Great discussion yesterday around helping Deb engage school board members, in a short period of time, around the issue of educational reform. A word that kept being bandied about, and seemed central to the discussion (and plans) was "leadership." Yet, we did NOT make the time to talk about how leadership is/might be perceived with this group (or our group, for that matter).
As I reflected on the discussion it occured to me that one "definition" of leadership (or maybe better stated as one aspect of leadership in this area) would be facilitating the conversation between the stakeholders in the reform/transformation itself. Being a BIG believer in solutions from within (makes the whole issue of "buy in" completely absolete!) I do believe this to be one of the primary roles of leadership. Peter Block, who came up, again, in our dialog yesterday, agrees, stating that the two questions to keep in mind are always "How do we choose to come together?" and "What do we want to create together?"
Final reflection - true, sustainable change (read transformation, if you want) is an ongoing process. It is NOT wholesale change, it is not finding the "silver bullet." Acceptance of this very concept is a primary step in helping people see that change, positive change towards the world we collectively would like to see, is possible and that they (the community or any human system, from 1,000's down to the individual) can make it happen. Helping people come to this realization, in today's world of the "instant solution" is an ongoing challenge!
Excellent thoughts, Jay. You remind me that this group may be very interested in our upcoming workshop with Larry Spears on "Servant Leadership" (February 8th at the Union). Larry worked with Robert Greenleaf, who coined the term 'servant leadership' to describe a style that has since been further developed by others such as Peter Block, Peter Senge, Margaret Wheatley, Joe Jaworski,... you get the idea. If interested in Larry's excellent session, visit: https://www.ohrd.wisc.edu/OHRDCatalogPortal/Default.aspx?tabid=29&CourseKey=31394
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