Evolution and isolation have produced unique creatures. Islands of genetic mutation that somehow manipulated the progress of nature and adapted to the environment in the most fascinating of ways. One has to just look at these islands and see how these creatures evolved. There are islands in nature, in thought, in leadership and in nations. Isolated nations, like leaders, do not grow and mature professionally. Unique creatures cannot survive in any other climate. Poor leaders cannot understand what it takes to be respected. Their form of respect is completely mutated.
School leaders are not different. Once isolated, they tend to grow tangentially. Not often successfully, often mutated to the extent that conforming to the parameters that the state lays is going to be a difficult adaptation process.
Modern education is designed within the parameters of a social need. The curriculum holds these factors together. Perhaps the creativity in the delivery of the curriculum may encourage some form of mutation but the end result has to be the same. Some leaders take their schools to glorious heights through innovation, creativity, leadership and design. The vast majority follow these ‘leaders’.
So how does one grow in leadership? Leadership is a complex element of workings within a parameter. The state says: spend within a budget-the school pushes this spending boundary through their own fundraising efforts. The state says: you must teach these subjects-leaders re-design the teaching units and lessons and encourage their teachers to breakdown boundaries embedded with rituals and administrative slog. The state says: ‘Your students must achieve so and so’, and leaders lay the framework within how that achievement can be measured. The list goes on and on. Real leaders always challenge the status quo. Poor leaders meekly nod their nods in acceptance.
Leaders grow professionally when they share and dare, when they sell and compel, when they lead and ‘seed’. Sharing is a consequence of fellowship, of trust in your colleagues and a desire to lead from the front with a following slowly building behind you. Daring is doing things differently. Always testing the boundaries that the state lays and attempting new ways of presenting the problem and finding solutions for it. Selling is being passionate about an idea and following it through. Compelling is salesmanship of your idea. Ownership of the concept and an open invitation to your colleagues to test the value of the concept. In leading, leaders say: ‘I am available. I am here for you. Just go for it, mate!’ And ‘seeding’ is the planting of your innovative ideas in a forum of thought or conference or project which encourages other to say: ‘God, that’s a nice idea!’.
Leaders grow in isolation and in collectives. Better leaders toggle between these two pulls of a social structure. Leaders are the ones who push the rope ladder over the cliff to help their fellow men. Selfish leaders pull the rope ladders up and prevent others from climbing up. Confident leaders share information and ideas and spread the good word. Inferior leaders like to keep things confidential so that edifies themselves and credit is expected.
Leaders with a vision have a blinding passion that drives them to do the unusual. Inefficient leaders sit in warm offices, surrounded by nice secretaries, and well organised paperwork. It’s all about image. It’s all about being seen as being busy. Real leaders have vast quantities of unfinished paperwork and easy going secretaries. Dull leaders have clean carpets and crisp language. Vibrant leaders have untold banks of energy that are unleashed and happy to assist in any way possible. Real leaders use every minute with a message attached to it. Poor leaders have nicely folded envelopes and clean-cut, well ironed suits.
Growing professionally is about sharing a vision and taking criticism on the chin. Professional leaders are most often ridiculed about their energies but they plough on irrespective. They get spat on, kicked and wounded but they tend to wipe the spit away and self-bandage their wounds. History is filled with examples of such dynamic leaders. They have vast gatherings of people holding their flags and singing with their leaders in the same tune. Dynamic leaders live short explosive lives, lousy leaders hang around for a long time inflicting pain and punishment on all who defy and challenge them.
One has to just look around to spot leaders. They are few and far between but stick out the minute they walk into a room. They say little but do lots. They don’t hide behind polished mahogany desks or shiny brass plates. They are the ones that pick up paper around the school ground, they are the ones that lead a morning prayer, the ones that respect and revere every single human person as a link in vast social network. They want you to win and they want you to carve your own pathway on your own journey to being a leader yourself. Leaders are leaders who grant your free membership in their vast clubs of leaders. They walk you through the paces as if you were the most important person in their lives. They listen and learn and act. They have time for you.
With such an elite support system, there is little chance that you will not become a leader yourself.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Mr Marshall E. Gass is a PhD student at the Centre for Science Technology Education Research at the University of Waikato in Hamilton New Zealand. He is also the Business Development Coordinator for De La Salle College in Mangere East Auckland New Zealand and an IT teacher at the same school. Marshall enjoys writing fringe articles that defy imagination and often presents scenarios that provoke you to reflect deeply. His writing has appeared in a wide range of magazines and newspapers. The completion of his PhD will be an ‘overnight journey of 45 years of dreaming’.