KidLead Insights

Recently I met with Craig Beller, the principal of Forest Grove Elementary School in Pacific Grove, CA.  I am always delighted when I meet educators like Craig, because he's seasoned, savvy and understands the big picture.  As I introduced LeadYoung Monterey's impetus on helping schools develop school wide positive support (SWPBS) and resulting benefits toward learning environments, he readily appreciated the larger schema of developing the whole student.   The longer I interact with educators, the more surprised I am of how many seem committed to teaching, but not learning.  A majority appears dedicated to perpetuating status quo, bearing down on required academics with tunnel vision.  The attitude of not being open to new ideas seems antithetical to the concept of learning.  The question I'm prone to ask is, "Are you a teacher or a learner?"  I'm far more interested in learning from a learner than merely a teacher.  I celebrate when I meet educators like

Last week I met with Margaret D'Arrigo, the community involvement person at Taylor Farms, a giant ag producer in the Salinas Valley.  I was so delighted to experience the caliber of people like Margaret who as leader, mother, and employee, understands the impact that identifying and developing young leaders can make. Taylor Farms is an example of a corporation that "gets" CSR: corporate social responsibility.  Their give-back value of investing in the community displays that business is more than making money.  Developing a strong local infrastructure is good for the bottom line.  Leaders like Margaret and Bruce Taylor see the value of investing in young leader development, a priority we obviously applaud.

Harker School in Silicon Valley is considered by many to be the finest school in northern California and certainly one of the best in the country.  Tuition at this private institution is...well, let's just say high-end.  But what makes Harker great is not just the high caliber staff, students, and alumni, but its impetus on the whole student.   That's why it's no surprise that they take student leadership development seriously. Greg Lawson, second in command at the school, caught the vision of using LeadNow training curriculum for upper elementary and middle school students, at the beginning of KidLead's introduction of the curriculum.  Click HERE for an article published in the school's quarterly magazine.

One of the most difficult leadership skills to teach is "vision."  It's one of the 16 leader qualities we focus on in our LeadYoung Training Systems curricula, for ages 2-25. The reason it is so difficult to teach is because it is the most intuitive of the key qualities.  Leaders who "get" the vision concept do so typically without thinking about it.  But Simon Sinek does a good job explaining why leaders are good at motivating us.  In doing so, he helps would-be leaders embrace this most elusive vision-casting skill.  In this TED Talk presentation, he gets at the essence of understanding why people follow leaders a lot more than managers.   Click HERE to watch the 18-minute TED Talk.

In our work with schools the last 8 years while researching, piloting and selling student leadership development training, I've had plenty of opportunities to interact with administrators, teachers, students and parents.  In addition to our own parenting experiences, I've come to the conclusion that most schools are leader adverse.  In other words, they tend to diminish a student's leadership potential by valuing conformity and labeling young leaders as trouble makers and class disruptions (which they can be if not handled effectively).   In this TED Talk YouTube video, Sir Ken Robinson looks at the issue of schools and creativity.  There are a lot of similarities between creativity and leadership in terms of school environs, even though they are somewhat different talents and skills.  Click here for Ken's 20-minute presentation.

There are 2 general categories of leaders, those who develop people and those who develop other leaders. The latter is what we refer to as exponential leaders, because when you lead others who lead, you maximize your time and energy.  Over the years, I've found that most people who lead want to do leadership training, but generally they run out of tools.  As a result, leadership training turns out to be handing someone a book, hiring a pricey trainer or sending people to expensive conferences.  The task is even more daunting for young leader who tend to lack confidence, experience and therefore content from which to draw. Wouldn't it be great if you could take a few minutes during staff meetings and retreats, to offer live, economical training on various aspects of leading?  That's why we created a new resource for 19-25 year olds (that can be used by all ages) called Leader Lessons.  This 8.5x11 manual includes 50 lessons with reproducible handout pages and teaching i

Right after graduate school my wife, Nancy, was hired by leadership guru, John C. Maxwell.  I remember having several opportunities as a young guy, talking with John, one on one.  I even bartered driving him places, in exchange for some mentoring time. Here's a link to a YouTube clip of John's talk on the 5 Levels of Leadership ( CLICK ).  It's classic Maxwell. Finding leader mentors is an important process we teach in LeadStrong, our program for 19-25 year olds.  The problem is that older leaders tend to be so busy and young leaders lack confidence or know-how in finding mentors. A new book offers inspiration for young leaders as well as older ones, looking for proteges.  The title is "What I Wish I'd Known About Leadership." Check it out on Amazon.com by clicking HERE .

One of my fav movies is Money Ball, a 2011 movie starring Brad Pitt as the Oakland A’s general manager, Billy Beane.  Based on a true story, the A’s lacked money to go after great talent, so Beane tapped the idea of building a team on statistical analysis.  The manager, commentators, and sports analysts grilled Beane for his decisions at the start.  But eventually, the results proved themselves, giving the A's playoff bids in 2002 and 2003.  The paradigm shift in strategy became a new standard for creating winning baseball teams. I think about the way leaders emerge in society, much the same they have throughout history.  We wait to see what alpha personalities elevate, letting them lead us up or down, ethically or unethically, effectively or ineffectively.  Then, more times than not, we complain about the results.  But intentionally identifying and developing young leaders is a approach, a Billy Beane strategy of thinking differently about how we play the leadership game. 

    I decided to get a jump on my New Year's resolution, so a few days before 2013 ended, I headed for the gym.  I attended some workout classes that really tweaked my muscles.  A few days later, I felt tight, giving me a sense of being fit.  Granted, it was only fake fit.  Not much had actually changed.   A lot of organizations that think they develop young leaders, don't.  They fail to define leadership organizationally and while offering a nod to student government, clubs, and activity event planning, they don't actually teach children, preteens and teens how to lead.  In order to help educate effective student leadership development, we created an organizational assessment, so you can see how fit you are.  It's a great way to begin a New Year.  If you're a parent, forward this to your child's organization administrators.  If you work with preteens and teens, take it on your own organization, to see how fit it is. To download a free organizational asse