Author: Mary Ila Ward

Back to the classroom! As summer is coming to an end, teachers and students are gearing up for another school year. While school supplies and new sneakers are on the list for back to school, we encourage teachers to consider adding sharpening their leadership skills to the list.

“Leadership is about making others better as a result of your presence and making sure that impact lasts in your absence.” Sheryl Sanberg

What a great motto for teachers to consider! In your quest to lead the next generation, we recommend the following leadership tips:

Build relationships with your students. Be genuinely concerned about their interests in and outside of the classroom. This is a great way to build trust and open the lines of communication. And, without even realizing it, students are learning to do the same. A great quality for leaders is relationship building.

Involve students in the learning process. Students are more likely to enjoy learning if they have input in the process. Give them a choice of assignments or maybe even the due date on assignments once or twice this year.

Lead by example. Take the lead as a learner. Continuous learning is always a component of being a good educator. Keep students in the loop on what professional or personal development you are working on this year.

Be an encourager. No matter what background students come from or how successful they are in academics or sports, they all need encouragement. Great leaders are encouragers. Encourage your students and encourage them to encourage each other.

For more insight into leadership, check out these post from The Point Blog:

10 Books Leaders need to be Reading

Top 10 Leadership Quotes

Establishing Leadership as a High School or College Student

I was going through my old email account one day and happened upon this gem of advice from my late mentor, Dr. Jim Cashman:

Date: February 28, 2006 at 6:04:09 PM CST

Mary Ila: Remember the last meeting of MGT 300. I went over the test and then played a segment of the Wizard of Oz, stressing the importance of leaving the university with a brain (scarecrow), the courage to present and defend your ideas (lion), and to be loved by getting involved in your community (tin man/it is not how much you love, but how much you are loved by others). Finally, you remember that I said we had to do better than Dorothy and not think of Kansas the ideal. Rather be like Aladdin and take a Magic Carpet Ride. I hope you remember that from the last day of my part of the MGT 300 class. I love doing it.

You have done all of the first three (Brainy, Courageous, and Greatly Loved) , now I want you to get on the carpet and let yourself feel that it is A WHOLE NEW WORLD, AND IT HAS A MAGICAL POINT OF VIEW.

You are the best.

Love,

Dr. C

First, man I miss this man. Second, he was hopelessly optimistic and mind-numbingly encouraging (case in point him saying I was already brainy, courageous and greatly loved- I still have a long way to go with all of these), but what stuck out the most to me, was to question whether or not have I would have made this man proud by getting on the “magic carpet”? In other words, have I taken risks and thought outside of the box?

I’m not sure that I can answer that question for myself fully, but it has led me to consider these few points to aid in striving for a “whole new world” and my recent viewing of Aladdin with my four year old has helped with this:

1. Living in fear serves no purpose.

2. Surrounding yourself with people who challenge you and make you better is key.

3. You define what your whole new world is, don’t let anyone else do it for you.

4. Comparison is the enemy of discovering a whole new world.

5. The whole new world is only important if it creates a whole new world of opportunities for others. The whole new world isn’t selfish.

Thank you, Dr. C. for challenging countless students to get on the magic carpet (not the one sung about in the song, yes, I know what that whole magic carpet was about). If we all take the challenge, we can truly create a whole new world. Even better, we can act as leaders to help others learn these truths and create a multiplying whole new world.

What is keeping you from discovering a whole new world or from challenging someone else to discover one for his/herself today?

Leaders make more leaders. You aren’t a leader if you don’t. But how do you go about making more leaders? By acting as a career agent, you can successfully combat disengagement and serve the role that a leader is meant to serve- growing others.

But how do you play the role of career agent? Here are three easy steps:

1. ASK & ASSESS: Asking simply involves deploying the question, “What do you want out of your career?” in individual meetings with your subordinates. You may want to break this down into what they want 1 year, 3 years, 5 years and 10 years from now. This is a simple but powerful question that begins to frame how you can begin to act as a career agent by knowing first hand what outcomes a person is seeking.

Once you have asked this question, you need to assess where people are in their path to the outcomes they want. This includes an honest assessment on your part and on their part about their strengths and areas for development. You can do this in a casual way through one-on-one conversations, or deploy self-assessment and/or 360° evaluation tools.

2. GAME PLAN: The direction a person seeks and the results of the assessment phase then give you the opportunity to develop a game plan for maximizing that person towards their goals with the organization’s needs in mind. This game plan should accomplish three things:

• Address areas of strength and weakness in assessment phase
• Lead to more engagement from the employee
• Meet business needs

The game plan should include both:

• WORK ASSIGNMENTS: These assignments should contribute directly to what the organization needs and should be opportunities for growth for the person. For example, you may have a pressing business need to map out all of your organization’s processes to streamline and create efficiency. Utilizing someone on your team who has this strength OR has never done something like this before (depending on the situation is who you would assign) can help the organization meet the need and help the person grow a strength or develop in an uncharted area.
• PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT ACTIVITIES: These activities are things that the person should take responsibility for accomplishing on their own time through their own initiative and effort. For example, it may be attending an accounting class, reading articles on certain topics, or taking on or pursuing a mentoring relationship.

3. EXPOSURE: The final step of the process actually involves following through on your end of the deal as a leader when the person follows through on their gameplan. As we described in a previous article on this topic in Alabama HR Magazine, beginning on page 14, make people aware of opportunities that arise, even if they are outside your organization.

This may mean letting them go to another organization. If you’re having career agent conversations with people, they are going to be more productive and you probably don’t want to loose this type of employee.

This may seem counter intuitive to an employee retention strategy, however, making employees aware of outside opportunities that are a fit for their career plans, and helping facilitate those opportunities even if they are outside your organization, is a good move in the long run.

They become walking and talking recruitment ads for you and your organization, which is hard to come by for free. It leads to a bigger picture recruitment and retention strategy. And who knows, their career path may lead them back to your organization more valuable than when they left.”

The leaders as career agent process can be one that replaces your performance evaluation/appraisal system if done correctly. Consider it as a new paradigm in how you evaluate, develop and grow people within your organization.

Help Leaders become Career Agents with a helpful tool found here.

Want to teach people to be career agents? Check out our Leaders as Career Agents course outline.