to keep our options open. My husband came across a great opportunity in Grande Prairie, Alberta and so we were left with the decision to stay or move. This was a difficult decision for me as I would be giving up a full time continuing contract. Additionally, I would be moving away from my family, which I am so very close with. We decided to sell our house and move to Grande Prairie. The Leadership lesson I learned was in risk taking. I know that as a leader it is important to take risks in order to move forward, whether it may be as a staff or in your personal life. When the moving day came, we had many helpers which made the task of packing, loading and driving alot easier. This lesson shows that in most cases two heads are better than one. The final lesson of my new life and adventure was that of courage and acceptance. I needed to be courageous and know that my husband and I were making a decision that would impact our lives drastically but that it was a positive decision despite the worries that my arise. I needed to have acceptance of the the outcomes that arose as this was a choice we made. As a leader having the courage to do what is necessary and having acceptance in what comes makes an effective leader. I feel that I have grown since leaving Prince George and will continue to grow with further reflection.

Talk About Leadership...Beginning the Conversation

This blog will support a distance education credit course for two master's students. Others interested in the topics may join us from time to time. A basic blog is quick to set up; customized images, etc. take more time. This simple template will work for us. The birds in the background remind me of geese flying in formation, an image that has been called upon to help describe leadership principles, particularly shared leadership, because when the leaders tire they drop back and someone new move forward. Apparently, the flying is less difficult when you are not the first. Soon I will post more specific instructions for how to use this blog to support the course. In the meantime, April and Terry, you will need to set up a Google account to respond to my invitation. (Take care to write potential passwords down until you find one that works - if you set up an account but forget the password, there will be problems. I recommend using your first name only.) When you've joined the blog, you will be able to make posts yourself, to initiate topics for discussion. When you want to respond to topics initiated by someone else, you can do so by commenting on a post. You could start with this one. What are other animal images that help you to understand something about leadership?