Leadership Development – Increased Commitment

As leadership educators it should be our goal to:

  1. Increase student leaders depth of knowledge in the organization
  2. Heighten their level of commitment to the organization
  3. Generate new leaders who themselves are able to reproduce leaders

When we are able to accomplish these three things, then we are truly developing and reproducing leaders.  The questions becomes: how?  How do we increase knowledge, heighten commitment, and generate new leaders?  According to Noel Tichy, he suggest there are 4 levels of leadership with teaching being the highest.

  • LEVEL ONE LEADER:  leaders command their followers.  Leaders at this level give mandates and directions with the goal being to command and control their student leaders.  (Knowledge, Commitment, and Development is extremely low with this approach)
  • LEVEL TWO LEADER:  leaders tell their followers their vision, goals, and ideas.  Student leaders are then expected to simply adopt the leader’s ideas and implement them.  (Knowledge, Commitment, and Development continues to be very low)
  • LEVEL THREE LEADER:  leaders sell their followers on their vision and goals.  Student leaders begin to have some input and buy-in.  (Knowledge, Commitment, and Development improves and increases)
  • LEVEL FOUR LEADER:  leader teach their followers key concepts, concepts which become the basis for confident action on the part of the student leader.  This results in students leaders who own those ideas and who develop the means of implementing them.  Commitment, learning, and leadership development are the fruit.  But teaching takes time and is risky.  When teachers entrust ideas to their student leaders, they empower them with great freedom to shape the organization.  This must happen if teachers ever want to truly develop LEADERS!
*Adapted from Noel Tichy’s work on Leadership Development

Questions to consider:

  1. What level of leadership do you see yourself?
  2. How hard is it for you to entrust your student leaders with a job or task?  Why?
  3. In what ways are you transferring leadership to your students and developing them into leaders?
  4. How are your leaders helping develop younger leaders in your program?