UNLOCKING LEADERSHIP

Wisconsin State Law mandates that we identify and serve gifted students in five areas: intellectual, academic, creativity, visual and performing arts, and leadership. While many districts do a reasonably good job of identifying and serving academic and intellectually gifted students, leadership talent is often less well understood, and less frequently developed in our schools.  

The literature on leadership suggests that great leaders (young and old) possess certain skills and dispositions. Some of them are: strong convictions, great listening skills, self-confidence, communication skills, a willingness to work hard and to expect others to work hard, organizational skills, a commitment to follow-through, a working knowledge of content, process, and product when designing and executing a project, energy, interpersonal skills, and a commitment to moral and ethical grounding.

While some children may exhibit innate leadership skills, these skills can be developed in children, and enhanced and refined by educators, parents, grandparents, coaches, family members, and the community.  

While preparing to work with educators and parents in Southeastern WI on developing leadership talent, I turned to one of my favorite leadership gurus on Twitter, Lolly Daskal, President and CEO of Lead From Within.  In her article 10 Simple Ways to Develop Leadership Skills in Your Children, Ms. Daskal asserts that there are many things adults can do to develop children’s potential for leadership, and I’ve added some of my thoughts to hers. They are:

• Be the kind of leader you want them to be. Our children are always watching, emulating, critiquing, trying on new roles, and evaluating the performance of adults and themselves. We need to be the kind of role models that children will be proud to emulate. Additionally, we need to discuss the performance of leaders in our community and our world, and allow our children to express their ideas and opinions about effective and ineffective leadership.
• Allow them to pave their own path. Leaders must first learn how to lead themselves with passion, clarity, and purpose. Only then can they learn to lead others. Our children must learn when to lead, when to follow, and when to get out of the way in order to be a successful leader.  
• Show them ways to succeed. Leadership may be viewed as a talent, but it is also an accumulation of experiences, skill-sets, and wisdom. When children are taught to assess their skills, to hone those skills, and to acquire additional needed skills, they become more successful. Likewise, when they are taught to analyze failure, and to regard it as a first attempt in learning, and not as an unredeemable disaster, they become resilient leaders.
• Generate a circle of trailblazers. Children can learn a great deal about leadership by studying competent leaders, reading about them, and watching them in action. Be sure to give blossoming leaders ample time to reflect on the leadership of others, and to learn from their observations.
• Seek to understand them so they can learn to understand others. Key skills here are listening, communicating effectively, and building empathy. When working with emergent leaders, I often ask them to, in Art Costa’s words, “seek first to understand, and then be understood.” When trying to understand the perspectives of others, leaders widen their leadership lens.
• Teach them to be winners. And, I might add, good losers. Winners are people who do not give up and do not easily quit; good losers are people who learn from mistakes, and move on with grace and flexibility. Being a leader means, as my grandmother (a baseball fan) often said, “you win some, you lose some, and some get rained out.” Teach them to be undaunted by success and failure.
• Help them learn to be great communicators. Communication skills -- verbal, non-verbal, and written -- are essential tools to build relationships and inspire others. Without these skills, leadership cannot succeed. Learning these skills takes time, patience, and practice.
• Show the importance of character. Effective leadership requires trust, honesty, respect, humility, and integrity. Children must experience others modeling these traits, must be the recipient of these leadership gifts, practice them, and hold themselves accountable for them. The mantle of leadership is most honorable when cloaked in great character.
• Finally, encourage an open heart and mind in your developing leaders. Give your children experiences in diversity, in social justice, in equity and excellence, in acquiring multiple perspectives, and in working toward the best possible outcome for the most people.

The curious and fabulous thing about leadership is that, like in most performance fields, we never fully arrive. Great leaders (children and adults) are constantly refining their skills, learning and growing into their potential. It is my fondest wish that we pay more attention to fostering leadership talents in all of us; our world needs this talent.

As always, I look forward to hearing from you. Thank you for this foray into using other perspectives to helping us understand giftedness.

Jacquelyn Drummer
Past President, WATG  
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