KidLead Insights

"Spoiler Alert!"  That's what NBC newscasters have been saying during the Winter Olympics, as they prep to announce medal results prior to actually broadcasting the time-delayed events.  Well, in our small way, this is a bit of a spoiler alert or even a teaser. Over the years, we've become very aware of the historical resistance to developing women leaders, let alone young ones.  Nancy, my wife, attests to that, even though John Maxwell hired her as part of his leadership team at the ripe old age of 25.  So we're about to announce the start of a new LeadYoung Training Systems program called SheLead.  We're reformatting our LeadNow and LeadWell curricula into a woman-leader-to-young-female-leader program that will be available for schools, civic groups, and faith communities to use in identifying and developing young women leaders.  It's our attempt to help make up for what's been a long time problem. Look for it in the coming days! 

This year's winter Olympics seem to have much better commercials than the hyped Superbowl promos.  I'm especially moved by TD Ameritrade's theme of Big Moments consisting of Little Steps.  Whenever I see these, I think of leaders.  Imagine being able to take the life of a great leader and creating a collage of little steps.  That's what KidLead's about, developing the potential in leaders while they're moldable and offering repetitive practice so that they can become great over time.   Here's a link to what I'm talking about.  Click  HERE  to see Noelle Pikus Pace's story.

So I'm sitting in Starbucks when this teen walks in with a duck. It caught my attention through the barista's glass divider.  I didn't know if he was doing an AFLAC promotion or what.  But through the laughter of customers I realized the duck was a puppet.  It got me thinking about leaders.   There are a lot of fake leaders out there, people who hold positions of authority, but who really don't know how to lead. They lack vision, fail to organize people, and pursue status quo.  At the same time, there's a lot of fake leadership training out there, books, programs, and events that are called leadership, but that teach any number of other things such as good citizenship, character, service, and self-esteem. People often refer to these things as if they are leadership, but at the end of the day, much like the duck, they don't teach us what leaders do differently than non-leaders and they don't distinguish what it means to help people accomplish together, wh

A couple times a year, we wake up to see a large cruise ship in the Monterey Bay. Although blown up a bit, this picture is from my office in our town home.  Usually, the bay sports an array of private boats, a few fishing vessels, and whale watching ships.  But when the cruise ship shows up, it's like a row boat in your bath tub... huge.   Most school classrooms have 2-3 students who offer more "presence" than the rest. They stand out in terms of their social influence.  The problem is that most schools ignore them, treating them like every other child, ignoring their sizable leadership potential.  In this TED Talk video (19 min.), Sir Ken Robinson expresses his concern on how schools kill creativity.  Similarly, schools tend to kill leadership development.  Join over 25 million people who've watched this 20-minute commentary.  Click HERE .

The last few weeks, I've been meeting with numerous school principals and superintendents in Monterey County, introducing our local impetus on positive behavior in school via developing the natural social influencers. Most of the people I talk to readily know the type of students I'm referring to, and they've even volunteered their own adjectives to describe them.  A few are listed in this Wordle.  It's interesting that a majority of the terms tend to be somewhat negative.  Perhaps it's because in cultures valuing conformity, leaders stand out, a bit like stubbing your toe on a carpet nail.  I'm pleasantly delighted that most of the local school leaders with whom I'm meeting understand the inequity of social influence and concur with the strategy of getting to these catalysts to benefit the rest.

A few days ago, my wife and I were taking our weekly walk along the Carmel coast, from Pebble Beach to Monastery Beach.  We saw something we'd not seen before, a pod of several dozen seals, frantically swimming together near the sand. They appeared to be in a kind of feeding frenzy in the kelp.   No doubt, this pod had individual seals that led the others to this area and provided directions on how to behave, what to do.  Even in the animal kingdom, leaders exist, helping the team function effectively. I wonder when this begins, how early in a seal's life does leading behavior emerge?  I'm not a marine biologist, but I do know that young human leaders emerge much earlier than most perceive.  It's getting the older ones to recognize and develop them; that's the trick.

Recently I read a book called "Contagious," that explains why some messages get repeated and others do not.  In order to implement my learning, we created a banner for our website, to note how KidLead curricula are a proactive means for eradicating bad leaders (see above).  A customer alerted us about his shock and disdain that we'd connect Hitler with KidLead (even if it was negative).  We quickly explained why and replaced the banner with a Gandhi pic, not wanting to relate a corrupt icon with our work. Regardless, so much of our culture is reactionary, upset about bad leading and leaders while doing very little to remove the problem at the root.  I grew up on an Iowa farm and my chores included chopping down thistles.  One day, my dad noticed how quickly I removed them, but realized I'd been cutting them down at the stem, a visual quick fix.  He said, "No, to get rid of a thistle you need to place your shovel below the ground at the root, and then cut i

Paul Zyntek visited us from Perth, Australia. He works with children there, heard about KidLead from an internet search, and became certified to use LeadNow curriculum through webinars and live Skype coaching. Recently, on a trip to a conference in Florida, he dropped by to spend a couple of days with us here in Monterey. What I love about Paul's attitude is his desire to try new things and make a difference.  As a 29-year old, he's decided to focus on identifying and developing social influencers. That two decades sooner than I committed to make it my primary passion.  I'm jealous he's beginning so young. We're thrilled to know Paul as an independent trainer, who'll be introducing "the world down under" to cutting edge strategies for bringing about social change.