How are we building the capacity of new leaders when K12-higher ed is not focusing on 21C leadership?

 It is not just K12-Higher Ed – it is our culture as a whole. We continue to see education policies that are top-down mandates. We continue to have to ask for Federal “waivers” to address funding needs. Federal and State mandates do not encourage any school or district leader to risk doing what the students need vs. doing what they are told. Leadership, at this point, is about all educators saying, “enough!” That would be the beginning of real leadership in education.


Funny…… learning is either “have to” or “want to”. “Have to” (compliance-based) is what we have in school today… “want to” (desire and meaning-based) is what we should aspire to. I do not see any meaningful change happening in our schools until our leaders understand that we need to change our worldview about how we consider how our students "want" to learn. When students are running to school because they can’t wait to learn, THEN we will know we have become successful – NOT because we have better test scores.

A Reflection on Leadership

 Recently I've been reflecting on my own journey as a leader. I've had positions of leadership as defined in the org chart but does that qualify me automatically as a leader?  Reflecting, I think not. An organizational position is a title, not a behavior. Leading is a behavior, and even as I have said in my previous writing leadership is often a collective energy within the organization.  Maybe an individual, maybe the collective. For that matter, I'm sure leadership is more about the collective than the individual.  No one can be an organizational leader alone. This is why the concept of leadership gets so much attention in writing, youtube, and social media.  Leadership at its essence is about relationships within the organizational collective.

In discussing leadership as a concept, I've often said, "We are emotional beings in a social setting." What I mean by that is with everything that happens to us we each first experience emotions and/or feelings about that experience or situation. Yet, we need to exist within a social setting where not everyone else experiences or feels the same.  Our experiences are formed by each of those situations individually. When we take an organizational position of leadership, we need to acknowledge those unique differences.

Not to oversimplify, but I will!  Basically, all organizations have some similarities- they are groups of people with a common perceived/desired outcome.  Size makes a difference but they are all similar in their shared goals/outcomes.  Organizations are about the relationships among the members and how well they work together to accomplish the desired outcome.  In my humble opinion then, the leader is first responsible for those relationships, not just the desired outcome. People first! 

I was recently considering the function of professional enablement within the organization.  Professional enablement is the term I use to describe a higher level of  professional development. 

While there can be some flexibility in professional development, the caliber of skills needed in today’s businesses are typically too complex for people to master in the normal “sit n’ get” form of professional development and take home PDF’s or notebooks.  This is where the switch to professional enablement provides true growth opportunities for employees.

Professional enablement is most successful as an investment in teams. The enablement process starts with team members reviewing the day-to-day reality of each team member’s role and, as much as possible, to understand and possibly define, the outcomes that each role needs for team success. This simple process of understanding employees’ roles and what they need to succeed can move an organization into breakthrough performance. 

 

Incorporating professional enablement in the workplace does require a bit of “slowing down,” however, to allow teams to both consider as well as reflect and synthesize their learning.  This process should also provide some experimentation though, in being creative and producing something new, so making space to do so amongst production work can be valuable for individual and team growth. Yet, It can be challenging in the workplace to find opportunities to be enabled to exercise new things you’ve learned.  

 

In my opinion, the modern workplace needs this explicit shift to incorporate professional enablement for individual and team reflection and synthesis to work alongside any professional development programs like trainings and seminars.  This will make it easier for your team members to adjust to professional enablement. Showing your team members that you’re willing to invest in this and make space for them to build their talents will be recognized as mutually beneficial for all involved.

 

OK, so that’s my definiton of professional enablement.  The enablement process does start with a form of professional development with the introduction of “How enablement works.”  It also should include some form of coaching through the process in difficult situations, then mentoring as the process becomes more familiar.  The assumption is, of course, that teams are constantly trying to improve.  Thus the enablement process of review, then reflect and synthesize becomes, over time, a key standard operating procedure for teams.

Leadership is always about when and where the buck stops. Ultimately, everyone will step aside or fall away when a truly difficult issue needs to be resolved. If there is a way for the difficult issue to be "bounced up" in an organization, it typically will be.  This fact can give a leader a bit of a "hero" complex - "The issue is coming to me to fix!"   Well.... not actually.  It is coming to you because others are not necessarily confident in their thinking about the resolution - or - they don't want the possible negative  fallout if they are wrong in their resolution. Thus, it comes to you because you are the last stop!

What you don't want to do is try to actually be the hero and resolve the issue alone.  If an issue is big enough that others are hesitant about its resolution, you can rest assured they do have ideas that might assist. They were just not confident enough without your support or agreement.  Therefore it is important to ask others their opinions. 

It is also important if the solution comes from someone else's input.  By giving them credit and support, acknowledging their solution, you show them respect and support and they respect you more.   True leadership is not about making the tough decisions, it is about building others capacity within the organization to also make decisions.  The ultimate leadership function is to make sure decisions are made at the appropriate level, with trust and respect. 

Input from others is important, but "the buck stops here," cannot be avoided. How each of us handles that fact helps to determine how others see us as leaders. 

The CULTURE & CLIMATE of an organization are the KEYS to Success!

 

CULTURE:  How we do things here.  How we do things here affects:

CLIMATE:  How it feels here.  How it feels here affects:  ORGANIZATIONAL SUCCESS!

 

Organizational success is most often based on the positive culture and climate of the organization. Critical success factors for leadership include understanding the effects of culture and climate in effective communication, relationship building, motivational and organizational skills, and decision-making style. 

 

The culture and climate of an organization are affected by both individual conscious and rational feelings as well as subconscious and clearly irrational feelings depending on the communication styles of organizational leaders.

 

One of any leader's goals should be to assist other organizational leaders in becoming aware of the realities of the effects of their own personality and communication style and how that understanding can help to improve organizational success.

 

This process includes:

•  Assisting in bringing this awareness for consideration through reflection and discussion

•    Assisting in articulation and alignment of Communication, Vision and Values within the 

   organizational CULTURE to assure a positive CLIMATE that supports strategy, innovation 

   and operations.       

•    Embedding a sustainable, positive CULTURE & CLIMATE of excellence within the organization.

•    Assisting in the Development of a leadership cadre and coach leaders and teams on the tools and 

    methodologies available to them to achieve peak performance within this CULTURAL 

    framework.

•    Participating in and assist in the facilitation of problem solving within the organization

•  Inspiring and enthusing all team members by building the case for strong cultural leadership

Rather than assuming that "being in charge" is the difference maker, these leadership behaviors are the key to organizational success

Winemaking and Leadership?

 I know it might seem ridiculous to compare the two. However, I think there is more to this than not…. This idea came to me when I initially thought about the comparison. Originally I used the statement: “Leadership is like winemaking…. ~ the grapes don’t listen either!” Ha-Ha, I thought, then I paused a minute to realize there really are direct comparisons. Successful leadership and winemaking should both based on “influence” not control. As a matter of fact, it is the influence of both what you do and what you don’t do that affect success in each. And, while my original statement that “grapes don’t listen either,” is certainly true, they do accept the attention they get or not, just as employees do. Thus, again, both leadership and winemaking are about “growth.” 

How we grow our organizations is not just about profit either, any more than winemaking is only about how many bottles we produce. In both cases growth is about the quality of the outcome within each of the processes. Quality of human growth and development and quality of farming in supporting grape growth. Maybe you can start to see why I think there is a direct comparison. 

Organizations are not a lot more than a group of people working together, whether a trucking company, a school, insurance company or factory. Hopefully all involved have a shared belief in company direction and outcome. When all are in alignment, things work. Thus, company culture (how we do things here) and climate (how it feels here) are critical to the successful human growth and development within. When company culture and climate are positive for organizational members/employees, the company is likely to be quite successful. And, of course the real key to continued success is how well the organization handles change - either transactional or transformational (these topics will show up in the newsletter later!). 

We humans really like to have our patterns and behaviors stay the same - and why most of us roughly live the same life day in, day out. The fact, however, is life never allows things to stay the same. For example, today we are faced with more forced change than ever - COVID-19, cultural and racial protests, politics, climate issues. And we each have a personal opinion about the changes being pressed upon us. The fact is, change is as inevitable as the limit of time on our lives, like it or not. It is for this reason that I found my first true professional calling - working with people in organizations to support change. I’ve done both consulting from outside and I have taken leadership roles within organizations. It’s always been all about growth! 

Alright now you ask, where did the winemaking come in? As my life progressed I found myself wanting to find a business I could operate after my professional career. What I found, and bought, was a wine bar! I got a chance to taste thousands of wines - what a horrible part of the business! While I was tasting and buying wine I found my focus in the wine bar would be with the small, boutique, winemakers. These winemakers, male and female, were doing amazing things with blending varietals, farming methods, and fermenting techniques to make some amazing wines. Their talent was obvious. It was one of these small boutique winemakers that ultimately became a close friend and my winemaking mentor as I helped him harvest, make, blend, and bottle his wines. It was our conversations in the winery that started me thinking about the comparisons between leadership and winemaking. Farming is all about change, one day, one week, one month, one year to the next. To truly become successful and make a consistent wine, vintage (year) to vintage, the winemaker must change his/her processes to meet the farming needs of the grapes, at the time. The same is also true in leadership

In my opinion, it is in using a light but meaningful touch in leadership that makes the biggest difference in how organizations change to meet their current situations- how we treat people with respect rather than control. It is the same my friend pointed out in winemaking - let the grapes tell you what they need, use a soft touch. I know, and he also supported, this winemaking belief is not for everyone. But what I have learned after a decade or working with him, his wines are incredible. His “light touch” is incredibly successful.

Cultivating Leadership - "It is time for growth."

 Cultivating Leadership

Politicians, educators, business owners, and other organizational leaders don’t seem to know how to handle the world of the 21^st Century.  Most are “doubling down” on behaviors that “always worked before.”  While these decisions to continue with previous methods are not being successful, current leaders, nonetheless, don’t appear to know what to do next. 

 

It is time we realized that the past will not work in the future.  Our population, cultural norms and functional needs are changing rapidly.  Meg Wheatley (1992, 2006) identified this process in her book Leadership and the New Science:Discovering Order in a Chaotic World. In the text, Wheatley tells us,

 

The world has changed. It blares from news reports and blazes across our screens in the terrifying images of these times—wars, terrorism, migrations of displaced people, hurricanes, earthquakes, tsunamis. Chaos and global interconnectedness are part of our daily lives. We try hard to respond to these challenges and threats through our governments, organizations and as individuals, but our actions fail us. No matter what we do, stability and lasting solutions elude us. It’s time to realize that we will never cope with this new world using our old maps. It is our fundamental way of interpreting the world—our worldview—that must change. Only such a shift can give us the capacity to understand what’s going on, and to respond wisely.

 

“Our worldview – that must change.”  Yes.  We must move our worldview from looking at profits and costs with money as the outcome to having profits and cost be about people.  We must realize that “WE are the change needed in the world” – “WE, the people.”