Greetings Readers,
Winter Break is upon us so I will be afk for most of the season. If you have suggestions for articles, please feel free to email me posts at mccoyw@hsc.edu. OR, if you would like to submit an article of your own, email it to me at the same address. I hope everyone has a great break away from this horrid place!
--Your Editor.
Will you please post this so your viewers may see it.
ReplyDeleteNY Times – Leading Thoughts
Being The Most Popular Kid in the Class Doesn’t Work Forever…
Dr. Christopher B. Howard
President, Hampden-Sydney College
I can recall vividly the seventh grade student council competition. My social studies teacher dutifully scanned the classroom
for volunteers exalting at least one of us to run for office. Never shy to voice my opinion, it was not too difficult for me to
accept her charge. “Howie for Student Council” posters joined similarly decorated signs for candidates vying for a coveted
position as a representative of the people. More importantly, time drew nearer and nearer to when each candidate was
expected to give their campaign speech to students waiting anxiously with open ears and closed minds.
After the fifth candidate finished it was my turn to speak, I was passionate, energetic and interested in helping my fellow
students; however my talk was not terribly remarkable. But regardless of my oratory skills, I had something every kid
needed to win an election: popularity. Like most other young people that age, I equated popularity with leadership. Not
much changed during my successful runs for office through high school and even college but I eventually arrived at positions
in the military, Corporate America, non-profits and higher education where by definition, making unpopular decisions
represented effective leadership. The desire to be popular had somehow become a liability.
As the president of Hampden-Sydney College, I am impressed each day by young people who figuratively and literally want
to change the world. Through their work with clubs, organizations and even their very own 501(c)(3) corporations housed
both on and off campus, these young men work diligently for a greater good, leading as best they know how. They support
popular causes and not too unlike my seventh grade student council campaign, they remain generally well-liked by all they
encounter. But I think it is important to caution this, at times overly-confident generation, as well as the reader, that
leadership is not a popularity contest. Moreover, those of us who teach and develop future leaders must educate these apt
pupils on what is just around the corner in their often peripatetic lives.
Professor Ronald Heifetz of the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University often talks about leadership
being a dangerous place. It is even more so for young people if they transition to roles unprepared mentally, emotionally,
spiritually and even physically for the daunting tasks at hand. As old-fashioned as it may sound, we need to provide
opportunities for emerging leaders to develop toughness or as Dr. Angela Duckworth from the University of Pennsylvania
calls GRIT, if they are to survive and thrive in the 21st century. I am not arguing for a Dickensonian, grey world consisting
of ritualistic slaps on the wrist just because. However, I am reminding scholars and practitioners of leadership education
alike to recall that no matter how elegant an idea may be it often takes an individual with the courage to endure some degree
of deprivation seeing it through to the end. Perhaps the best way of achieving this goal is by intentionally linking character
education to leadership development with the appropriate crucible experiences incorporated along the way. Good
examples include individuals like Bob McDonald, CEO of Proctor & Gamble, and Colonel Mark Hyatt, Executive Director
of the Foundation for Character Development, who sponsor important initiatives that assist with positive character
formation. The military calls it the “loneliness of command” while others, describing the quintessential leadership role, the
American Presidency, describe it as “the glorious burden.” Whichever title one chooses, leadership is not a seventh grade
student council election. We must keep this precept in mind when developing the next generation of leaders.