Yesterday, we had our "big meeting" to solidify a definition, mission, and vision for leadership at GW. We spent ample time in past weeks chewing on the theoretical underpinnings of what we'd create, and we took time to ask the tough questions about what the culture is like at GW (i.e., what would and wouldn't work here that is dependent on the history and context of this institution).
I'm interested to hear what you think about our results.
Definition of Leadership:
Leadership is a developmental process which empowers oneself to engage others in an ethical movement towards positive impact.
We are committed to encouraging character development and supporting leadership potential in all students.
Every student at GW will reflect and act on their experiences through the lense of leadership.
3 comments:
You know that the University of Richmond has an entire school dedicated to Leadership Studies right? (The Jepson School of Leadership Studies, which churns out such world-changing graduates as yours truly.) Anyway, could be a good place to look for resources, connections, administrators interested in leadership programs, etc.
If I might put on my Kettering hat for a minute, I would say that the mission and vision sound great, but I hesitate to use the word "empower." Empowerment is a word commonly used to describe the phenomenon of people taking action resulting from a new source of motivation or something of the like. Even more, it's used to describe act of bestowing power from one entity (usually a higher up) to another. In fact, the word empowerment gets its roots from the same words as entitlement, sanction, authorize, and appoint. You can see how if that's applied to a postindustrial, relational leadership context, it's difficult because it sits squarely in the hierarchical/industrial leadership model, which you are trying to escape.
The next natural problem is how do you describe what you're trying to convey, which is for students to develop and see the awesome power they have when they apply themselves and connect with others? Kettering runs into this problem a lot. We like to use "to help people realize the power that they already possess." It's a bit more clunky, but it accurately describes what we mean. There is also the problem of conveying power as fixed or finite. If you are a believer in the relational model of leadership, then you believe that power is infinite and limitless because it comes from people coming together around a common purpose. If you believe in the industrial age of leadership, you must assume that power comes from someone else giving it to you (empowering).
Just something to think about... I have no doubt that the intentions and thinking is there for great things...
Thanks for your responses, Matt and Josh. Matt, I agree with what you're saying and I think we will adjust the definition based on our attempt to go the opposite direction of positional leadership rather than including undertones of it in our definition unintentionally. I wonder, though, since in the definition the process is technically doing the empowering, does it lose that same sense of hierarchical nature? In other words, we're saying the developmental process is what empowers someone to lead, not _________ empowering __________, which is probably most often person to person or position to position. Or is it still simply too rooted in "holier than thou" language?
Let me know what you think.
Post a Comment