There is, in fact, no teaching without learning.
Paulo Freire
How does being led by their people contribute to the success of great leaders?
Teachers Are Learners
It took years before I was a confident enough teacher to shove aside my best-laid plans in favor of meeting the emerging and changing needs of students. I had begun to wonder what good it was to force a lesson on students that they were not ready to hear and grasp.
Too much of teaching leans heavily on fully covering the content of the subject matter while ignoring whether the students understand it sufficiently to proceed. When I was a university dean I had many a discussion with faculty members who steadfastly believed plowing ahead through the subject was more important than assuring that students thoroughly learned the material.
Faculty, particularly in textbook-heavy courses, sometimes expressed concern that they needed to move onto the next chapter of their textbook even though their students were still not grasping the material in the current chapter. The textbooks were often cumulative — each chapter building on the previous chapter — so without understanding, say, chapter three, how could the students learn chapter four and so forth?
Whenever I suggested that the professor may want to linger a bit longer than intended over that pesky chapter three, the response often was, “but then we won’t be able to cover the whole textbook.” My challenge to them was to consider sacrificing finishing the book in order to assure their students understood most of the material. In other words, to learn from the students what they needed and what drove them rather than imposing something on them.
I rarely won this argument though. After all, there is no easy or perfect solution to the dilemma, and the faculty had the academic freedom to teach as they saw fit. Nonetheless, I regularly took on the topic because I wanted the faculty to question the arbitrary decisions of a textbook publisher and instead learn from and be led by the students if only in this small way.
“Wow,” you may be thinking, “you mean that to be a good teacher, you just have to do what your students want?”
That is not it at all, That is not what I meant, at all.
Another way of thinking about it is to draw a distinction between covering material — with its emphasis on imparting knowledge — and uncovering material — with its emphasis on discovery leading to understanding. Like all such dichotomies, the distinction is a bit overstated, but it is still quite apt. In addition, the similarity to the choices leaders have to make is striking.
As I have long argued, teaching and leading use much the same skills to achieve similar results. Simply put, teachers are leaders and leaders are teachers. Moreover, since, as education philosopher Paulo Freire has observed, you need to be a learner to be a teacher, it makes sense that leaders are also learners.
Leaders Are Learners
But did you know that leaders are also followers?
I don’t mean one leader following another, which of course happens. Nor do I mean a leader who leads from behind the way a sheepdog guides sheep. That is a powerful method of leading — gently pushing rather than pulling — but it is not what I am referring to here. Great leaders are, in fact, directly led by their own followers.
“Wow,” you may be thinking, “you mean that to be a great leader you just have to do what your followers want.”
Well, uh, again no. That formulation does not describe a leader. It describes a U.S. senator.
Like a great teacher, a great leader is not led by their followers’ agenda but allows and encourages their followers to lead them to a better understanding of their followers themselves, what drives them, what concerns them, what inspires them, etc. In other words, their needs and motivations. The leader subsequently can use that understanding to urge them toward an agenda that will fulfill their organization’s mission.
A great leader also encourages their followers to guide them to new knowledge, alternate perspectives, and innovative ideas. In short, a leader learns from their followers and is therefore led. That is just one reason why an abundance of diversity of all sorts (identity, experience, perspective, etc.) is so important to organizations since, when let loose, diversity can spark creativity. A smart leader readily taps into and learns from such diversity to assure continued and longterm success.
To sum this all up, leading, like teaching, is all about two-way communication — listening first and then expressing. Leaders must have the humility to really hear their followers and act on what they learn. Great leaders don’t just use communication as a means to simply cover what they want to say. Great leaders communicate by uncovering what their people need in order to assure success and fulfill their mission.
Everything else is mere bossing.
How can you better learn from your people? Do you regularly allow yourself to be led by your people?
You can find success by being led even as you lead, and I can help. Click below for your free consultation and gift.
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