Should We First Define Leadership

Recently a school administrator, working toward setting up her high school’s leadership education program, asked me, “Should we spend much time in defining leadership? “

Typically, a third grade teacher would make sure that her students first knew the meanings of all the hard words before she taught the story; so also would a tenth grade history teacher. Agreeing first on definitions enjoys a front-of-the-class, even a classical, prominence as the most appropriate way to proceed. It was a good question.

Despite this, my off-the-cuff answer was, “No.” To the raised interrogative eyebrow of my very thoughtful fellow educator, I continued, “Researchers and academics have been batting this question around for over a decade without agreeing on an answer. Asking the board, or the administration, or the faculty to come up with its own well articulated definition seemed to be a fool’s errand bound for failure, and a task which would consume so many meeting hours that all the wind needed for the sails to drive the ship forward would be sucked dry. The project would self-asphyxiate.”

And then on second thought…. something more is needed.

Driving home, though I stood by my original answer, I also remembered an exercise I used several times with both students and teachers. Everyone was given a couple of 3x5 cards; on each they were asked to write the name of someone they considered a leader. I introduced the topic by noting that there was likely to be a wide range of opinions; in fact to spur outside-of-the-box thinking, I encouraged inclusion of names they could defend as leaders even though the others might not agree. After looking over shoulders to determine the full landscape of selections, I sometimes laced the pack with some controversial individuals such as Hitler, Picasso, or Joan of Arc in order to draw out key discussion topics: can a person who caused others to murder thousands be considered a leader; can someone who works alone but influenced millions be a leader; and are leaders only men.

This exercise did not intend on scoping out every nook and cranny of leadership, not to define leadership, but rather to bring out existing notions, to raise issues, and to give time for participants to consider and appreciate opposing points of view. Among a group of faculty, one extraordinarily respected teacher said that Hitler was not a leader, “Real leaders are concerned about bettering the world.” Interestingly, among students at a Jewish high school, no one gainsaid the idea of Hitler as leader. One Jewish student even suggested that Hitler might even have thought that his actions bettered his own group and, if so, he might have considered himself good even while Jews thought of him as evil. Regularly I am happily surprised at the insights of pre-collegiate students --- and by their naiveté; they had no idea how deep their thoughts sometimes ran. Almost every group with whom I met felt that Picasso deserved to be called a leader, but of a very different sort. One student pointed out that artists led with ideas rather than with authority. One group of eighth graders, in a very male dominant culture, stated adamantly that only men could be leaders; a position fiercely contended by the girls in the class. I wondered if this was the boys’ real position, or a pigtail-dipping taunt to the already very mature looking young ladies.

In another class I rephrased the question and asked them to write down leaders who they most admired. Every boy in this independent school, unknown to the others, listed his own father. I was astonished. Some pointed to the position their dads held at work; all pointed out their father’s importance to the family – and to them.

With a group of high school freshman in a required leadership course, I knew that I had do something that was much more concrete. In history they were studying ancient history so I gave each student a one-page biography of Hannibal and a map of his war routes. After they had read this and I had answered clarifying questions, I asked the class if they considered Hannibal a leader? This approach led to some interesting observations. They agreed about Hannibal’s reputation as a leader, but as one student succinctly pointed out; he was a leader of the Carthaginians but only an enemy-leader to the Romans. Some struggled with whether Hannibal was a leader since he ultimately failed. Was he a leader when he died, how about when he was a baby? They resolved their own questions; leaders did not have to lead every day of their life, and leading did not depend on success, though this position was hotly debated.

Each of these approaches gave me the chance to ask leading questions, especially if the discussion continued for a few days. For the second day I asked students to write down the most important conclusions the class had reached the day before. Comparisons of student reflections re-awakened the discussion (while also helping them practice separating out main ideas) and brought us closer to a few agreed upon basic understandings. On the last day, I also liked to ask students to describe the history of our discussion – in this way I got them to focus on process. I also encouraged complaints. When students explain their complaints, they think more deeply about process. Sometimes they even come up with methods that might work better. It helped me engage with my students about my goals and my methods.

Building on their observations about leadership, I guided the group toward seeing some basic foundational conclusions: leader and leadership have different meanings; leaders exist within a group not in isolation; leaders take action; some leaders defend the status quo, and others lead to make change; we know leaders by what they do; leaders are not always successful, nor are they always good for all; leadership is what the leader does to lead; leaders have an influence over others; and that the leadership requirements for one situation might be very different than the skill set required for another. I pointed out that each student’s comments made a difference for the whole; more often the one who led the discussion and moved it forward was not the designated leader (me) but class members.

So, back to the initial question, Should a school spend much time defining leadership, or even leader? My answer – spend only enough time to simmer the idea, but do so without destroying the individuality of each flavor.

A few years ago I heard a very well regarded professional in the field of leadership education tell a large conference tell us that though he could not define leader purely from a definition, he was sure he would know a leader when he saw one. Leadership is an even more slippery eel; suffice it say that the leadership of any leader is the sum total of her or his actions necessary to cause others to act.

Sometimes the concept of leadership is far too overwhelming for high school students; it is much easier to ask what did the leader do to lead? Then the question yields practical answers. “Leadering” is far more concrete and therefore far easier for the teen’s evolving mind to grasp than the generalized concept of leadership. Despite Plato’s best intents we still live in his cave; bumping into chairs teaches us more about what they are and what they do than contemplating any deep definition to cover all situations.

By eliciting insightful dialog, case studies invite educators to reflect deeply on their own practices, as well as on how they prepare their students eventual adult leadership. This particular case study, derived from an actual situation, explores issues of gender, rites of passage, student development, ethics, rules, perception, reality, mentoring, political pressures, as well as long-term educational lessons.

I invite YOU to participate in the discussion, by adding a response. How should the principal have responded, the principal, even the students? Was Jake a leader? Were there any leadership training opportunities here for adults and/or students?

Furthermore, I invite (even implore) educators to use the Case Study. In return, I would appreciate feedback on the results, including suggestions on how to make the Case Study more usable. It is designed for faculty use, but I would be intrigued with how a group of students or even a mixed group of students and faculty might respond. So much depends on the platform of ones own point-of-view.


Case Study: The Duct Tape Incident

Most of this high school’s seniors ate their lunches in the Senior Lounge on the second floor of Taylor Hall, especially if the weather eliminated the chance to eat outside. One rainy day, two particularly bored seniors, Jake and Elton, sat near the windows that looked onto an internal hallway and spotted a large number of freshmen heading off to the cafeteria. Jake shouted to all the other seniors in the Lounge, “There they are, let’s get them. “

Five senior boys jumped up; one grabbed some duct tape. The remainder of the seniors, six boys and eleven girls stayed where they were, finishing their own lunches. Jake and the five rushed into the hallway and grabbed a handful of freshman boys whom they knew from sports. They dragged the freshmen into the inner sanctum of the Lounge and duct taped them to tables. Most of the other seniors burst out in cheers. A teacher, passing in the hallway, heard the noise, stepped into the Lounge and broke up the proceedings; she then sent the seniors and freshmen to the principal’s office. None of the freshmen seemed angry or resentful; the seniors even seemed shocked that they were in trouble. Only Jane Brown, whose sophomore daughter had been absent that day, called upset by what she’d heard.

Principal’s Response: What should the principal do? Should his approach consider: that four of the six seniors were either student government leaders and/or captains of their teams; that Jake was Student Government President; or that all six had been accepted at highly select universities, which the school only last week had extolled in a we-are-so-great newsletter to the parents and alumni. On the other hand, the school’s stand on harassment was strong; punishment could even include expulsion, depending on the situation. The principal himself was coming up for his own professional evaluation later that month.

Leadership Teacher’s Response: Jake and two of the seniors involved took an elective course in Leadership: Theory and Practice with Mr. Smith where the most recent topic had been one of John Maxwell’s Irrefutable Laws that “A leader’s lasting value is measured by succession.”* Almost all of the high school student leaders, male and female, regularly went to Mr. Smith for advice on leadership how-to issues. Smith saw his mentoring as an outreach way to help students better understand the leadership process and their own talents as prospective adult leaders. Jake told him that he did not think the situation warranted being called to the principal’s office since, “All of the freshmen enjoyed the attention and were laughing through it all. It was just our way of showing them what great guys they are.” How should Mr. Smith respond?

* John C. Maxwell. The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership; Follow Them and People Will Follow You. Thomas Nelson Publishers; Nashville. 1998.

Learning Moral Fiber to face the Game of Life

A recent item in our local newspaper piqued my curiosity, not because it was necessarily interesting in itself, but rather because it seemed on the surface hardly worthy of the amount of space it was given. The article entitled. “Through basketball, they learn the game of life” took up 25 column inches. Pardon me while I yawn, but this seemed like a no-brainer, a “duh” kind of statement. Schools have included sports in their programs for centuries. Even Socrates taught while he walked his students around, thus earning him the sobriquet of the peripatetic philosopher. One has only to see the first movie episode of Harry Potter to know the role that quidditch played in his late elementary years as his character (meaning the character’s character) matured. Here in the game of quidditch, Harry tested out his leadership skills; his peers and we-the-readers began to see the life qualities that would be so necessary for him to solve his own game of life. The importance of games of sport goes well beyond the game itself, even well beyond the health aspects of physical conditioning.

Why then should the editors deem this article worthy of so much attention? Perhaps it was just a bad news day – I doubt it. Perhaps the writer was trying to argue to cash strapped public education that sports programs should not be cut – if so the argument was far too oblique to make that point, especially since most of the teachers volunteered their time.

Surely, the paper deemed the program special enough for such lavish an expenditure of its precious column space. And, for that matter, that the teachers would sacrifice precious in-school preparation time surely had to underline something special, perhaps even unique in what was happening.

According to the writer, “Sometimes learning about basketball has nothing to do with sports and everything to do with character.” The article even claimed, hopefully not too hyperbolically, that the character education aspect of the program was why these youngsters participated, not merely because they liked to play basketball. At its core this activity, developed by Raleigh-based NetWorks Basketball, combined both character and sports educations in a specifically designed curriculum. Its teaching methods focused on helping students learn and practice fundamental character traits such as community pride, perseverance, focus, practice, respect and courage; the program included essay writing, group discussions and direct instruction, and oh yes, learning how to play basketball. Each student was encouraged to buy into the program’s basic mantra,” I am responsible for the student I become. I must work like the student I want to be. I must be willing to change, grow and improve.”

The importance of this article transcended the direct benefits achieved by these few students. The writer, the editors and the participants bought into fundamental values of great importance to the common good, such as:

1- That the acquisition of socially beneficial character traits is extremely important.

2- Helping youngsters learn the “Game of Life” is in the public interest because how well these future adults learn the “game” will influence their own lives, and those with whom they come into contact.

3- The acknowledgement that these qualities are learned traits and can be taught. They are not genetically inherited, nor determined by their parents’ social or economic status. Character is taught! Character is learned!

4- Educators can make a difference through carefully planned character-education programs.

How we play the “game of life,” how we as individuals use the basic values we learn as youngsters, and how we understand how our communities (our team) depends on each of its members, will influence the quality of our lives in the future and the lives of that generation not yet even born. This program was acclaimed important not because it merely produced good people, or good citizens, but rather that it taught some of the specific rules and strategies needed for personal success and ultimately for community enhancement.

I would extend this character formation as a basic foundation for leadership education. Having a moral backbone allows an individual to stand tall; having the will, courage, and skills to then influence others makes for a leader; and having value-based leaders adds to the success of that group’s common enterprise of living.


Citation:
Carla Turchetti. “Through Basketball, They Learn the Game of Life.” Midtown Raleigh News. Sunday, 2/23/11, p. 3M.

Learning Moral Fiber to face the Game of Life

A recent item in our local newspaper piqued my curiosity, not because it was necessarily interesting in itself, but rather because it seemed on the surface hardly worthy of the amount of space it was given. The article entitled. “Through basketball, they learn the game of life” took up 25 column inches. Pardon me while I yawn, but this seemed like a no-brainer, a “duh” kind of statement. Schools have included sports in their programs for centuries. Even Socrates taught while he walked his students around, thus earning him the sobriquet of the peripatetic philosopher. One has only to see the first movie episode of Harry Potter to know the role that quidditch played in his late elementary years as his character (meaning the character’s character) matured. Here in the game of quidditch, Harry tested out his leadership skills; his peers and we-the-readers began to see the life qualities that would be so necessary for him to solve his own game of life. The importance of games of sport goes well beyond the game itself, even well beyond the health aspects of physical conditioning.

Why then should the editors deem this article worthy of so much attention? Perhaps it was just a bad news day – I doubt it. Perhaps the writer was trying to argue to cash strapped public education that sports programs should not be cut – if so the argument was far too oblique to make that point, especially since most of the teachers volunteered their time.

Surely, the paper deemed the program special enough for such lavish an expenditure of its precious column space. And, for that matter, that the teachers would sacrifice precious in-school preparation time surely had to underline something special, perhaps even unique in what was happening.

According to the writer, “Sometimes learning about basketball has nothing to do with sports and everything to do with character.” The article even claimed, hopefully not too hyperbolically, that the character education aspect of the program was why these youngsters participated, not merely because they liked to play basketball. At its core this activity, developed by Raleigh-based NetWorks Basketball, combined both character and sports educations in a specifically designed curriculum. Its teaching methods focused on helping students learn and practice fundamental character traits such as community pride, perseverance, focus, practice, respect and courage; the program included essay writing, group discussions and direct instruction, and oh yes, learning how to play basketball. Each student was encouraged to buy into the program’s basic mantra,” I am responsible for the student I become. I must work like the student I want to be. I must be willing to change, grow and improve.”

The importance of this article transcended the direct benefits achieved by these few students. The writer, the editors and the participants bought into fundamental values of great importance to the common good, such as:

That the acquisition of socially beneficial character traits is extremely important.

Helping youngsters learn the “Game of Life” is in the public interest because how well these future adults learn the “game” will influence their own lives, and those with whom they come into contact.

The acknowledgement that these qualities are learned traits and can be taught. They are not genetically inherited, nor determined by their parents’ social or economic status. Character is taught! Character is learned!

Educators can make a difference through carefully planned character-education programs.

How we play the “game of life,” how we as individuals use the basic values we learn as youngsters, and how we understand how our communities (our team) depends on each of its members, will influence the quality of our lives in the future and the lives of that generation not yet even born. This program was acclaimed important not because it merely produced good people, or good citizens, but rather that it taught some of the specific rules and strategies needed for personal success and ultimately for community enhancement.

I would extend this character formation as a basic foundation for leadership education. Having a moral backbone allows an individual to stand tall; having the will, courage, and skills to then influence others makes for a leader; and having value-based leaders adds to the success of that group’s common enterprise of living.


Citation:
Carla Turchetti. “Through Basketball, They Learn the Game of Life.” Midtown Raleigh News. Sunday, 2/23/11, p. 3M.

Leadership: Building Confidence in Ones Inner Voice

I have just finished reading two novels by the Brazilian author, Paulo Coelho. In the first, he writes that all children hear voices but not all children go on to become adult prophets. Something dampens that talent as youngsters mature. Only those who continue as adults to listen to their inner-most voices have the ability to be prophets in their own time (The Fifth Mountain). In the second book, Coelho develops the theme of voices, clarifying them as “the voice of the world” that instructs each person’s “personal journey.” These wordless voices communicate at some deeper level, on a more emotional or non-verbal plane. Those who follow their inner most personal dreams will find their personal treasure; in fact “the entire world will conspire to help them;” the omens that lead to success are all around us, as is the voice. Failure comes from not heeding ones personal voice and not recognizing the omens along ones personal journey. Bit by bit, Santiago, the main character in The Alchemist, having been taught this deep secret, observes and listens to the world; he succeeds because he seeks out not only the “omens” that cross his path but also the “omens” given to him by great teachers along the way.

Interestingly, none of Coelho’s great mentors were professional teachers, none stood in front of classrooms, and none drew a salary for their teaching. Rather those who taught the teen aged Santiago the lasting lessons lived a public life, easily accessible, especially those closest to own their inner voice, the young.

But, I am a professional teacher, as are many of my friends and relatives. What does this say to me? How can I turn Coelho’s observation into a personal omen? Because we are paid by an institution, we face a resultant conundrum – how do we teach the great and deep truths while being hired to reach the far shallower goals of the state or school curriculum? How do we increase our students’ understanding of integrity, justice, oneness or social responsibility while trying to make sure they know about Hester Prynne and Jay Gatsby? A great rabbi indentified this basic human predicament, "No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other.” [Matthew 6:24] Some teachers do the bare minimum but meet their curricular obligations; they tend also to be the teachers who can’t wait to leave school each afternoon and race out of the parking lot. Still, they too teach by example, and then they wonder why their students do not learn from them – actually, they don’t really wonder, they just blame the students.

Rather than puzzle over a seeming entrapment, we can, like Alexander, cut through the Gordian knot and see the unity of what we do. We can mine great literature for its deeper understandings and more importantly, we can devote ourselves to the young people in our care. In the process, students will meet their curriculum goals while also learning important life lessons. They learn the value of literature, not just its plot, and they learn the value of great teachers who work to connect the inner voices of both teacher and student. Teachers concerned with the inner truth unravel the knot of confrontation that often snags teens, hindering their movement forward. Instead, they splice back the severed lifeline between the two.

We model the concept of oneness, that all knowledge is related. I speak here as an English teacher; those in other subjects face similar challenges; they need to find their answers through their own disciplines. In all cases knowledge is one, the omens are there, and the inner voice of the text is present.

Some teachers excel in this work. Let me tell you about my friend and fellow English teacher, Nate. When I sat in on his classes, I observed that he spoke infrequently and then mostly to ask questions; he saw his task not in terms of giving answers, but in causing his students to mine their own thoughts and observations more deeply. He helped them sift through the rubble of each class’s intellectual explosions for the gems, the “omens,” that would lead them forward in their own journey. Sometimes, through the use of a little interrogative TNT, his classes cascaded with diamond insights freely available for the taking. Whereas many teachers would point out the rough cut stones that they recognized, he most often allowed the students to pick through the ideas, to do their own sifting. Not everyone had to have the same “correct” answer. Unlike its cousin, the Socratic Method where the teacher guides the student to discover the teacher’s “correct” answer by the kinds of questions that are asked, where the teacher controls the outcome, Nate asked open ended questions luring the class even further back into the dark recesses of their intellectual caves. Though their pockets might already seem full, he enticed them to look even deeper, to find even more valuable ore further back, to find those stones that just wanted cutting and polishing to bring out an even rarer brilliance. He provided structure and safety, protecting them against cave-ins; he took time to find about how each minor breathed and how he or she was equipped. A multitude of ideas resulted -- his one guideline was that any response needed to be true to the integrity of the text by citation or by inference. Because he had taken care early in the year to lower the barrier of distrust that students typically have towards a teacher, to show them that he did not play that most dishonest of all pedagogical games tell-me-what-I-am-thinking or otherwise you are wrong. Nate instigated intellectual debate among classmates about what was meant. He then asked his students to bring their ideas into their writing. The exercise was not in the essay, but rather in the assaying of what had been collected. Here the student learned how to weigh and judge the value of his find. Language and thought were brought together, each encouraging the other.

His office was near mine; I’d often pause in my own administrative work to eavesdrop on his conservations. Students would come to him whenever he had a break; they sat with him at lunch and in the afternoon to talk about their writing. It was through their own compositions that he caused them to kick about the intellectual debris scattered after each class in order to pan out nuggets. Though he did help with the editing process, the commas and spellings, his primary thrust was helping students better understand their own ideas and help them see that deeper understanding and better writing went hand in hand. The students discovered new relationships among the characters in the book, far more complex understandings of each character’s motivation, and insights in an understanding of their own world. They wondered aloud about the ethics of the plot, or the long term consequences of decisions. Nate listened. He asked for clarification – or asked how an idea could be better stated, how could this argument be put forth so that the force of the author’s own thinking was the clearest. He brought out of each student not specific answers or the black and yellow Cliff-note interpretations of others, but a new rainbow of insight hidden from these young authors prior to the conference. He whipped up the fever of sudden wealth by sparking their imagination, equipped his prospectors, enabled them with the necessary skills – and then followed them into the field, himself getting richer even as he helped others.

Was Nate a prophet? Did he touch the rock with his staff in order to allow gems to flow forth? Or, did he do what we as teachers are all called upon to do, to educate, to lead forth, to inspire courage even as we clasp our students’ hands to calm their fears. After allowing their eyes to grow accustomed to the darkness, he helped them see the Platonic phantom shadows of the ideal. Then he brought them back into the light not only with a better understanding of their own humanity, but also with an urge to accept the responsibility for their community with others.

Though I never heard Nate use the term leadership nor reference the great authors in the field of leadership studies; I firmly believe that he, like Coelho’s prophets, shaped the ability of each of his students to lead successfully by sharpening their ability to peer beneath the ordinary, to strive to understand the simplicity of complex ideas, and most importantly to continue to feed their own inner flame. He helped his students delight in their own sense of inner voice and their personal discovery of the omens hidden in great books. He built up their confidence to respect their own ideas. He had the confidence to know that what may appear to others, particularly other adults, as naïve and childish utterances; in fact were early steps to deeper and subtler truths that sometimes only the young are capable of seeing because they still have the ability to see visions.

I have heard teachers, in the privacy of faculty rooms, blame students for not learning when actually it was the teacher who failed to recognize and award the early glimmers of real knowledge. They were too busy grading regurgitated formulas. Good teachers are at their best when they enter the classroom also as learners. Some of the insights shared in Nate’s class were ones he had never thought about, or had not seen in the same way. He opened up his own mind to the omens, the ideas that came from his students – and then worked collaboratively with each student to develop these ideas.

Is Nate the exception? Yes, but he need not be. He excelled in part because he worked in a school that valued this style of teaching, one whose primary values included self discover, skills of mind, and generosity of heart. In this school students grew to expect this approach; Nate was not the exception in this particular community of learning. Because students expected this approach, their very expectation powered the school. Student anticipation, student actions and student habits expressed the voice of the school far better than marketing catalogs. Their ingrained expectations, their ability to heed their own inner voice, found its way through the intellectual over load of puberty. They carried their own still small inner voice forward into their adult worlds in order then to be prophets in their own time.

2010 Christmas Letter

We’ve moved! Vivian and I had hoped to get this letter out to all of you earlier, so that your Christmas cards did not have to stop in Maryland first. Sorry – but change your index cards for next year, because we are now firmly ensconced in Raleigh.

Contact info: 5325 Echo Ridge Road, Raleigh, NC 27612
919 420 7636

After maintaining two households, one here and the other in Maryland, Vivian had the unenviable task of figuring out how two sets of furniture, china and pictures could fit into one place. She worked miracles. We have definitely downsized (ha). A few, and I emphasize “few,” things were donated, what we really downsized was the open space between things. Couches rub up next to couches, books are piled up on other books, and pictures hang above pictures. But, we did it; and the overall affect is warm and cozy – ready for you to visit.

Vivian and I hated leaving all our friends at our respective schools in DC. To compensate, we are now on facebook where we have been enjoying the numerous photo albums. Great fun.

After spending much of the summer organizing the 3000+ books in the library, little did Jay know that he would have to draw on his collection so quickly. Shortly after midnight mid-October, we visited the emergency room. There Jay was diagnosed with a perforated appendix. After a ten-inch incision, bags of antibiotics, two weeks in the hospital, and more weeks on a wound pump at home, he finally was declared good to go – go to the gym that is; suddenly he is really eager to work out.

Trish and Joseph visited in the hospital; we are now experts at Go Fish and Old Maid. They even paraded the hospital hall in their Halloween costumes. For the Christmas Pageant at the church in their new home town of Burgaw, NC, Joseph played Joseph and Trish was Mary. Both have become excellent readers, and as modern kids, they are also addicted to play station. Joseph played soccer (goalie) in the fall and looks foreword to another year of T-ball this spring. Trish joined the local troop of Brownies.


The best part of our whole year were two weeks this summer when Joseph and Trish stayed with us while their parents moved their furnishings to their new house. We visited the North Carolina Zoo, sloshed down shoots at a water park, whacked balls at miniature golf, bowled in the high fifties, tried new foods at restaurants and even played trivia. What fun we had – though the best parts of all were playing in our community pool and reading to them in the evening.

All our kids will be here for the Christmas Season. We wish all our friends similar joys with family and friends. The holidays are a reminder that God’s love shines daily helping us remember all that we have, all that we love, and all that we can do to repair the world.
Love to all of you from


Jay and Vivian Dewey and Teddy

BOOK REVIEW: Leaders and the Imagination.

Occasionally books from other fields speak impressively, even if unintentionally, to leadership development. Imagination First: Unlocking the Power of Possibility, opens up a new insight into some of the qualities that precede and strengthen future adult leadership.

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Imagination First: Unlocking the Power of Possibility by Eric Liu and Scott Noppe-Brandon (Jossey-Bass, 2009)
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Adults decide what to do based on analysis, consideration of consequences and long range planning. The portion of the brain, the frontal cortex, begins to develop in late adolescence, often not reaching its full maturity until a person’s early to mid-twenties. However, decisions tend also be too based on the options available and the “gut” sense of how to act. These aspects of decision-making depend on imagining the options and intuiting the best action to take: imagination and intuition. Though neither the table of contents nor the index ever use the word “leadership”, the authors strongly maintain that imaginative thinking is vital in today’s global society, not only in the classrooms, but “in the workforces as well.”

The book grew out of reflections about the work of the Lincoln Center Institute for the Arts in Education LCI), New York City’s educational arm of Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts. Scott Noppe-Brandon served as the LCI director for 14 years, teaching, performing, and administrating. Eric Liu founded the Guiding Lights Network for the practice of mindful and imaginative mentorship. Noppe-Brandon has been very active in developing active Imagination Conversations among leaders from all fields within the United States who “Care about fostering a culture of imagination.” The LCI, founded back in 1975, has rigorously explored how best to train the imagination, at least in those areas that pertain to the performing arts.

The book premises that imagination is an essential cognitive skill that can be taught, and not only can it be taught, but also that it should be taught. LCI “Feel(s) that it is its responsibility to propagate the idea of imagination, creativity and innovation as indispensable tools of survival for all: artists, scientists, entrepreneurs, mathematicians, politicians, or business leaders.” Could it be that a well trained, active imagination is necessary for quality adult leadership?

Much of the work of enriching anyone’s ability to imagine has also to do with removing blocks that have developed and thwart the ability to think in terms of options. LCI, having observed many blocks, the stones that prevent the flow of an active imagination, have developed a number of activities that help dissolve blockage while at the same time improving, restoring, and enhancing, the individual’s or a group’s capacity for imagination. “Individuals, groups, organizations even bureaucracies can learn to routinize imagination.”

The authors attack what they see as a common myth, that one either has imagination or does not. “Imagination can be cultivated……everyone – can raise [his] level of imagination and readiness to apply it.…and…that it’s time for our society to get going on an intentional, dedicated, and systematic effort to up our imagination quotient – the real IQ – at work, at home, in school, at play, and in our community life.” This claim seems remarkably similar to that made by any number of speakers at leadership conferences, that leadership is learned, not genetic.

The text defines imagination as the capacity to conceive of what is not – something that, as far as we know, does not exist; or something that may exist, but we simply cannot perceive. Imagination, creativity and innovation are not interchangeable – they exist as distinct phases of a continuum. “If imagination is the capacity to conceive of what is not, then creativity in turn is imagination applied: doing something, or making something, with that initial conception. But not all acts of creativity are inherently innovative. In our view, innovation comes when an act of creativity has somehow advanced the form….The quality and durability of any creative act depends in great measure on the fertility and force of the imagination that feeds the act.”

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.............................The ICI Continuum...................................

Imagination --> Creativity (Imagination applied) -->Innovation (novel creativity)
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To show that imagination can be cultivating, the authors cited the work of Alex Osborn, Applied Imagination, 1953, who pioneered the practice of “brain storming”. Imagination can be learned given appropriate techniques, which when practiced can develop a habit of mind practiced to imagine, the What if.

Among the sub-capacities that lead to improved imagination, they describe:

Noticing deeply – identifying and articulating layers of detail through continuous interaction with an object of study

Embodying – experiencing a work through your senses and emotions, and physically representing that experience

Questioning – asking: "Why” and “What if?” throughout your explorations.
Identifying patterns – finding relationships among the details you notice, and grouping them into patterns

Making connections – linking the patterns you notice to prior knowledge and experience (both your own and others)

Exhibiting empathy – understanding and respecting the experiences of others
Creating meaning – creating interpretations of what you encounter, and synthesizing them with the perspectives of others

Taking action – acting on the synthesis through a project or an action that expresses your learning

Reflecting and assessing – looking back on your action to identify what challenges remain in order to imagine future possibilities

The book is short, a mere 208 pages, only the first 39 pages are given to apologia, the stating of the need and importance for cultivating imagination. Succeeding pages describe a wide range of training techniques, developed at the Lincoln Center Institute, to broaden imagination. Included, also, is a thoughtful and fairly extensive bibliography.

The Imagination Capacities listed here bear some strikingly similar parallels to the Leadership Capacities espoused by Kouzes and Posner in Leadership, the Challenge (2003). At least three of Kouzes and Posner's "leadership capacities" seem to depend on strongly on the ability to take initiative and to imagine possibilities: "Challenge the Process", "Encourage the Heart", and "Model the Way". Even "Inspire a Shared Vision" and "Enable Others to Act" require the ability to imagine a variety of ways to accomplish these ends. The two sets of capacities align in so many ways. An underlying assumption by Kouzes and Posner is that we know [leaders] when we see them – meaning that leaders are identifiable by their actions. K&P accept initiative as a given without exploring why some individuals are prone to action while others remain far more passive. L&N-P defines action as creativity, a step that happens only after imagining what might be.

Not confined to individuals, imagination can be collective. Groups of people can have or be inspired to have a shared sense of what is not, what could be.

The exercises suggested in Imagination go way beyond the typical theater tricks drama teachers use in their classes, or what other artist-teachers use to loosen up fretful students: no color wheels, no leap frog exercises, and no voice projection practices. Mix Your Metaphors, for example, swaps out typical metaphorical descriptions for the unusual in order to allow participants to explore new visions of their group. “When a family is understood in terms of cycles that can’t be broken, people behave accordingly. But how would they behave if the family were a garden?”

Some of the exercises break conventional rules. In the exercise Fail Well – Treat Failure Like a Skill readers are encouraged to embrace failure. “We forget what children know intuitively, which is that there’s a useful way to fail and a wasteful way. The wasteful way to fail is to deny it or hide it….The useful way is to treat failing like a learnable skill – something that, with effort and reflection, we can get better at until one day we can reach the point of mastery. If at first you don’t fail, try, try again.”

Leaders need to imagine outcomes. Adults who can imagine the what could be begin the process of creating a vision; they are well on the way to being able to share that vision with others, a necessary capacity according to Kouzes and Posner. History suggests that a group’s destiny depends in great part on the actions of its leaders. Common sense would suggest that being able to imagine answers would provide leaders with a much greater range of choice. Potential leaders practiced in imagining potential approaches would seem more likely to step forward when needed to more readily accept the challenge of leadership. Adding imagination training to leadership education seems to make good common sense. The High School years, which bridge the growth phase between intuitive thinking and rational/reflective cognition, need to concentrate on developing an active imagination.

Coloring outside the lines may have no connection to being a leader, however imagining that you have either option, despite what the teacher says, allows a student to learn how to dare to be different. Perhaps the daring is the greater strength, but imagining what could be dared, what could be different, predates the act. Leadership is an act of creativity and depends on an active imagination.

That enhancing the ability to imagine outcomes makes good sense, accepting all these exercises as appropriate to leadership preparation for high school students does not. These exercises however help begin the dialog of the need to include imagination training in high school preparation classes.