Needed: A New Kind of Leadership

In a recent article regarding school achievement McKinsey and Company wrote: “The extent to which a society utilizes its human potential is among the chief determinants of its prosperity.” (April 2009) The article points out that school achievement gaps that exist between the U.S. and the rest of the world and within our own schools, students of color and white students costs us as a nation between 9 and 16 percent of our Gross Domestic Product. Individually, shortfalls in academic achievement result often in lower earnings, poorer health and higher rates of incarceration. In addition, the study points out that there is more of a variance between classrooms than there are between schools or between districts or states.
Graduation rates have been in the news lately as we try to decipher the real number here in Oklahoma. No matter, as a state that ranks in poorer health, with one of the worst incarceration rates and lower worker earnings than many other states, our prosperity has been tied to our ability to utilize our human potential. Sadly for Oklahomans, race, gender and economic status all have played a part in the avenues open to participation and utilization, but it does not have to be our destiny.
Hierarchical leadership and fragmented, narrow thinking is often at the root of our inability to effectively help our young people. America’s Promise points out that most kids don’t get the basics: a caring adult, safe places to live, healthy starts, education for marketable skills and an opportunity to give back. Instead, leadership is often fragmented and silo-ed, says the Forum for Youth Investment. Often educators focus on book/classroom learning, youth serving agencies focus on out of school time and parents just try to keep up with all of the competing activities.
Daniel Goleman, in his groundbreaking book, Emotional Intelligence, pointed out that leadership is best done not from a hierarchical perspective, but from a relationship building approach. Leadership based upon linkages is exactly what the Forum for Youth Investment advocates. Interestingly, last year’s study on leadership and young people by the Girl Scouts of the USA pointed out that young women see leadership from this very perspective, while young men see leadership from the top down approach. Young women expect that as a leader, they will be responsible for connecting others together. This shift in seeing a challenge from its relationships instead of its disconnections is exactly what is needed.
Experiential learning, cooperative education, service learning and self determination are components of education that many argue are missing from our educational system. These “soft skills” are necessary for success in and out of the classroom. This model, which the Girl Scouts calls its theory of change, has been a part of Girl Scouting from its inception more than 97 years.