What role does meaning have in leadership? Why are the people who we chose to lead us the way they are? These are questions worth asking.
I believe that it is possible to train people up to a certain level in leadership where they will be very capable, thorough, look after their staff, get all their budgets in on time, maintain very good reporting channels and attend to the detail that all competent leadership requires.
However I sometimes wonder if it is possible to train the kind of personality that finds meaning in leadership, and, as we say nowadays, wants to push the envelope (I love that expression for some reason [1]), and:
1. Break new ground and make what most people say is impossible – possible.
2. Exceed expectations – particularly his own.
3. See opportunities where others see obstacles, and then turn those obstacles into advantages.
4. Have vision, conviction, passion and want to move mountains, metaphorically of course.
All the above are applicable in many areas of work but for the Community Leader in an organisation that supports families and/or protects children in our Focus Group a further challenge is added:
5. Is willing to share power, and maintain connection with the people who matter most – while translating aspirations into actions.
Such qualities can always be enabled or facilitated. But I wonder can someone be trained to be like that? Perhaps the personality that likes to take a risk, and make all the above happen is innate!
Does our education system encourage children to take a risk, or, put themselves out there?
Universal mainstream education, available from about age 4 to 17-18 (or to early-twenties if we go straight to college) is a very powerful influence on virtually all of us – and it can indeed be a suitable environment for the fostering of leadership.
And educational institutions, particularly third level colleges, in addition to their academic role, see themselves as having a role in the training of leaders. I often read it in their literature and I have heard it at graduation ceremonies that I have been to. (Yes, I was listening).
The points system (which I critiqued in a previous Chapter) and subsequent exams in third level colleges train children and (mostly) young adults to be excellent in regurgitating. One might say that they can reach a high level of excellence in regurgitating, or indeed become leaders in regurgitation!
And I hope that this doesn’t sound too cynical but I have no doubt that skills learned in regurgitating topped up by clever tricks in keeping examiners happy have the potential to take someone very far in a career and probably to the top of a profession.
Many of the people (though not all ) who have leadership positions in the Pillars have graduated from third level colleges.
The challenge for educational institutions, if they wish to produce leaders, is to focus on creativity and innovation, and model the qualities that they wish for in graduates. Some leaders in education do this really well, and some do not.
The proof of the pudding is always in the eating, and when we look around at the institutions of our State, i.e. those institutions that form the Pillars, do we see a critical mass of good enough leadership?
[1]. Surely an envelope is so light an object that it is very easy to push. But the expression comes from the Space Race where, I understand, the envelope is the boundary of outer space.