The Answer - A blog about Education, Preparation, and Commitment.

Barnes and Noble has it all wrong, or maybe we do?

January 03, 2010 by Jeremy Jones

Blogger and thought leader Maureen Metcalf recently posted the article, “7 Qualities and 9 Questions to Help you Select Future Leaders,” on the thoughtLEADERS blog. The opening sentence says, “Consider the impact a poor leader has on your organization…” She couldn’t be more correct. The business world is consumed with messages of leadership. If you don’t believe me, walk into your local Barnes & Noble bookseller and find the business section which is probably close to the downstairs entrance of the store. You will be confronted with all sorts of “leadership” oriented titles. There are business leadership books about the habits of effective people, the leadership skills of managers, the communication styles of leaders and even how to become a business leader online. Contrary, and unfortunately, a trip upstairs and in fact to the back corner of my local store led me to a stark difference that was at first frustrating and then just sad. 

Businesses and schools operate under different values. Businesses are profit-making institutions that seek to earn money. I’m not saying there aren’t altruistic business ventures out there in the world, but if you think a company will choose its iteration of volunteerism or charity work over increasing their stock value, well, you’re just a bit naïve. Schools, on the other hand, attempt to create some semblance of equity and the best classrooms and schools are concerned with a different type of product: developing human capital that thinks, learns, and contributes. Despite industries with two very different underlying values, the disparity between the types of books one might find in the respective sections at the bookstore was a bit odd.

Maureen Metcalf’s article helps provide a some justification for why I should be able to find just as many “leadership” books in the “Education” section at the bookstore. Her 7 qualities include:

1.       Smart at dealing with complex problems (cognitive complexity)

2.       Emotionally able to deal with ambiguity and complexity

3.       Strong self-awareness and self-management skills

4.       Strong interpersonal awareness and interpersonal acumen

5.       Ability to build flexible and robust solutions

6.       Ability to instill confidence in others

7.       Continually learning and looking for ways to improve self, others and the organization

I think Metcalf hit the proverbial nail on the head with these traits and in fact would challenge her to think about how these traits might be found in great people in other industries. Indeed, our schools AND our boardrooms should outstanding leaders. 

(1)    Teachers at YES Prep are leaders. While we have a specific selection model that allows us to measure the characteristics of prospective teachers, Metcalf list could serve as a perfect replacement. Teachers have to deal with complex problems. Our teachers are constantly challenged to figure out how to best serve each one of their students. Some students come into a classroom with such strong intelligence and intuition they can pick things up easily. Others come in with extreme deficits. The challenge for the teacher is to figure out how to teach both of these students, starting from where they are and leaving them in a completely new (and better) place academically. 

(2)    Teachers have to reconcile their myriad roles in the school building. They are first and foremost teachers, but they are students, managers, Chief Organizational Officers, and counselors. As teachers, we don’t get to chose our students and we certainly do not chose the baggage they bring into the classroom. Teachers at YES Prep can find themselves in situations that require them to be firm with students, families and other teachers while balancing the current and future needs of everyone involved. I don’t think it is a mystery that teaching is an emotional job and teachers do require emotional fortitude and stamina to be successful.

(3)    Teachers might be the most introspective people I know and they are self starters and self managers. Most teachers would tell you that their first year was the most difficult for them. I think this is true because they haven’t yet gained these skills. Being a self-manager requires some practice and doesn’t come simply. After a year or two of teaching, leaders in the classroom become self-managers for the sake of their students. If they don’t manage themselves well, how will they ever manage a classroom full of students?

(4)    Teaching is primarily a “people business.” We are in the business of creating people or at least their intellectual intelligence (EQ). For teachers to truly be successful they need to balance the academic requirements along with the social and emotional ones. Great teachers build relationships and great teachers have strong interpersonal awareness. Without this, they alienate students by teaching a subject and not teaching people.

(5)    I have always said that people should be required to do two things in life: wait tables and be held accountable to teach someone something. Both roles instill so many skills and characteristics in us that are applicable to many other types of jobs or roles. A teacher’s challenge is to create a classroom that maximizes instructional time and teaches every single student. Teachers spend a lot of time before, during and after the school year planning curriculum, but they also plan systems for grading, building culture, passing out papers, entering the classroom, asking questions, getting the lesson started and how to behave at every stage of the class period. These systems have to be flexible and robust for a classroom to operate effectively.

(6)    Nothing might be more important in teachers than their ability to set big goals and motivate others to achieve those lofty goals. Each year at YES Prep, a brand new cadre of 6^th graders are welcomed onto our campuses. These 6^th graders average 4^th grade scores in reading and math. Our 6^th grade teachers literally have to teach them nearly three years worth of material in one year. They set very high goals for their students and build a culture of confidence and hard work in their students. In 2009, all five YES Prep campuses earned the highest rating awarded by the Texas Education Agency for student scores on the state test. 

(7)    Finally, YES Prep teachers are reflective. They constantly seek out new ways of teaching and model what it means to be life-long learners. Whether it is observing others, video taping themselves, attending workshops, asking for feedback, or conducting classroom surveys, YES Prep teachers enjoy applying new skills in many different situations.

So, using Metcalf’s definition of leadership I would say that teachers at YES Prep are outstanding leaders and the cost of poor leadership in the classroom will cost our society more than we can possibly calculate. And I think Barnes & Noble should add a few leadership books to the “education” section.

Are there other leadership traits that apply in the classroom?  Leave us a comment and let us know what you think.  Want to learn more about working at YES Prep?  Email mailto:teach@yesprep.org or apply online at http://www.yesprep.org/work.

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