Professional Development

Date: February 20, 2009
Time: 9:13:35 AM PST (CA)
Topic: Carolyn Crippen - Servant Leadership - February 20, 2009 9:14 AM

Dr. Carolyn Crippen - UVic

The Instituational Leadership Shift

• Leadership is conntected to competence for needed tasks rather than formal position; and independence and isolation are out.

Paradigm Shift

From	To
Leaders are born, not made Good management makes successful organizations Avoid failure at all costs Hierarcical, patriarchal Exclusive Coercive	Developing leaders Building educational culture Growth through dissonance * - Kids and adults have to learn how to do this in a constructive way, so that there is shared learning Shared decision-making Inclusive Persuasive, collegial - In education, it’s hard to find the time to do this part of the shift well

One Responsive Approach: A philosophy

• Servant-Leadership
• Robert K. Greenleaf (1904-1990)
• The Servant as Leader, 1970
• Leadership-service combination
• Stewardship
• Through one’s service a person wll be recognized as a leader
• This includes anyone (followers/leaders)
• First to serve, then to lead.
• Over your life, there is a continuum from following to leading. At different times in your life, you move along the continuum. Sometimes you’re closer to leading, sometimes you’re closer to following. If you’re not moving back and forth along the continuum, you’re ‘status quo’ and in trouble.
• First to serve, then to lead

Power and Relationships

• No one should feel powerless in any organization
• Share power: Not power over, but power to
• Primus inter pares - means first among equals
• We are all valuable, capable, and responsible
• Create a culture of civility and care

A servant-leaders is

... servant first. It begins with the natural feeling that one wants to serve. Then conscious choice brings one to aspire to lead. The difference manifests itself in the care taken by the servant: first, to make sure other people’s highest priority needs are being served. The best test is: do those served grow as persons: do they while being served, become healthier, wiser, freer, more autonomous, more likely themselves to become servants?...

And more about power

• As a teacher you have power
• How you use this power is critical
• You never know when you touch or when you crush a student
• Servant-leadership is about the positive use of power to help others grow
• It is your moral responsibility

10 Characteristics (Spears, 2003)

1. Listening
2. Empathy
3. Healing
4. Awareness
5. Persuasion
6. Conceptualization
7. Foresight
8. Stewardship
9. Commitment to growth of others
10. Building Community

2 Significant Implications

• Leadership without service is less substantial, more ego-driven and selfish instead of being community centered, altrusitc and empathetic
• Leadership involves teaching and mentoring, as one of the major requirements of leaders: They must invite others toward service (Purkey & Siegel, 2002, p. 191)

Ponderings

• Where am I now?
• Why did I decide to work here?
• What can I contribute?
• When am I a leader? A follower? (being either is good)
• At the end fo the day, have I made it better?
• Have I contributed to the moral imperative?

Greenleaf speaks directly to us

Many teachers have sufficient latitude in dealing wth students that they could, on their own, help nurture the servant leader potential, which I believe, is latend to some degree in almost every young person. could not many respected techers speak those few words that might change the course of life, or give it new purpose? (1977, p.5)

Here’s a link to the voice file I created during the taking of these notes: