It is the Spring Semester, which means secondary schools all over the country are holding, or about to hold Student Council elections. Just this week, I sat in on candidate interviews where I observed potential leaders casting vision and laying out plans. What I saw in the interviews offered hope and excitement, but also frustration and disappointment. I love leadership, and I have a strong desire to help grow leaders among our next generation, and while I see the seeds of it, I also see that we as educators want leaders, but we seem to struggle with how to identify and mature them.
While I have only worked in the school system for just under three years, I have worked with teens and college students for over fourteen years- including about a decade in the ministry. I was always looking for students with key leadership characteristics and ways to fine-tune those skills. As a minister, I loved to share this verse with students- and the adults who took those student's leadership for granted:
"And don’t let anyone put you down because you’re young. Teach believers with your life: by word, by demeanor, by love, by faith, by integrity." (1 Timothy 4:12 The Message)
I constantly challenged my students in youth ministry to set the bar for the adults. So, why then, as a teacher, do I not issue that same challenge to my students in the school setting?
Regardless of your religious or spiritual background, this is sound advice. I believe it is completely applicable to our students in Student Council, Athletics, FFA, Theater, classes in general or any gathering where students are expected to lead. So, I want to take just a few minutes to expound upon how to cultivate leadership by drawing out the qualities of leader in word, demeanor, love, faith, and integrity.
Word
Full disclosure- I am a speech and debate coach. I value the spoken and written word as a powerful cornerstone of leadership. So, whether the Apostle Paul- who wrote 1 Timothy- put "word" first because he valued it as I do or because he liked the flow better, I think it is most important.
Most of of us hear talk of leaders and words (which is translated as "speech" in other translations) and we think that all leaders must be great orators. This is simply not true. But all great leaders must be great communicators. They must be able to convey their plan, their intent, their message, or their expectations clearly through the use of words. Written, acted, or spoken. Throughout my life I have known and in some cases worked under leaders who held a position of power but were in fact terrible at communication. In some cases they simply did not express clearly their position, in other cases they did not express anything at all. So for me, a leader who does not clearly articulate their vision is a poor leader.
As teachers, we must communicate. We must model good communication, and we must allow students opportunities to communicate. Yes, papers are a manner in which students communicate, but we cannot rely on that solely. In my classes, discussion is prized. Verbal communication is how I get my students to process the content- I want to hear them express it in their own words, on the fly. I want my students to engage in debate, to disagree vehemently in an environment where I can coach and guide the arguments to a constructive end. I want students to have to speak extemporaneously and with prepared speeches before their peers. This allows students to develop those necessary communication skills. I want my students to work in group projects because the back and forth there will develop leadership skills in all participants. Over all this, as teachers, we must model leadership by word. In our written correspondence and in our spoken word, we must demonstrate for students clarity of thought, eloquence of diction, and imagery of the story or lesson we are trying to convey.
Not every great leader was a great speaker, but every great leader MUST know how to communicate their vision.
Demeanor
Your demeanor, or attitude, determines your effectiveness as a leader. It is no secret that a teacher's attitude can set the environment for a classroom. A teacher who is angry, or tired, or burned out will struggle to lead their class. In the same way, a teacher whose attitude is one of "You do it because I am the teacher and I said so," will not inspire leaders- or much learning. Teachers must model an attitude of expectancy and humility. Students will grasp that their educators believe something will be learned in that lesson, but also that teachers are not infallible. Some translations call this characteristic of leadership "life." Teachers can inspire leadership from students in their classes by sharing their lives. Teachers who share their interests outside the classroom are able to build relationships with their students because their students see them as humans. And teachers who are willing to share their interests intentionally or accidentally inspire students to share their lives with others as well.
If we want our students to become leaders, we must encourage them to attitudes of openness. We follow people we can relate to and connect with. We feel this way because their demeanor is welcoming and open. As teachers we strive to demonstrate this attitude with students- now we must encourage our young leaders to emulate this demeanor with their peers.
Love
It is often the most difficult leadership quality to display and instill, but love is perhaps the most important. (Yes, even more than communication, says the Speech coach grudgingly.) "They don't care how much you know until they know how much you care." Cliche? Yes. But it is true. Students spot a phony as quickly as voters spot a disingenuous politician. And it is easy to love the top student, or the super sweet student. But to love the student who spurns your every effort at support? To love the student who will not stop disrupting? To love the student who is a bully?
It is NECESSARY that we love these students. To work toward it. Because great leaders demonstrate love. Love for country, for deity, for subject matter, for others. We must teach students that loving the unlovable is what makes leaders great. But we must also show that "love" does not always mean "like." I will strive to always love my students, even when I may not like their attitude or behavior. In fact, it is my love for the student that inspires such great dislike for their attitude or behavior- because want so much better for them. It is this kind of love that great leaders like the ones we teachers hope to make demonstrate.
Faith
There are all kinds of faith. Faith in religion, science, humankind, the natural order, et cetera. Great leaders have faith in something. As educators, we should strive to point our students towards having faith in something- themselves, their subject of interest, their future, their God, a cause, or simply something greater than themselves.
Leaders believe in something. They believe in it so strongly, that they convince others. But somewhere along the way, those leaders were believed in. Perhaps that is what we need to do most in teaching our students faith- to put our faith in them. I try to regularly remind my students I have faith they can do it. I look anxiously for those moments when I need to tell a student I believe in them. And occasionally I give the necessary push to one student to tell another student that they believe in them. Faith is powerful. It reminds us what we are capable of, and we can use it to remind others what they are capable of.
Integrity
It is sad that we live in a time when leaders are always seen in a lapse of character. It seems we have accepted that it is just bound to happen that a leader is going to get caught in some scandal or in some lie at some point. This is why it is all the more important that we model and teach character and integrity to our students. We as teachers CANNOT take the shortcut. While we must model mercy, we must also demonstrate justice. And when we do make mistakes, it is incumbent upon us to be honest and accept and admit our error. Students see how we act, and they know when we are different that what we say we are. "Character is who you are when no one is looking." Another cliche- but another truth.
We cannot expect integrity in our students until we demonstrate it for them. We cannot violate extra-curricular practice time limits and justify it with "Everyone does it." We cannot bend the facts in a lesson to make it easier to teach and say "Its just a white lie, they won't know any better." We must not be afraid to stand on our principles even when we know that students do not agree- they may disagree, but they will eventually respect that we had integrity.
Students will inevitably have to learn the hard lesson that a failure in integrity will always be discovered...eventually. When a student falters, they will need to learn to accept that they messed up, own that they messed up, and work to see that it does not happen again as they deal with the consequences. And consequences are vital- they must be applied. There are times for grace and mercy, but there are also times for justice.
Do Not Look Down On Them
I have always hated the phrase "The children are our future." It does our youth a terrible disservice. They are capable of being leaders NOW. They are capable of affecting great change NOW. Let us speak with (words) our students as adults, with all the expectations and responsibilities that come with that. Let us express and expect attitudes of maturity and humility (demeanor) from ourselves and our students. Let us care for (love) even the most hard to understand and appreciate, for they are the ones who need it the most. Let us believe in (faith) our students hopes and dreams- and the students themselves. And let us model and expect character (integrity) from ourselves and our students.
And perhaps most important of all, let us not look down on them because they are young, but let us look to find in them examples to inspire us to be better teachers and leaders.
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