Encourage the Heart

Perhaps strangely, I hadn’t thought of leadership in terms of  a key component of effective teaching. That is, I had thought of attributes of leadership that are critical to teaching, but I hadn’t couched it in terms of leadership per se. But now that the idea has been offered, I see how it absolutely is a key component of effective teaching, and puzzle over how I ever missed that idea.

Dr. Jackie Kirk introduced our Professional Teacher class to the Leadership Practices Inventory … a norm-referenced test to determine one’s relative strengths and weaknesses in what they’ve identified as the five exemplary practices of leadership. Each of us took this test (self-evaluated), and I found the results fascinating.

First, I’ll let you know (if you don’t already) what the five areas are:

• Modeling the way
• Inspiring a shared vision
• Challenging the process
• Enabling others to act
• Encouraging the heart

 Without formal definition of these categories, I could have rank-ordered my own strengths quite easily. I figured that my strengths would lie in modeling the way, challenging the process, and encouraging the heart. Not so great would be inspiring a shared vision, and enabling others to act. I think that I view these last two as very extroverted characteristics, which would not be my way. (Yes, I know, challenging the process is theoretically also an extroverted practice, but I know that I have that rebel in me, plus I do enjoy trying to find better ways to do things.)

But – surprise! – this is really not what my results established as my strong & weak suits. My strongest? A tie between challenging the process (no surprise there) and enabling others to act (what?!). My worst, by far, was modeling the way. That one was a real shocker. I really feel like I do as I want those around me to do (well, those within my scope of influence). So I was shocked to see it at the very low end of things (under the tenth percentile).

Jackie went on to talk about each category, and what sorts of things we do to promote each one. Modeling the way is still a mystery to me; I think that I do know what I want to model, and that my actions are aligned with my values. I will need to think on this one, and observe … maybe the reality of the situation is different from what I imagine to be true. It’ll be interesting to keep an eye on this for a while, and see if I can ultimately identify the sorts of choices I make that aren’t in keeping with this value.

Now – enabling others to act. Let me just say that I feel squeamish just even hearing these words. Maybe it’s just that – perhaps these words are not the ones I would use to describe what they are talking about.  Because when I heard what Jackie had to say about the kinds of behaviours that lead to strength in this area – making heroes and leaders of others in the classroom, embracing risk-taking, sharing power, seeing failure as simply part of learning – those are things I feel quite strongly about, and make a point of doing. So that one makes sense, in the end.

The other surprise for me was encouraging the heart. I view myself as someone who is very strong in this area. And yet, my result came out just sitting on the border between low and moderate. Huh. This, also, is one of what I would consider the “easier” ones to excel in. How hard is it to be appreciative? To send a thank you note? To celebrate achievements and successes? But somehow, I’m just not doing great here. So – another one that I’m going to be more aware of, make a conscious effort to improve upon.

I must say that I appreciate these sorts of new age-ish exercises that Jackie has us do in this class (and in the previous one, Classroom Management). It is unlikely that I would independently choose to consider the Myers-Briggs in terms of how I teach, or that I’d write a personal inventory poem, or statement of educational philosophy. Or that I’d take this leadership inventory. And yet, each of these exercises has been quite enlightening, and has raised that bar a little higher. There is a big difference between knowing things about yourself, and articulating them. The process of articulating them involves a great deal of introspection and wrestling with inconsistencies in one’s self. So for that, I thank Jackie – I think it’ll make better teachers of us all.