A Transformational Approach To Career School Leadership

A Transformational Approach to Career School Leadership The definition of education is “the process of receiving or giving systematic instruction” and an education is “giving moral, intellectual, or social instruction.” Both derive from the Latin educare, which means “lead out.” Regardless of the type of education we either receive or propose to provide to others, leadership is at the heart of the education. How we lead determines whether or not the process inherent to education is successful for the ourselves and others. In my burgeoning career as a member of the career college community, I have had the honor to serve both as a faculty member and as a leader (first at the program manager level and subsequently at the director level). As a new faculty member, I had the good fortune to work under a very supportive director and campus president. Both felt very strongly that the role of the faculty was (and is) to assist in the student in achieving career success, as well as personal maturation. While it took me some time to appreciate this role, I can now concretely understand how important the “personal maturation” aspect of our role is. There is, however, one challenge with this role: how can or should we accomplish it? In my mind, it is a different onus altogether to assist our students in personal maturation. For most of my instructors, as it was for me, the initial view is that the role of the faculty is to teach. To teach, regardless of its formal definition, often means to deliver information that we then expect the student to learn. To learnis to be able to utilize the information both within its received context and— within reason—in novel ones. To teach someone to enter medical record information, take blood pressure, or to give a massage is a concrete skills that can be evaluated objectively. Success inthis aspect can be measured. But how do we teach someone “to mature”? The definition of maturing is growth in one or more dimensions of life: social, mental, spiritual, etc. But the essence of maturation is transformation. To mature, a tree must take the elements surrounding it—earth, water, sunlight, wind, and air—and change them, through its own processes, into usable tools for growth. A tree is endowed at birth with the structures and tools to achieve this; otherwise, it quickly withers and dies. Human beings are much the same, in that we must take what our environment gives us and transform it into something useful. The challenge is that, unlike the tree, people required nourishment in dimensions below those of survival. We require, according to Maslowe and others, elements such as beauty, purpose, and internal drive to strive for greater things. Without these, we begin to wither as individuals and, over time, feel ourselves relegated to role Copyright © 2009 – Stuart Rice

of automaton within our own lives; or, perhaps worse, as a battery used to empower the lives of others. While the career school or college literature suggests that our role is changing, we remain the choice of many people who view jobs as work rather than as a venue for engaging and evolving their best qualities and ideals. Hence, they seek “job training,” and we may very well be —although we may not like to admit it—“just” giving them job training. At our best though, we strive to give our students a perspective that allows them to see themselves in a new light. But to do this, we must transform our students. Which brings us back to our previous question: how do we teach someone to mature? How do we teach some to transform? Teaching transformation is a top-down process that must be a lived philosophy and reality for leadership, the faculty, and then the students. Therefore, the only way to transform the lives of our students is to be engaged in the process ourselves at a leadership level. The remainder of this article will look at the ways in which we can implement a model of transformational leadership within our own communities. The “ground” for transformation is the five key dimensions in which we can experience change in our lives. I show these five elements in Figure 1 below. The physicaldimension of wellness corresponds to our self of well-being and stability within our body. This can mean freedom from disease, a sense of the body’s ability to perform in response to our demands, and self-esteem regarding our physical appearance. The emotional dimension of wellness corresponds to a recognition of our emotional state by those around us. The ability to express emotion and to have that expression recognized by others, without judgment or evaluation is a critical component of well-being, even more so than being “understood.” The psychological dimension corresponds to the preponderance of satisfaction, stability, and consistency. This same concept can be expressed, in the negative, as the absence of anger, fear, and doubt; however, it is more important that the positive expression of this exist since a leader can actively achieve this. The intellectual dimension corresponds to the fulfillment of cognitive needs for development and expansion, as well as appropriate challenging of staid and outmoded models of thinking. Intellectual growth demands appropriately delivered challenges to modes of thinking, particularly those that are motivated by the other aspects of the model. Finally, the spiritualdimension involves the development of a sense of purpose and the unification of our moment-by-moment narrative with that purpose. While seemingly the sole purview of religious or “spiritual” practice, tending to the spiritual is perhaps the most important function of the leader. In each of these definitions, I emphasize particular elements. These emphasized points correspond to the key elements of the Copyright © 2009 – Stuart Rice

transformational leader, which can be delivered as 5 descriptive statements. These five descriptive statements are: The transformational leader… 1. Tends to physical health through effective techniques to maintain or expand the scope of physical ability; 2. Recognizes the emotional livelihood of herself as a prerequisite to acknowledging the emotional lives of others; 3. Maintains an internal sense of satisfaction, stability, and consistency through timely recognition and integration of new information in light of these values; 4. Embraces the unknown and uncomfortable as the ground for rapid and lasting growth; and, 5. Persists in her role because it is synonymous with her internal vision of herself. To these five statements we can add—once they are internally achieved—“and helps others do they same.” The vehicle for embodying—notachieving—these statements is an active practice of self-reflection and self-examination in relation to them. Therefore, the first action for the transformational leader is to engage this practice on a consistent basis. Because self-reflection is most effective when the leader uses a structured process, the following grid can give shape and support to that effort. When performing self-reflection, particularly one in which we rank or measure ourselves, two missteps are fairly common. The first is that we forget that this is self-reflection. No one is evaluating our performance, and no one else will read this. Forgetting that we are self-reflecting can lead us to view our processes as better than they are because we are afraid that we are being evaluated. The second is that we become overly critical with ourselvesand view our work poorly because we become mired in the mentality: “I could have done better.” There is nothing wrong with the statement—in fact, that statement is critical to self-improvement. However, it can also be used as a shield to allow us to exist in sustained mediocrity in relation to our potential. This is not acceptable to the transformational leader. Based on this, the first recommendation for creating a culture of transformational leadership is to commit, as a leader, to a sustainable process of self-reflection. The transformational leader documents this process sothat there is awareness of, and respect for, the personal growth and the changing nature of self-perception. When a leader commits to self-reflection, he or she inherently grows all dimensions of the self. Copyright © 2009 – Stuart Rice

Self-reflection, while valuable, must also lead to action. Consequently, the next stage of transformational leadership must be concrete action within the five dimensions that we can actively change. These concrete actions are highly variable, but anyaction should be linked to the specific aspects of the self-reflection. Since most of us are familiar with the elements of physical wellness—even though we may avoid it! —we will take a look at actions within the emotional and psychological dimensions. All human beings have an emotional core. The emotional core consists of the range of internally expressible emotions that each of us can experience. For example, most people have an internal emotional states that we label “anger,” “happiness,” or “joy.” However, each of us can experience those internal emotions in different ways, to different degrees, and at different levels of visibility. In response to the same situation or stimulation, a person may experience “compassion” with tearful eyes or a wide smile; in a way that makes them feel suffused with the sensation or localized to a specific place; and may have a very demonstrative display or a very subdued. Regardless of how we express, it is important that our emotional state is fully and authentically expressed. Importantly, the transformation leader does not deny or suppress the emotional core of his or her leadership. Stoicism is not a virtue in transformational leadership. Instead, an authenticity regarding emotional reaction is critical. In his work developing non-violent communication, psychologist and communication expert Marshall Rosenberg places incredible importance on this point. Being able to identify our own internal states is a critical first process in dialoguing with others in a way that takes into account emotion. Identifying and positioning emotions, particularly in critical dialogues, can dramatically increase their effectiveness without becoming maudlin or mawkish. Therefore, the first action in relationship to emotion is to develop an awareness of: 1. The way in which we express or suppress emotion; 2. The degrees to which situations invoke our emotional response; and, 3. That way in which we externally express or suppress our emotional state. The “answers” to these areas can be in the following form: 1. I really try to suppress my feeling of anger. 2. I get angry when a person who I don’t feel knows something “fakes” an answer. 3. I suppress this emotion by crossing my arms and biting my lip.

Copyright © 2009 – Stuart Rice

While this exercise may feel difficult or hokey, the lack of emotional awareness can play a huge role in why we either resist situations or have difficulty in handling them. Once we become aware of our own emotional core, we can then interact authentically with others. In the area of psychological awareness, it is important to scope the area of inquiry. This is neither “pop psychology” or “therapy.” Rather, it is deeper mental questions and issues. The idea brought up above was the “preponderance of satisfaction, stability, and consistency.” Like the emotional area, this can be difficult to investigate. There is an old Zen phrase regarding meditation: “The mind cannot polish the mind.” It often challenging for us to ask questions about ourselves, particularly something that connects to our fundamental ability to experience a state of being. Satisfaction, stability, and consistency are states of being. To assist in this process, we can look at the following brainstorming questions: 1. What does the term “stable” mean for you? 2. How do you feel in the situations that are the opposite of this term? 3. What does it mean for you to be satisfied? 4. How do you achieve satisfaction in your daily life? in your work life? 5. How would you define consistency? What does it look like? 6. How do you experience consistency in your daily life? What may come up in response is an amalgam of different types of words, cutting across multiple areas of life: physical, emotional, social, etc. Importantly, do not censor these thoughts as they come up. While avoiding any forcing, try to exhaustyour thoughts on the subject. Then, examine the list. Is there anything that surprises you? seems inconsistent? Again, don’t cross out the things that don’t seem to fit. These are all valuable insights. Based on your definition lists, begin to connect the things in your daily personal and professional life with this list. How much parity or disparity is there between your list and your experience of everyday life? What concrete decisions and actions could you take to make changes that would improve your sense of stability, satisfaction, and consistency? Using these three dimensions as a starting point, the potential transformational leader can begin the process of self-reflection and self-examination. From this self-reflection and self-examination we can begin to develop our own internal and external process of transformation. From this seed, we can begin to transform the organizations and people around us.

Copyright © 2009 – Stuart Rice