Leadership Must Be Intentional

That's my son on his cousins horse out in the Panhandle of Oklahoma. He talks about that horse, he wants me to get him a horse, he dreams about owning a horse and he hopes that I will get him a horse. Call me a dream stealer, but the likely-hood of me getting him a horse anytime soon is just about zero. It is just not practical for us and where we live for my son to have a horse. However, if hoping, dreaming, talking, wishing were enough we would all have all the stuff we want in the world. You and I know that it doesn't work that way. That being said, why do we hope, wish and talk about developing leaders in our schools without doing anything about it. Telling students..."you need to be a leader" will not make them a leader, yet I think that becomes the extent of the leadership training we give students in our schools, organizations and sports programs around the country. I am guilty! With my 6th grade sons basketball team I have been guilty of pulling him a side in key situations and telling him. "Everyone is going to respond to you the way you are responding...you need to step up and be a leader!" Think about it how many times have we expected, hoped, talked about and wished the leadership fairy would just show up and our schools would have leaders! Leadership development is a process, it is intentional and as we develop we need to continue to develop our leaders. It can be challenging! I think the moment school starts we expect the upper classmen to just show up as leaders to always do the right thing, to make good decisions, but we need to keep in mind that we need to have a process for developing young leaders because leaders need to be trained! HOW DO WE DO IT?

1. Take a look at what you did last year to develop school leadership. What did you do that intentionally developed leadership in your school? Ask yourself how effective was what I did?


2. Look at the number of leadership programs that are available to our athletes, organizational leaders, and community development programs. Ask yourself...Am I utilizing all of these initiatives.


3. Talk to other teachers, coaches, advisors and administrators about specific steps they have taken to develop leadership within their students and then ask them how effective was it and can we duplicate this in our school in other areas.


4. Host a leadership retreat that has specific objectives about what we want to accomplish. It is always a good idea to hire a professional leadership trainer that makes sure the message is engaging and informing.


5. What are the key character messages your leaders should be living? Then ask your students to discover strategies for teaching these lessons to younger students. It is amazing how much easier it is to make these messages a part of ourselves when we are teaching the lessons.


6. Break it down. Develop leaders by class. For instance, have a strategy for teaching different elements of leadership to different classes. Freshman have different needs than Seniors. Start looking at what types of leadership behaviors it would be good for the Freshman to get and the Seniors to model.


7. Have a strategy for rewarding leadership in your school. Reward respect, positive behaviors, sportsmanship, assisting others, volunteerism etc..


8. Record what works and then delegate those initiatives to others so you can continue to work on new leadership initiatives.

Remember, leadership is not a right of passage we don't just suddenly learn to lead. Leadership happens because we are intentional about teaching leadership in our communities.