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.”    

Back at it!

 I've been away from this blog for a few years (four years actually - time flies!).  I was doing a leadership job in higher education that did not include teaching, so I set this aside.   As the COVID crisis is now affecting all aspects of schooling, I decided it was time to retire. Retirement for me will be continuing to write and, thus, the blog is being reborn!

Is it really leading OR following?

After decades of research, many books/articles, courses and thoughts, we seem to continue the dialogue around leadership as a person rather than a set of behaviors or even an energy within an organization. As I reflect on both my own experience as a leader, my study of organizational leadership as an academic topic, and as I look at current organizational leaders I am coming to the conclusion that leadership truly is an energy and set of behaviors by someone within an organization, and it does not necessarily have to be the head of the organization. The difference is of course and the assumption is that the head of the organization is, or should be, responsible for those behaviors and that energy.  But, if we see that it is the behaviors and the energy that are the critical pieces, then it does not require it be a single person.
The necessary behaviors and energies I am talking about are those that establish the functional and operational culture of the organization.  That would include beliefs, values, commitments as well as communication, personal interaction, integrated functions, and such things as celebrations and significant symbols.
So, maybe a good next question might be, do we need the head of an organization to also be "the leader?"

What Does it Take to Be a Visionary Leader?

What Does it Take to Be a Visionary Leader?   OK, so I admit the title may be misleading.  I'm fairly certain that if ANY leader isn't visionary they are not really a leader.  To me that is one of the primary separations between leadership and management. Leaders are visionary, managers don't necessarily have to be. Leaders need to be able to consider future needs and potential problems as one of their primary functions.
Nonetheless, Brian Tracy (SuccessNet Online) suggests there are "Seven Qualities of Visionary Leadership."

1. Leaders inspire others because they are inspired themselves. They are excited about the possibility of creating an exciting future for themselves. They get up every morning and they see every effort they make as part of a great plan to accomplish something wonderful with their lives.


2. Leaders are optimistic. They see opportunities in everything that happens, positive or negative. They look for the good in every situation and in every person. They seek the valuable lessons contained in every problem or setback. They never experience "failures;" instead, they write them off as "learning experiences."


3. Leaders have a sense of meaning and purpose in each area of their lives. They have clear, written goals and plans they work on every day. Leaders are clear about where they are going and what they will have to do to get there. Their behavior is purposeful and goal-directed. As a result, they accomplish five and ten times as much as the average person who operates from day to day with little concern about the future.


4. Leaders accept personal responsibility. Leaders never complain, never explain. Instead of making excuses, they make progress. Whenever they have a set-back or difficulty, they repeat to themselves, "I am responsible! I am responsible! I am responsible!"


5. Leaders see themselves as victors over circumstances rather than victims of circumstances. They don't criticize or blame others when something goes wrong. Instead, they focus on the solution.


6. Leaders are action-oriented. They are constantly in motion. They try something, and then something else, and then something else again. They never give up.


7. Leaders have integrity. They tell the truth at all times. They live in truth with themselves, and they live in truth with others.

This is certainly a good list. I would say it is a good list for leaders, period.  I remain convinced that being visionary is a significant trait of good leaders. I am not convinced that "visionary" leadership is a new, separate, model

Leadership and the value of reflection.

"In the end it is important to remember that we cannot become what we need to be by remaining what we are."  Max DePree, Leadership is an Art. 2004,
"It is easy to go astray when we forget that the heart of leadership is in the heart of the leader." Bolman & Deal, Leading with Soul. 2001.
"We are emotional beings in a social setting."  Faverty lecture. 2004
I wish I could remember where the saying came from, it may actually have been the Bible, "as within, so without."
All of these quotes suggest that the function of leadership is an 'inside job,'  that is inside the head and the heart of the leader.  How does a leader bring to light the issues living in the head or the heart?
Reflection.  

Reappraisal of technology in the classroom

For some time now, the call for technology integration in classrooms has been a regular topic of school reform, transformation, and improvement. Nonetheless, many educational leaders will attest that while technology is increasingly finding its place in classrooms, it is only a small cadre of teachers actually utilizing technology in classrooms to improve student learning.  It may be that merely "integrating" technology is not the real issue.  If pedagogy itself is not changing through the use of digital technology then the problem is clearly not the tool but the method in which it is used.

 Much has been made of this inability of technology to add any real capacity to improved student learning regardless of academic level. Increasingly the evidence has shown that "teachers have been painfully slow to transform the way they teach, despite the influx of technology into their classrooms" states Benjamin Herold in his article for Education Week, June 11, 2015. It is, therefore, critical for 21^st Century educational leaders to address this situation.  There are many already concerned with the situation:

“In general, teachers at many schools seem to view technology as a more valuable tool for themselves than for their students.” Kelly Shapley (2015), Educational Researcher, Shapley Research Associates.

“The net effect”, says Leslie A. Wilson (2015), the chief executive officer of the One-to-One Institute, a nonprofit based in Mason, Mich., that has consulted with hundreds of schools and districts across the country and world, “is that schools rarely realize the full promise of educational technology.  There's nothing transformative about every kid having an iPad unless you're able to reach higher-order teaching and learning.  If schools take all this technology, and use it like a textbook, or just have teachers show PowerPoint presentations or use drill-and-kill software, they might as well not even have it."

“Public schools now provide at least one computer for every five students. They spend more than $3 billion per year on digital content. Nearly three-fourths of high school students now say they regularly use a smartphone or tablet in the classroom.  But a mountain of evidence indicates that teachers have been painfully slow to transform the ways they teach, despite that massive influx of new technology into their classrooms. The student-centered, hands-on, personalized instruction envisioned by ed-tech proponents remains the exception to the rule.”  Benjamin Herold, Education Week, “Why Ed Tech is not Transforming Teaching” (2015).

"The introduction of computers into schools was supposed to improve academic achievement and alter how teachers taught," said Stanford University education professor Larry Cuban (2015). "Neither has occurred."

The purpose of this reappraisal is not to make projections or proposals to be followed for success, rather to consider the teaching, leadership and/or management issues that likely must be attended in improving this situation: 1. Developing a culture for critical digital pedagogy for use in K12 schools or HE program,  2. The leadership support needed for same, and  3. The sustainability of effort and effect of the leadership for ongoing success.

Suffice to say my reappraisal is based on the belief that each organized professional educational group of shared focus, e.g. schools, districts, or education departments must answer the important pedagogical questions around these three areas themselves. Their decisions regarding pedagogy, technology, and student performance will require shared goals, shared commitments, and regular review of their growth. Unless the professionals themselves ask the important questions about improving critical digital pedagogy and student performance, regardless of tools used, any real success will be fleeting.