Leadership needs to be transformative

Every true leader aspires that he creates leadership skills in his team so that together they form a formidable team. He desires that his vision and mission is shared and ascribed by all with equal passion and all are dedicated to achieve those milestones. To achieve this, he sets out empowering his colleagues to discover their potentials and pushes them to excel beyond their limits.

The global scenario today demands such leaders and as committed educators we have an onus of creating these transformational leaders. A good example of such a leader is Nelson Mandela who in his Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech in 1993, urged the rest of the world to “fight racism, wherever it occurs and whatever guise it assumes” (Nelson Mandela-Nobel Lecture). 

Nevertheless wherever I go or have opportunities to meet many present leaders, I observe that the leadership is more centered towards them. Most are wary of giving acknowledgements to their team counterparts, offer enhanced training to team leaders for the fear of losing their positions to others. This insecurity prevents them from empowering others and the scenario is miserable as they miss out on the possibility of taking their leadership to greater heights. They could become leaders of leaders.

In this struggle for internal power and politics and lack of transaction of leadership skills, more often the teachers lack the headship skills themselves. When these teachers are expected to create leadership skills in their own students, they lack the knowledge and understanding of the concept 'leaders'. To most of them, inculcating leadership skill in students is synonymous with making monitors, or offering captain ship or making project Heads. They feel that giving responsibility and making students accountable will make them leaders which are alike to scratching surfaces but creating no deep impacts. 

Few simple tips to create transformational leadership which transcends from Head to teachers to students are:

1.    People believe what they see and not what they hear. Thus be a living example of your beliefs and vision and abide by it.

2.    Encourage participative leadership during meetings allowing teams to justify their perspectives. Being like a ball at a height gives you a 360 degree vision of the scenario and aids you to better decision making.

3.    Be a lifelong learner. Regularly update yourself with new technology, methodology, techniques so that you bring something constructive on the table. Encourage your team to be the same by enrolling them in summits, conferences, workshops, online learning and books.

4.    Allow yourself to be wrong at times. You are not a ‘be it all’. Appreciate the strengths others demonstrate and add it to your learning curve.

5.    Give tasks with deadlines to your teachers without formatted structures, offer guidance when asked and wait patiently for the result. You might get surprised with the creativity or you might have to recreate strategies. In both cases there is learning for all parties.

6.    Have it mandatory that all learning by the teachers is to be shared to entire staff on regular basis with regular monitoring.

Once your team is made powerful, the same power will flow to the students and from them to the community which once again powers you to excel. 

More tips could be achieved through the books mentioned below.

Also every situation is unique and may demand leadership which is more adaptive than technical. Thus one has to tread with a very open mindset and sometimes rely on gut and instinct.

Hospitals should have recreational centres for attendants of patients

Like every Head teacher the month of January has been laden with heavy academic and cultural events. Also as MISA Secretary, we were in the midst of MISA velocity and planning of upcoming MISA Conference. Suddenly on 18th January, my Father in law complained of chest pain and had to be rushed to the hospital and they immediately put him in ICU. The next few days were a whirlwind of tests, interactions with surgeons and understanding health implications and intricate procedures. 

As he had suffered a massive heart attack, he was placed in the I.C.C.U section and the surgery was to take a week later. Thus in all, we were around 18 days in the hospital. 

Our days began with deciding who would sleep the night that day, then both my sister in law and me leaving for the hospital. As my work area was close to the hospital, I dropped in to the school and her to the hospital. As the day progressed my duty shifted from school to hospital and then later in the day to the house attending to my son and house chores. 

While sitting in the ICU waiting area day after day the faces sitting around you become familiar and the conversations begin. You witness the uncontrollable tears, the helplessness, the huge financial burden faced by relatives of the patients and at that time you feel grateful for your health. It is true what people say, 'If you ever feel life is too constricting, visit an ICU section of a hospital, you will count your blessings'. 

While sitting in the hospital idling away time and feeling depressed I felt the time could be better utilized if there was a spa section only for 24 hour attendants of patients around and why not. Instead of feeling low why not feel relaxed and have a stress free spa or if my body is aching with hours of sitting on an uncomfortable plastic chair, have a body ache removal spa. Also a change of seeing beds with immense machines and tubes, a bed laden with flowers is a welcome sight. All the relaxation gained could make me more positive and energetic. 

At the same if they had a small library where we could access motivational or humor filled books. Also having a indoor sports area could keep our mind more fresher and make us more energetic. If given these facilities, I definitely would have better things to discuss than only sad truths and facts because life is finding glimpses and rays of happiness in the midst of turmoil. Yes, we do have places of worship within hospitals to make us feel positive but honestly there are moments of pain and anguish which get passed over to the deity and therefore I refrain from entering the place at that moment.

So as experimentation is the key to new discoveries and inventions, currently one hospital could start it as a pilot project, do an action research on people’s demeanour before and after having a recreational activity and their impact on the patient’s mental health as a consequence. 

Why should hospital spell doom and unhappiness? Why not offer few retreats to short flashes of joy as I met few people who had been part of this hospital journey for more than few months and that is a pretty long time. They need to feel special. Also one needs to feel calm and refreshed to take care of their loved ones.