influencing up, down, and sideways. leaders have all the answers. “as a leader you can’t...
TRANSCRIPT
LEADING FROM THE MIDDLEInfluencing Up, Down, and Sideways
MYTHS ABOUT LEADERSHIP(from Meg Wheatley)
Leaders have all the answers.
“As a leader you can’t possibly know enough, or be in enough places, to understand everything happening inside – and more importantly outside – your organization.
–Rosabeth Moss Kanter, Leader to Leader Institute
MYTHS ABOUT LEADERSHIP(from Meg Wheatley)
Speed = productivity
MYTHS ABOUT LEADERSHIP(from Meg Wheatley)
Action = progress
MYTHS ABOUT LEADERSHIP(from Meg Wheatley)
Numbers describe reality evidence-based decision making?
OR
decision-based evidence making?
LEADING FROM THE MIDDLE A different way of thinking about collaborative
leadership Leading as a peer, not a superior Requires persuasion, technical competence,
relationship skills, and political smarts to get and keep a group together and produce the desired outcome
Influencing others to accomplish things that none of them could accomplish – at all or as well - individually.
THREE UNDERSTANDINGS THAT ARE INTEGRAL TO LEADING FROM THE MIDDLE
Leadership is relationship
Leadership is everyone’s business
Leadership development is self-development
(Modified from Kouzes & Posner, 2003, p. 47)
UNDERSTANDING 1: LEADERSHIP IS RELATIONSHIP
It’s not about position or fame or fortune. It’s about working and learning with people whose experience, education, gender, and professional affiliation all differ.
In our work with young children and families, effective leaders can touch each and every life through relationships. By enhancing colleague-colleague, supervisor-practitioner relationships, practitioner-family relationships will be enhanced. These relationships, in turn, strengthen family-child relationships.
WHEN YOU LEAD FROM THE MIDDLE, YOU
Ask “what’s possible?” instead of “what’s wrong?”
Then ask“who cares?”
UNDERSTANDING 2: LEADERSHIP IS EVERYONE’S BUSINESS
Leadership is collaborative.
You don’t have to be in a position of power or prestige to be an effective leader or change agent. Anyone can make a difference.
COLLABORATION
TOGETHER, WE REALLY ARE BETTER
Research underscores that “cooperative learning promotes higher individual achievement than do competitive approaches or individualistic ones.”
(Johnson, Johnson, & Smith, 1998, p. 31)
WHEN YOU LEAD FROM THE MIDDLE, YOU
See diversity as an asset, not a problemNobody can see a problem from all perspectivesAsk: Who else’s perspective would help
us to understand this issue?Remember: People support what they
create, so engage others in the final result
UNDERSTANDING 3: LEADERSHIPDEVELOPMENT IS SELF-DEVELOPMENT
A leader’s primary instrument is him or herself.
To develop others, we have to develop ourselves.
LEAD FROM THE MIDDLE BY HONINGTHE TOOLS OF INFLUENCE
•Demonstrate•Ask•Share•Clarify•Challenge
TO LEAD FROM THE MIDDLE, YOU NEED TO
Choose your attitude Be present Remember why we do our
work