Turning Students Into Leaders
2009 Annual Concept Schools Conference

QUESTION:
Are leaders born or made?

the top
10 skills
Future Leaders (Your
Current Students) Will
Need To Possess

10. Taking risks.

Robert Galvin
“Leadership is going first in a new
direction—and being followed.”

“Why won’t my
employees take
any initiative?”
Common Issue

Helicopter Parents

Why are
manhole
covers
round?

9. Failing

If you are not failing,
you are probably not
taking enough risks.

Individuals who take
failures personally
have an exaggerated
sense of their own
incompetence. They view
taking initiative as futile
since they expect to fail.

celebrate
failure

“Say what?”

Celebrations provide people
with a safe forum for them to
acknowledge their failures,
making the analysis of what
went wrong less threatening.

“We have a culture that
allows people to say, ‘It was
my fault and here’s what I’ll
do differently next time.’”
Michelle Peluso, CEO of Travelocity

8.
Speaking
multiple
languages

thx for the iview!
i wud to work 4 u!! :)

Silent Generation 1925 - 1945
Baby Boomers 1946 - 1964
Generation X 1965 - 1980
Generation Y 1981 - 2000

One out of four
human resource
professionals
report witnessing
intergenerational
conflicts among
workers.
Source: Society for Human Resource Management

Two-thirds of Generation Yers say they
have little or no weekly interaction with
members of the Silent Generation at work.
Source: Randstad, 2008 World of Work Survey

7. Working
in spurts

workfragmentation

The average length of time
11min. 4 sec.
we work on a task before being interrupted
SOURCE: Gloria Mark, Victor M. Gonzalez, & Justin Harris
“No Task Left Behind? Examining the Nature of Fragmented Work”

On average, it takes
more than 25 minutes
to resume what we
were doing before
being interrupted.
SOURCE: Gloria Mark, Victor M. Gonzalez, & Justin Harris
“No Task Left Behind? Examining the Nature of Fragmented Work”

“Engaging in multiple
activities appears to be
related to the scope of work;
as the scope increases so
does multi-tasking.”
Mark, Gonzalez, and Harris

Managers experience
50 percent more external
interruptions than their
employees do.
Mark, Gonzalez, and Harris

6. Sharing knowledge.

Wally who?

Giving away our authority is a
personal challenge. It involves
sharing influence, prestige,
and applause, while forcing
us to deal with our personal
insecurities.

“ A basic function of
leadership is to produce
more leaders, not more
”Nader
followers.
Ralph

5. Pursuing mastery.

“The class of 2007 is the first in Ohio which must pass
all five Ohio Graduation Test sections to receive a diploma.”
The Blade, May 22, 2007

When we force people
to strive for proficiency in
everything, we miss the
opportunity for them to
achieve greatness in the
one area where they may,
indeed, achieve just that.

strivingforimprovement,
most of us do the same thing:
we take our strengths for granted,
and concentrate all our efforts on
conquering our weaknesses

Not surprisingly,
the vast majority of organizations
appear to believe that the best
way for individuals to grow is to
eliminate their weaknesses.

Identifying each person’s strongest
talents permits everyone the opportunity
to contribute what they do
BEST.

4.
Seeing the
Cathedral

Old story:
Two stonemasons are
working on the same
project. An observer
asks, “What are you
doing?”
The first stonemason
replies: “I’m cutting stone.”
The second stonemason
replies: “I’m building a great
cathedral.”

“The biggest men and women
with the biggest ideas can be
shot down by the smallest men
and women with the smallest
minds. Think big anyway.”
Dr. Kent M. Keith
Anyway: The Paradoxical Commandments

We often
describe
children as
having wild
or active
imaginations.
The best
leaders never
outgrow their
imaginative
gift.

Defy the verdict!

“The illiterate of
the 21st century
will not be those
who cannot read
and write, but those
who cannot learn,
unlearn, and
relearn.”
Alvin Toffler

TWO:
Resolving conflict.

con .flict (kón flikt)
a disagreement in
which those involved
perceive a threat to
their needs, interests,
or happiness.

Conflicts are natural occurrences
within the workplace, so clashes
and disagreements
are predictable.

Eric and Rhonda are in the
kitchen. There is only one
orange left and
both of them
want it.
What’s the
best solution?

“Seek First to Understand,
Then to Be Understood”
-Stephen Covey

# 1
Proving
credibility.

49
PERCENT
Less than
half of all U.S.
employees trust
their senior
leaders.
Source: Watson Wyatt’s WorkUSA 2006/2007 Survey

“In corporate
America, crime
pays. Handsomely.
Grotesquely, even.”
Arianna Huffington
Pigs at the Trough

“
WHAT WE FOUND IN
OUR INVESTIGATION OF
ADMIRED LEADERSHIP
KOUZES & POSNER
QUALITIES IS THAT MORE
The Leadership Challenge THAN ANYTHING, PEOPLE
WANT TO FOLLOW
LEADERS WHO ARE
CREDIBLE.”

“Credibility is the
foundation on
which leaders and
constituents will
build the grand
dreams of the
future.”
Kouzes & Posner

DWYSYWD

Grow some of your own!

Turning Students Into Leaders
2009 Annual Concept Schools Conference