I flagged up a while back an account of Ross Brawn's leadership. I think I'm going to add John Fetterman, "The coolest mayor in America" as case study 2 on leadership. There's some awesome stuff in his story about leadership related to the person not the role; it's also a great insight into passion, commitment and vision.
As regular reader(s) of the blog will know, leadership theory and practice is something that both interests and motivates me. I'm therefore always looking around for good practice examples or stories of, what great leadership looks like in different fields.
The Guardian on Saturday had a really interesting piece on Ross Brawn. It's well worth a read as he demonstrates many of the traits, values and skills that are talked about in servant leadership. I'm making a note of this article for my own benefit, but it's here if it's useful.
"But the challenge of turning around the Honda team proved difficult to resist. "When Ross arrived, some of us feared the worst," a team insider says. "We thought he would throw out half the workforce and bring in Ferrari people, but he did nothing of the sort. He left everything as it was and sized up everyone's strengths and weaknesses, bringing out the best in everyone"
I've converted the session on change into a powerpoint that I hope will be a brief but useful guide to the Bridges model. I think there is an enormous amount to be learned from this .... particularly in the area of marking an ending. You'll find the presentation here.
I also want to flag up (again) "Our Iceberg is melting" which I've also found really useful thinking about change and the process of change-management.
As promised I am uploading some of the material from DEPTH 2. One of the leadership snapshots was on the area of "Conflict!" This powerpoint is the material we used.
The presentation has three sections:
1. Reflecting on our own reactions and actions in response to conflict
2. A Contrast betwwen the two polar extremes of handling conflict, juxtaposing an intent to protect with the ideal, intent to learn. (Sadly I cannot find the source for this piece of work, if anyone knows I should like to be able to credit them and read more of their material).
3. An eight step process for handling conflict ......... for applied reflection rather than being THE answer.
I would be grateful if you could let me have the best definition of leadership you have encountered!
Thanks
I noted this line from President Obama's speech:
"We reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals"
I liked this re-aligning reminder that leadership must come from values, not just a variable pragmatism.
I am fascinated by the art of leadership, particularly the notion of servant leadership (as opposed to wielding power). Leadership learning, training and practice is at the heart of what the department I reside in, does and enables. It's a vibrant place to work ... and in which to be stretched and challenged.
One of the challenges though is that you can't just teach a 'how to do leadership,'course,
it's a learning process becoming more aware of both self and others, growing as a person (leading from values), encountering and reflecting on different and diverse tools and techniques. It's a learning and an unlearning, a discovering what you don't know that you don't know, seeing where your own strengths and weaknesses are, while gaining a greater understanding of others. Gaining skills from a huge body of theories and techniques.
OK, I'm waffling a bit but I'm trying to make sense of what follows.
I've just been listening to Bill Hybels talking about 'The life cycle of a leader' in which he brilliantly illustrates the beginning of the leadership journey. He makes the point that (and this is true for me, and I suspect other Youth Ministers) we often start out in leadership when we are reasonably young, and at that stage we basically have passion and enthusiasm, but little in the way of leadership skills. We lead chaotically and assume others will want to follow, we have little awareness of the impact on others, we have a very fledgling idea of team.
He also makes the point that we can do this for a while, people will follow enthusiasm and passion. But we can't do this forever, people get fed up of it, it leaves casualties in it's wake and it doesn't produce lasting change.
I loved this as it it was such a helpful way of celebrating the steps into leadership as well as being a warning that we need to learn and to grow (and continue to do so)
This really reflects my experience where I was that firebrand UNTIL I attended some training that was around 'team roles'. My team accomplished the task EXTREMELY well but in the process I completely alienated and demoralized the team and they fed this back in the de-brief with some gusto. I was crushed BUT it opened up a huge amount of learning having realised how much I didn't know i didn't know!
Funny now, but a huge OUCH at the time.
An ouch I will be forever grateful for though.
Most of this post was me exploring some stuff in my head. I'm doing a lot of thinking and preparing for the DEPTH 2 retreat and I'm guessing that leadership will be a recurring theme on the blog for a few weeks. I'm really excited about this though as I think youth worker/ministers have to lead on such a variety of fronts:
1. Leading young people and at the same time enabling chance for them to lead
2. Leading a team of volunteers
3. Being part of the leadership team of the Church
4. Leading change
Any leadership STUFF, ideas, themes, reflections etc that you would like to lob into the comments would be fab, or e-mail me.
