I was recently privileged with an opportunity to deliver a presentation on leadership to a Grade 6 class. I decided to make my presentation public, so here goes!~
The idea was to articulate the elements of leadership in a step by step process. I used the analogy of making soup (i.e. if leadership is the soup we are making then these are the ingredients we put in the pot).
Vision
I don’t know of a better way to contextualize vision than to use Steve Jobs as an example. He saw a personal computer when others didn’t, and the world changed because of his vision. With this example as inspiration, I asked the class to get into groups and envision ways to make their school better.
Commitment
Nelson Mandela can be summed up in a word - commitment. I used his story to communicate the essence of the term. The quote below is taken from his opening statement at his 1964 trial.
Communication
After we see an opportunity and commit to it, we have to communicate that vision to others. There are many ways to do this, so I asked the students to dream up different ways of explaining their visions.
Empowerment
The vision is clear, the commitment has been made, and others know about it. Now it’s time to empower those people to contribute according to their own means and abilities. This was a tricky point to make, but I think they got it.
Perseverance
The path of leadership is ridden with obstacles and perseverance is the quality that allows leaders to get around those obstacles and accomplish their goals. I used my own story to explain this ingredient. After no one attended my first ever presentation for A Day for Africa (despite the fact that I hand delivered more than 25 invitations to local business owners) the program went on to raise over $25,000 in its first year for people affected by HIV/AIDS in Sub-Saharan Africa. Moreover, I was given the opportunity to meet some of the program’s beneficiaries in East Africa. These things happened because I persevered and re-strategized when things didn’t go my way.
Purpose
The idea is that in order to succeed your purpose has to be bigger than you. I used the story of one of the Grannies I met in Uganda to get the point across. She had five children. Three of them died of HIV-related causes, one of them is mentally ill and still lives with her, and the fifth “couldn’t take it” so ran away. Now this Grannie is providing for her mentally ill son and all of her grandchildren while she is well into her 70s. She is able to do so because her purpose (that child and those grandchildren) is bigger than her.
Passion #1
Mme Reader teaches the class and her son Martin is a professional beach volleyball player who is striving to represent Canada at the 2012 Olympics in London. He is one passionate individual and someone the kids really resonate with because they know him. So when I said leaders have to be passionate (i.e. do what they love with every bone in their body) and showed them this picture of Martin, they got it.
Passion #2
I used a couple of examples to help sink in this stuff about passion. The second one involved JF Carrey - the youngest Canadian to scale Mt. Everest. He and I used to be involved with a youth leadership organization and I saw him tell his story a number of times. In those sessions he always stressed how necessary passion was to accomplish his goal.
Passion #3
My dear friend Chantal was doing her teaching practicum with the class, which is how I got the opportunity to visit them in the first place. I couldn’t help but use her as another example of passion. When I asked the class if they know how much Mme. Chantal loves teaching them they said in unison, “We know.”
Accountability
Accountability is so important in leadership because it fosters trust from others. If one says he/she will do something but doesn’t then who is going to trust him/her the next time? I told a story about my mother to illustrate the point. When her and I were in Oman we were given an artifact from a man in a remote village. My mother said, “If we can’t use it in our research we will give it back to you.” The man didn’t seem to care, but the artifact turned out to be from approximately 3000 BCE. When it was decided that we couldn’t use it, my mother insisted that we drive back to that village and give it back to the man. She followed through on her word and built strong repoire because of it.
Integrity
Back to Nelson Mandela. After being imprisoned for 22 years he was offered freedom on the condition that he compromise his organization. He refused. That is integrity, and the kids fully understood what I was talking about. I did stress, however, that integrity and accountability are things we practice.
People
It is so easy to get caught up on the solo track as a leader, forgetting about the people around us. The best leaders recognize that others are the keys to success, however. Inclusion is power in leadership, and I wanted to make sure that was understood. It is why I used “we” instead of “I” in the questions I posed under each leadership principle. That small semantic difference was crucial to informing the class of the importance of including others.
And that’s how we make leadership soup!
