I watch the occasional TED presentation — if you haven’t done so I recommend it. Each video lasts about 5-10 minutes and they are typically very conversational in nature as well as thought provoking. Often the speakers are scientists, authors, athletes — someone who is an expert in their field.
One that I’ve watched a couple of times is by Julia Galef:
I’m a dreamer of sorts. I believe that every day we have the potential to live in an increasingly sympathetic world — a world where we not just tolerate our differences, but a world where we accept and celebrate each other. Some days I see progress, and other days I watch the news on TV.
I remember very few things from my teacher training in the mid-80s. One thing I actually DO remember spending a TON of time learning and implementing was a teaching model of Science education. The model outlined various actions to be accomplished — the ‘boxes’ that we were required to fill-in were called ‘teacher actions’ and ‘student actions’. It was elegantly simple, but also particularly time consuming to write out for every lesson. At the time, it seemed to make some good sense as it laid out the lesson really well — and for a newly minted teacher, I was grateful for the structure it provided me and my lesson planning.
However, even back then I felt like it was missing the point in a big way — it never considered the students as people with different traits, needs, emotions and perceptions. It was completely missing the importance of empathy.
I believe in it — transparency. I believe that it should be the cornerstone in any leader’s foundation. Transparency leads to consistency which leads to increasing trust from those in your organization. And to be an effective leader one needs to have the trust of those whom they hope to lead.
Leaders who are not transparent aren’t the kind of people we should be following. We can all probably think of people in leadership positions who change their words and actions depending on who they are speaking with at any particular moment. You never really know what they believe and as a result you lose faith in them, trust in them and belief in them to work with you to move an agenda forward. You likely give up at some point and strike out on your own with feelings of disillusionment and frustration. Continue reading
The Power of Why 