Leadership Notes

Time to lead, time to teach

By Tom Kirch, Oregon State University, NIRSA President

As I am writing these Leadership Notes I am preparing to attend two NIRSA events: the Region III Student Lead On, and the Emerging Recreational Sports Leaders Conference. I am very much looking forward to these meetings because they both focus on the development of future leaders. I have a particular interest in this area because from my perspective, there is a lack of intentional development and nurturing of leaders. We have become so focused on the delivery of programs and services, we sometimes miss the mark on what should be important to us all - identifying, nurturing, and supporting the development of leaders in our organizations, in the higher education setting, and certainly within the context of our association.

It has been my observation that the growing needs of our society, in the workplace, and as part of the community require inspirational, passionate, and brave leadership more than ever before. So why is this so difficult for us?

Isolation is one barrier to courageous action. Time is a second one. In most countries, time is evaporating. Technology has played a large role in this, speeding up human interactions to the speed of light, even though we can't, as living beings, work any faster than the speed of life. In highly technological societies, leisure time and private life are fast eroding by the ever-invading demands of cell phones, e-mail, and the assumption that workers should be available 24/7. We become isolated from real interaction. The very complexity and multiplicity of problems that confront leaders is destroying their time to deal well with any one issue.

Under the relentless pressure of time vanishing, we are losing many essential capacities of being human: the time to think and reflect; the time to be in relationships; the time to develop trust and commitment -- all qualities of effective leaders. In essence, we are forfeiting our unique human qualities in exchange for speed.

So, what to do?

Noel Tichy, author of The Leadership Engine, says "all people have untapped leadership potential, just as all people have untapped athletic potential. With coaching and practice, we can all get much better at it." He argues that the most successful organizations are those that have good leaders who nurture the development of other leaders at all levels. Therefore, the ultimate test for a leader is not whether he or she can make smart decisions and take decisive action, but whether he or she can teach others to be leaders and build an organization that remains successful even when he or she is not present.

So the measures of successful organizations are ones whose leaders invest time and energy to develop lots of leaders. The best example of that for me is Michael Jordan. Phil Jackson shares this story in his book Sacred Hoops. He talks about his work with Jordan. With such a gifted athlete, no coach could do much to improve his basketball skills. So Jackson focused his efforts with Jordan on making the superstar a true leader of the team. And it worked. In 1989, five years after joining the league and the same year that Jackson became head coach of the Bulls, Jordan began to see his role not just to score and play defense, but as a leader whose job it was to help raise the level of play of every other player on the team. It is this contribution, Jordan's ability to help his teammates be better players, that made the Chicago Bulls the team of the decade and perhaps one of the best basketball teams of all time.

Teaching others to be leaders requires that a leader have two things. One is a serious commitment to teaching, which means that they make it a top priority in everything they do. Sometimes the teaching takes place in formal settings, like workshops or training sessions; but in fact they are always teaching, even when they appear to be doing something else. Leaders treat every face-to-face encounter as a teaching and learning opportunity.

Having a teachable point of view is the second requirement that allows leaders to be effective teachers. Great leaders are great teachers because they not only know how to do many things, but they also organize their thoughts so that they can help others learn to do them. Leadership is more about thinking, judging, acting, and motivating than about strategies, methodologies and tools. Therefore good leaders develop teachable points of view that help others learn to think, judge, act, and motivate.

So as I prepare for attending these upcoming NIRSA events, I am curious to see where the future leaders emerge. What will I observe in these settings, in the interactions, in the conversations, and in the relationships? The methods are not what are important, but rather the efforts to bring out what is in all of us -- the potential to lead.

As business and leadership author Warren Bennis states, "the basis of leadership is the capacity of a leader to change the mindset, the framework of another person."

How are we doing?

Take care, TK