LIFT to Develop Young Leaders...Into Highly Effective Leaders
"I count him braver who overcomes his desires than him who conquers his enemies, for the hardest victory is over the self." Aristotle
The secret sauce for building leadership in others has been hotly sought for many years. I cannot speak to all situations, but I can share my formula to grow leaders. I have had a degree of success in my career building leaders. For the past 16 years I have been Principal of a large elementary school and two large (3000+ students) in a sprawling suburban area. At the latest count, I have 19 members of my teams that have gone to leadership positions with tremendous success. Secret sauce, maybe not... But, it certainly can be said that there is at least a correlation. There are several steps that I employ, but it can be boiled down to a handy acronym...LIFT
The first step of developing a great team member into a leader of others starts in an obvious place. Your selection process should be refined through effective strategies and techniques that expose desirable characteristics of aspiring leaders. I find that there are several characteristics that expose a potential candidate as likely to have the characteristics for effectively leading others. They are: innovative thinking, humility, possessing a calm nature, an undying love for kids, not being overly rigid, an ability to navigate instructional pedagogy, and a developed spirit of servanthood. These items are not exclusive, however, these are the attributes I find as being more predictive than others in the development of school principals.
Once a candidate is selected, I begin to use my LIFT method for developing them as leaders. LIFT stands for: Leadership, Innovation, Fellowship, and Teamwork. What follows are my thoughts on each attribute and the manner in which I use them to develop a leader.
LEADERSHIP- I utilize many opportunities to encourage immediate leadership impact from each candidate. Team members are given an area of responsibility to lead. Within each area, there are resources to manage, people to influence, directions to align to the grand organizational vision, and crises to manage. The ebbs and flows of a school year along with the ever-changing "hot topics" within education can make this facet a difficult one for the new leader. I oversee their development by guiding them with constant feedback. The feedback is not given at consistent intervals. I like to see the work and then sit with them to debrief their direction, effects, and assist with resource management. Many have not had much experience with resource management, so this is the first area for many to feel unsure. Occasionally, they will stumble in the directing members of their departments. This is a closely monitored area for me as the principal of leaders. I am seeking their input with all staff members to see the alignment of my thoughts. These conversations are often called "Leadership Lessons". Often, I will come into their office and tell them I have a "Leadership Lesson" for them. Periodically, I will use this technique to affirm their moves and decisions. However, when I need to give them further direction or provide correction, it is done through the use of the same Leadership Lesson. I will often make an analogy that is somewhat aligned to the point of discussion.
For example, I had a young Assistant Principal who was eager to lead yet very inexperienced. I gave him a team to direct through a substantial curriculum and structural change. He rather quickly and abruptly just gave the outline of what he hoped to see. He neglected to build a rapport with the team, hesitated to learn why they performed the way they did, and did not seek to build any alliances with the need for change. I, as the Principal, could see the change was necessary, yet they were not as eager to align their actions to a new direction. After losing the credibility of the team and setting back the change process, a Leadership Lesson was necessary. I walked into his office. Please take note that I did this in HIS office...not mine...(part of my lesson). I outlined a time when I attempted to apply a new grading scale without seeking a solid understanding of why it was that way, neglected to build a coalition among them, and simply used my positional authority to apply the new scale. It was a miserable failure. I shared that it took twice as long to embed new practices after I went back to build teamwork for teachers to apply these thoughts after they realized change was necessary. After I shared my mistake, he was able to see the missteps I took. Yet, he was unable to see, immediately, that he had done the same. I walked him through the similarity of my misstep and his. He soon realized this. Upon his revelation, I encouraged him to determine next steps and discuss his new plan with me. I could give him feedback prior to applying the plan. The next day, eager and encouraged, he came to my office and shared his new plan. It was thorough, nice in it's timing, and was thoughtful in terms of building an alliance among the team members. After he implemented the plan, he found that his effectiveness was much better and the team was better for it.
Modeling leadership strategies, on a daily basis, gives aspiring leaders an opportunity to apply new skills while they have the benefit of feedback and debrief along the way. Once a school principal, they will be expected to apply these on their own. Of course, the newer the leader, the closer my attention is to their application. The key to emerging skill development in aspiring leaders is for me to maintain a sharp eye. I am constantly looking for feedback opportunities. Once they are evident, I must immediately give feedback, both encouraging and constructive. Feedback must be descriptive, to the point, timely, and accompanied by follow up questions. Thus has got to be a discussion seeking their improvement.
The most difficult aspect of leadership development of young leaders is trust. I MUST trust them. If I am unwilling to go slow with them, let them potentially mess up, or often double back to correct actions; then I cannot grow as a leader. It is uncomfortable in the "two steps back..." phase, however, I have found that they only make these mistakes once. For every lesson learned there is an equal and opposite positive reaction. I have found that the leader is more encouraged by their own growth, they grow members within their team, and we are a tighter team as a result. Often, they will go above and beyond to achieve great results for the organization. I have helped to build stronger commitment to the larger team through their mistakes.
INNOVATION- I find that innovative thinking is the real litmus test for the emerging true leader. Innovation is vital as they work to gain experiences. The ability to think differently about problems, issues, resource use, schedules, meeting students' needs, and anything else can arise. It is valuable When I use the term innovation, I mean to truly look at an issue from multiple perspectives. The low-level leader attempts this by simply taking the contrary opinion to theirs. They assume this lack of depth broadens their perspective... Simply, it does not. Innovative thinking is using many options to answer the same question. Planning for options A, B, C, D, and E is an example of innovative thinking...only if those variables have great variance from one another. If they are simply the same answer in a different wrapper, then it fails the test.
For example, I was investigating a new lunch structure to gain hours of instruction for our most needy learners. The objective was to gain additional time, within the school day, to meet the academic needs of kids that struggle. The parameters were clear: the school day must begin and end at the same time. The question was to gain instructional time in an innovative way. The current school day has been intact for nearly a decade without interruption. Truly innovative thinking would constitute a new answer. I asked a veteran Assistant Principal, with true innovative abilities, to work with me on this project. We thought we had a great option that would meet all of our needs. Unfortunately when we sought feedback from our department chairs we found that we were sorely mistaken. To her credit, she was undeterred. She rallied our efforts, for four days, until we found a true innovation. The result was one that is a win/win/win. Students, staff, and the school all won in this effort. It is that rare time when such an innovation produces such a result, but it did. I am still proud of her work on this and we often reminisce about the effort to this day.
Innovative thinking is a true predictor of the ability of a leader to be creative, manage effectively, and combine the two into effective strategies. I am not sure if you can cultivate innovative thought into someone who cannot see options. However, I feel that tenacity, patience, and hard work go a long way to meeting innovative results. If someone gives up too early, innovative results may be lost. Keep working and thinking then it will come to you. Be patient!
FELLOWSHIP- As a leader, we need to be able to communicate effectively. Communication is the most vital component of our repertoire as leaders. Effective communication helps build good rapport with members of our team. An ongoing manner of this rapport is to infuse fellowship with our team. Fellowship, in a most appropriate manner, is to have collegial conversations, friendly banter, funny stories, enjoyable shared experiences, and collective team memories. To say the least, any inappropriate jokes, judgmental statements, or behavior that puts you too close to your team members is not desired. The purpose of fellowship is to build trust and rapport, not developing drinking buddies, best friends, or gossip groups. Remember, these are ultimately employees of yours. We, as the leader of the organization, cannot be in that game with them. We are determined to be a part of the fun, but must remain away from the party. There are too many leaders that have become friends with their team members and neglected to give adequate critical feedback, strong redirection, or even corrective behavior. This laziness can ultimately cause an ineffective team to develop. Thus, all leadership development is lost.
Each summer, I take all of the members of my administrative team on a three day retreat. I plan a full agenda for the retreat and we leave with our work planned for the next school year. While at the retreat though, we do have a lot of fun. We play games, tell stories, take walks, goof around and have fun. However, we do not cross that line of appropriate and inappropriate behavior. I model maintaining that line of appropriateness with each member.
TEAMWORK- Ultimately, leadership is about teamwork. If you, as a leader, have no one that will follow your efforts, then are you a leader at all? Teamwork is also not about randomly putting people together and asking them to do something. True teamwork is assembling a group of people for a predetermined goal, organizing their efforts, aligning their perspectives, giving them the tools and resources they need to accomplish the goal, giving them proper feedback on their efforts, measuring their effectiveness, and determining their ability to meet the goals. This is a complicated and difficult endeavor, but we train for leadership through all of our efforts.
One of my team members often says, "Teamwork makes the dream work...". He is exactly correct. We cannot even dare to meet the dreams for our organization if we cannot work together to achieve the goals determined. It is a friendly reminder to be on the same page, listen to one another, consider each others' ideas, talk it through together, and come to a common notion...even if it is not mine. I thank him eternally for giving me and the team this constant reminder.
As mentioned many leaders of organizations have emerged from my many teams through the years. They have gone on to lead schools, departments within school systems, and other learning organizations. These attributes are not exclusive to learning organizations, rather I see them as critical factors for any leader of people. I cannot think of any organization that would not benefit from these attributes. Remember to teach your leaders to LIFT!
