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Leading as Education

Glenn Brooke | December 21, 2018 | Leave a Comment

Leading as Education

Leaders are in the education business, because leaders need to pull people – team members, bosses, customers, partners — along with them. Pushing people is partially effective, but requires positional power. Educating people is a key part of persuasion and influence.  

The word ‘educate’ comes to English from Latin: ducere, meaning to draw or lead, with the prefix e to indicate “out of.” Education is not pouring into, but drawing out. It’s not cracking open the skull and stuffing in facts. Education requires that we use information, questions, dialogue, and experience plus feedback to shape the way a person thinks and behaves. 

Therefore, education will never be an efficient process. There are efficient ways to give people information. There are efficient ways to begin dialogue. Yet education is about a whole person, requires their participation and cooperation, and touches the mystery of how the mind works. 

Sometimes people have created a loose connection between education and indoctrination. Working from formal definitions: 

Education: imparting or acquiring general knowledge, developing the powers of reasoning and judgment, and generally of preparing oneself or others intellectually for mature life.

Indoctrination: teaching or inculcating a doctrine, principle, or ideology, especially one with a specific point of view. 

Observation: If we approve of the curriculum and worldview, then we call it education. If we don’t, we condemn it as indoctrination. 

Education is an open mindset; indoctrination is a fixed mindset. A test to consider: An educated person may develop a separate worldview from his teachers, disagree on many matters, and still be friendly and learn from one another. An intense focus on indoctrination yields a situation where departure from the doctrine is labeled heresy and destroys fellowship.  Indoctrination as a strategy does not create mature individuals who continue learning and growing. People hell-bent (I use that word purposefully) on indoctrination do not tolerate a student exceeding the teacher. The only cooperative part of the indoctrination process is obedience and rote learning. 

Education must be a mix of information and experiences. Sharing stories is crucial.  Few will remember your seven brilliant bullet points, but they will remember the well-told story that touched their heart or made them smile.  Better yet, share a story which made them see differently! Inspiring, transforming leaders weave stories and information together. They give people context where they can fit in the facts and information.  

Your leadership will go to new levels when you see yourself as an educator. 

Feed What Fuels Your Best

Glenn Brooke | February 23, 2018 | Leave a Comment

Feed What Fuels Your Best

You may have heard this apocryphal but useful story:

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- 

An old Cherokee is teaching his grandson about life. “A fight is going on inside me,” he said to the boy.

“It is a terrible fight and it is between two wolves. One is evil – he is anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego.” He continued, “The other is good – he is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith. The same fight is going on inside you – and inside every other person, too.”

The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather, “Which wolf will win?”

The old Cherokee simply replied, “The one you feed.”

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- 

Challenge for the day: What mindset are you feeding? Open/opportunity/growth, or Constrained/enslaved/shrinkage?

Yes, others have made decisions which affect you and the people you’re working with on projects and initiatives.

Yes, you are not working in a pure democracy. As the song says, “Everybody’s gotta serve somebody.”

Yes, there are practical limits on time, energy, and funding.

 

Yes, it’s possible that the universe might work better if you were in charge. But the people who have the power to make decisions are always the people who make the decisions.

Still true: you have the power of choice about your mindset.

It’s not just you, but the people you’re leading, too. How you think, speak, and act is broadcasting at 50,000 watts to them.

Feed the mindset and behavior which fuels your best contributions, and truly help your organization. Starve the rest.  

lead go first

Adam Smith | January 17, 2017 | Leave a Comment

#125: Lead and Influence More People

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Want to influence more people through your work? Go first. That is why bravery and creativity are such important subjects of focus. You have to go where no one else will go and create things that others aren’t creating to stand out in the crowd. You cannot lead without first producing innovative products so that people will follow.

Think of the biggest businesses in the world right now in 2017 — Apple, Amazon, Facebook — they all built something first, giving others the option to follow later on. Apple built amazing computers and phones and now the world gets to enjoy them on a daily basis. They even have multiple companies imitating them, but people know who the original is. As long as Apple continues to become better, their results will attract even more people. Same for Amazon and Facebook. They continue to innovate, attracting even more people to use their products.

So how can you begin leading in your area of focus? Here are five steps that anyone can implement in their lives and in their work to lead in work and in life:  [Read more…] about #125: Lead and Influence More People

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