REFLECTIONS ON LEADERSHIP
Presentation to Nebraska Educational Leadership Institute (NELI)
Gallup University
May 12, 2004
Thank you for the kind introduction. Thank you especially for the invitation to speak. I am not sure why you keep asking me to talk to you. I actually hate doing this. I am forced to think. I am forced to focus. You seem to forget that I work for the government.
Let me congratulate NELI on its completion of its first year and congratulate all of you for your participation in the Leadership Institute.
I just finished reading Why Courage Matters , a book by John McCain about leaders. In that book, he makes a comment that I will pose as a question for you and I think it embraces what the Leadership Institute is all about. “Can groups of leaders, or groups from which leaders may emerge, form a bond where they ‘complete' one another?” In other words, with leadership institutes like NELI, can leaders together raise each other to a higher level than they can possibly reach by themselves?
I believe there is a leadership continuum, and it is a very simple one. On one end of the continuum is a little bit of leadership, and on the other end, is a lot of leadership. How far you go up and down that continuum depends upon how much you learn. First, how much you learn about yourself. And second, and probably not as important as learning about yourself, is learning the content of leadership. In fact, I would say to you that leadership is learning about you as you learn the context of learning about the content of leadership. Learning about the content of leadership is learning how that content affects you, how you feel about yourself, how you see yourself, and how you envision yourself as a leader.
Learning is vital to leadership. It is through learning that we stretch ourselves. There is an old saying that “if you don't stretch, you don't know where the edge is.” Leaders have a tendency to walk along the edge and the only way to know exactly where the edge is and how far you can push that edge is to learn more about yourself and more about the content of leadership.
Let me spend my time with you today, talking about why I think the Leadership Institute experience is an important one, why I support participation in such institutes because of the experience they provide.
First, let me offer to you four events in my life that I believe framed where I come from when I talk about leadership. Each event relates to this Institute and each had a major impact upon me.
The first experience was as a beginning teacher, new to the community and new to the school system. I was one of several new teachers having our first day of pre-opening in-service with the entire faculty. The morning began by going through lengthy introductions of people we had no knowledge of or personal experience with, and would not have recognized in a crowd. And, when it came time to introduce the keynote speaker, I had no idea who the individual may be. Several people looked like they could have been the keynote speaker. This speaker was a rather small but portly man who was balding and wore glasses. He began his presentation almost immediately upon introduction and did not mess around with any superfluous words. He simply jumped right in with a message that was passionate, caring, and talked about the important role educators have. This man was a psychologist, who talked about things that men did not typically talk about, and if they did, did not talk in such a compassionate way. This was also the first time I was introduced to the concept of “dipper in the bucket.” His message spoke to me because it validated some of the things I had been thinking about but could not put to words. It gave me courage to continue thinking about them and to put them in to words. Many of you knew the man I am talking about. He is the founder of SRI, which became SRI/Gallup, the sponsoring organization for this institute, Dr. Don Clifton.
The second experience also touched me and validated beliefs I felt but had not expressed. It was 1976 or 1977 at the University when Art Combs had written a yearbook for ASCD called Perceiving, Behaving, Becoming. In that yearbook, he talked about helping professionals. He talked about his research on helping professionals, and what made them good, whether they were doctors, nurses, dentists, ministers, teachers . . . what made them be the kind of people they were. From his research, his premise was what makes them good at being helping professionals was what was inside of them. It is first, their beliefs--beliefs about themselves and about others; and secondly, their beliefs about life and their life's purpose. This man and his words also gave me courage.
The third experience was an opportunity at a conference and I believe it was a American Association of School Administrators Conference in the 1980's, when I heard Peter Drucker talk about strengths. The quote that I remember above all else that he said that day was “I make my strengths so strong that my weaknesses become irrelevant.” Those were not his exact words, but it was the way that I took it. This spoke to me as well. It validated my beliefs and gave me courage.
The fourth experience was an experience that you have had as well, and that was the Strengths Finder. The Strengths Finder is based upon a lot of the research of Drucker, Art Combs and of course, Don Clifton. The Strengths Finder absolutely “nailed me to the wall.” It spoke to me and it, more than anything else, validated my beliefs, gave me courage, and gave me a great sense of who I am. I took the Strengths Finder about 10 years ago, about 4 years ago, and again this last year. In each case, the outcome of the Strengths Finder was the same. These are my enduring values and represent an enduring sense of who I am. Because I had moved a ways along this continuum of a little bit of leadership to a whole lot of leadership, I knew it was because I had learned a great deal--first about me and second, about the content and skills of leadership and especially how it impacted me.
It is easy to over simplify leadership. But if I have to, leadership, for me, is first about finding your voice; and second, about entering the conversation and being heard. Leaders understand that leadership is a journey and that journey is about getting to a “place of grace.”
Leadership is not a linear process. Step one does not follow to step two does not proceed to step three, and then on to step four. It goes around in a circle. A self-fulfilling circle of finding your voice, entering the conversation and being heard, understanding the journey and finding that place of grace.
I believe that the future belongs to those who know. Know themselves and know the content of their role. Some would call it knowing the “right stuff.” I believe the future belongs to those who are able to use themselves and what they know to help others move to a greater understanding of who they are and a greater knowledge of their “stuff.”
I also believe the future belongs to those who can enter the conversation and be heard, who can either elevate or illuminate the conversation and often redirect it. A few people are of such quality in terms of their leadership that they can take conversations to new places. It has often been said that when “soul enters the room, people listen differently.” Leaders with deep souls enter the conversations and are heard because they come to the table with the deepest of passion and compassion. These leaders understand that dialogue with others is more than a conversation. It is not a conversation with opposing sides; it is a conversation with a center. And when leaders with soul enter the room, the center of the conversation will change. Perhaps an example will help.
There are many educators today who would like to change the federal legislation commonly known as No Child Left Behind. They want to change the conversation by changing the legislation and have suggested multiple strategies for what could be done to fix it. The kind of leadership that we need will change the conversation away from the strategies of the bill and the policy dimensions to a conversation about what is right and good for kids and what is right and good for schools. People with soul are people who are willing to stand up, let their voices be heard, and enter that conversation. People who want to debate opposing strategies do not know what to do with individuals who want to talk about right things, especially when those right things are children, their learning and their future.
For me, leadership has two critical contexts. One of them is an inside context and one is an outside. I'd like to use the rest of my time today to talk about something that impacts both.
First, the Leadership Institute/Gallop University/Strengths Finder represents the concept of leadership or a construct of leadership based upon strengths and assets. In my opinion, this is a strategic construct, a strategic model.
However, the context of operationalizing a strengths model in our professional and personal lives tends to be tactical. While the model of the Strengths Finder and this Leadership Institute is one that is strategic and based on strengths, the context in which we operationalize it in our professional and personal lives tends to be tactical . Let me explain the difference.
“Tactical” is about fighting battles. “Strategic” is about winning wars. (Preventing wars, being ready for wars, etc.) The dilemma that we face as leaders is that the operational aspects of leadership tend to originate and operate in deficit models. Some examples of deficit models would include the following:
If these examples don't illuminate it, let me give you a specific example: My own sense of humor. Is it a content problem? Is it a delivery problem? Is it both? Is it a context problem? Regardless of what kind of problem it is, it is a skill that I do not have. The question then becomes, should I be working to strengthen my sense of humor? That would be a remediation plan that would be focusing upon what I cannot do. It would be based upon a needs assessment and it would definitely have to be a long-range plan. However, I could improve all of the things about my sense of humor and it may or may not make me a better Commissioner, it may or may not raise reading scores in the state, it may or may not move the whole educational system to a better place.
Another example of a deficit model is the concept of disabilities. It's a focus on what a person can't do or doesn't do, in other words “dis-ability.” An example for me is that I cannot play the piano. I really wish I could. Is this a need? Or, is it a want? I really don't want to learn to play the piano. I just wish I could play it. I wish I would wake up some morning with the ability to do so, but I don't want to spend time to learn. I am 61 years old and I have had plenty of time to learn how to play the piano. In saying I wish I could play the piano, I just as well be saying, “I would give my left arm to be ambidextrous.”
How much of our education system is based upon such deficit models? I believe programs such as Title I, Special Education, Safe and Drug Free Schools, and health education, are all based upon deficit models. I would contend that the concept of auditing of financial records is based upon finding something wrong or a deficit model. I believe No Child Left Behind is a deficit model. I believe that any thing we do that begins with a needs assessment is based upon a deficit model.
In my opinion, deficit systems create the conditions for deficit behavior and create the conditions for deficit leadership. Deficit leadership tends to be tactical behavior, where we diagnose and prescribe, identify and attack, remediate and reinforce. How do we build a climate and culture in which an asset model of leadership can operate when the system is a deficit system model?
The hierarchy of our schools is a deficit model. At the local level where we have the classroom at the bottom, then the principal, then the superintendent, and then the board, is a deficit model. What can't be done at the lowest level is then taken over by the next level, by the next level, and by the next level. It is assumed that a system can only operate when each layer takes care of the deficits of the layer below. And now we are adding to the local hierarchy, a state hierarchy of the Department of Education, the State Board and Commissioner, the Legislature and the Governor. And on top of that, we are adding the U.S. Department of Education, the Congress and the President. There is nothing about this conglomeration that is “asset” based or capable of “asset” building.
High stakes assessment is another deficit model. It is an attempt to find out what is wrong so that it can be diagnosed and fixed. Who wants to go to a school system where the system is based upon finding what I cannot do and having me spend the days of my youth attacking the weaknesses identified.
So if our systems are deficit models, how do we change? How do we change the deficit models, the deficit thinking, and the deficit leadership?
First of all, it seems to me that we need to find new models that will allow us to abandon the deficit models. You have heard people say, “Let's think outside the box.” Any time you hear that statement you can almost be sure that the system being discussed is a deficit model system. “Thinking outside the box” rarely, if ever, changes the box. Often the ideas that are generated are so foreign to the system that over time, the box finds a way to recapture the new thinking as if it never happened. A more strategic model, based upon assets, would find “new boxes” for people to think inside of. Let me give you an example.
For so long, we have had a box within which we operate our schools. The box is bounded by time, money, common curriculum and the organization and governance of schools. It is a deficit box.
If we want to change the culture of a school to an asset model, we need to change the box to an education box for which the boundaries would be opportunity (to learn), outcomes, individual learning plans for each student, and credit or progress in the system by demonstration of learning.
What would happen if we could create a new set of operating principles for our schools? What if our schools were based upon the education instead of schooling for building asset-based organizations?
A second strategy would be to create a strategic framework for how we think about the issues or the things we are trying to change in an organization or system. If we were to take the system we are trying to change, or any of its programs, or any of its parts and think in a framework like this, we may be able to come up with new boxes to think inside. That framework would go something like this: First, create a clear and compelling vision of the outcome. Second, create (implement) models based upon the vision of the outcome. Third, create processes of continuous innovation and improvement within the vision and the model. And four, create a sense of “community” around the vision, the model and the process. This is an example of a framework for strategic thinking.
A third strategy for leadership in asset models requires a problem-solving orientation. I believe it is more important to have a process in place (a problem-solving strategy) than it will be to have a solution to every problem or issue that comes along. Leaders who attempt to provide answers to all the questions and solutions to all the problems are tactical leaders. Strategic leaders lead people through problem-solving processes giving participants the experience of the conversation and the journey it takes to create a solution. Ron Heifetz, in his book Leadership Without Easy Answers, calls this adaptive work.
A fourth way that we can change organizations to be less deficit and more asset in orientation deals with vision. Remember that vision is a function of our beliefs. “You have to believe in order to see.” And this one has to do with what we believe.
I was struck when I read an article, which was an interview of Erik Weihenmayer. Erik Weihenmayer was the first blind climber to scale Mt. Everest. He still climbs mountains 50 days a year in spite of his blindness.
The interviewer asked him “Why climb mountains when you can't see the view at the top?” Weihenmayer's response was strategic. “I love the beauty of it. I love the feeling of the rock under my gloves. I love the idea of adventure. I love figuring things out. And, I like strategically surrounding myself with good people who make me stronger.” As the interviewer began to formulate the next question, Weihenmayer interrupted in saying “ . . . but above all I believe that that the beauty is there. For me, believing precedes seeing.”
A fifth way to change from a deficit model to more strategic or asset model is to recognize that leadership is not all about wine and roses, white hats and white horses, honor and glory. Leadership can sometimes bring grief, a sense of being alone and in limbo, the experience of being marginalized, and at times, feeling you will never again “look cool.” True leadership understands that with the vision and with movement toward that vision, there will be a certain amount of alienation of self and ideas that occurs. I don't remember the exact person who said this, but it was one of the comedians from Laugh-In, “You know . . . we're all in this alone.” Leaders have to understand that sometimes leadership is a very lonely position, and must understand that as the balance of leadership tips one way to the other, leaders must be at the same time vulnerable and competent/confident in order to lead. But each tip of the balance brings its own grief, marginalization, and sense of aloneness.
Finally, leadership takes an extreme amount of courage. If you read John McCain's book, Why Courage Matters , the kind of courage leaders need, is not the absence of fear. We don't need more fearless leaders. We need leaders who are willing to test what they know and test it with a sense of conscience. Courage means the ability to move in spite of our fears. It is not a physical courage, but a courage of moral and ethical values. It is a courage that is not easy to exhibit and the kind of courage that over time can wear you down.
There are a number of strategies that help leaders cope with all of the issues of leadership including pushing yourself to the edge, thinking strategically, and understanding the downside of leadership opportunities. Coping strategies require that leaders believe in themselves like Erik Weihenmayer who “believes in order to see.”
Leaders have to give themselves permission to take their souls to work. Just like we have “take your child to work” days, we ought to make it okay for everyone to take his or her soul to work. Our work places would be different, and hopefully better, places to be if we all had a little more soul in our workplace.
It is also recognition that leadership is a journey. As educators, we are “passage” people. That is what defines us uniquely from almost any other profession and we enjoy the journey. In fact, we are disappointed when the journey is over. We want the journey of being an educator and we want the journey of educating children to last forever.
What I am getting to is an imperative. It is imperative that educators believe in the worth of their work, and the nobility of that work. If we don't believe in the worth and nobility of our work, no one else will. In fact, I do believe that the public's perception of all professions is based upon the degree to which that profession sees its work as worthy and noble.
Finally, leaders find a way to get to their “place of grace.” As I said to you before, this is a place of inner calm. This is a place where you know that life is ok and that what you are doing is the right thing for you to be doing at that moment and in that time. Athletes call this “getting in the zone” where in spite of the intensity of the situation they are in, they are glad they are in it, they know what to do and they can see things very clearly. They find themselves inwardly calm and focused.
For me, the best way I can describe this place of grace is that it is the place where . . .
• Passion meets purpose
• Values meet vision
• Beliefs meet behavior
• Goals meet roles
This place of grace is where . . . .
• Who you are and what you are fits and is in sync
• The stars align and give you a sense of direction
• You are able to say, “this is me, this is who I am, and this is the person I am and will be no matter what role I choose.”
This is what I believe about leadership. This is what I believe leadership institutes likes this should help us all become. I believe in leadership where one of the qualities that defines leadership is the fact that they surround themselves with people who help complete them. All of us need others to complete who we are and who we can become.
Thank you.