31 Leaders - Day 13 (part 2) - 6.30.2010

This year for our summer institute presentation, we decided that Cohorts 15 and 16 would come together for our final summer institute presentation. Earlier on in the SI, we decided that we were going to do a take off of Father Guido Sarducci's 5 Minute University. Knowing that we wanted every member of the cohort to be involved, we broke up in to four groups and the four groups, leadership, learning, service, and research. The task was to come up with our lines for the new Father Guido Sarducci's 5 minute EdD/PhD program in Leadership for the Advancement of Learning and Service. We hadn't quite decided what that would look like, how we would do it, but it was a start.

On those first days, I indicated that I would send out an email to everyone in the leadership group (8 of us) so that we could begin communications and come up with our lines. Task seems simple, huh? Not so much. First, I didn't expect to become the group leader. I was simply providing a service...(see previous posts). Second, I didn't want to be a group leader because I know how hard it is to get 31 leaders to agree on anything!

As the week continued, many people were asking, "What is going on?", "Do you know what is happening with our presentation?" Why were they asking me? I wasn't the leader...or was I? How do people get into those roles? What is because I agreed to provide a service?

Following that I felt that in order to get things rolling, I'd send out an email of my ideas...keep is simple and short (many people wanted to take this very seriously), keep it humorous in Father Guido style, have one person do the talking (I hate acting), and let's use the rest of the time to present each faculty member with a gift of thanks for all they have done. This email stirred up quite an email conversation and brought more questions than answers. YIKES! Our group had now hit utter chaos.

But the beauty that unfolded in the days to come are exactly what we as leaders should be open to in all of our situations. Because sometimes that letting go bring forth an outcome that is even better than could have been expected. For those of us with strong personalities and strong desires of our own outcome, it was about letting go. Letting go to let others take the lead. Letting go of our own ideas and letting a new path take place.

For others it was about taking on that leadership role. We had people from the group rise to the top and put things together. Those people worked off of their own vision, but knew they had to take into consideration all the other information provided in the email frenzy to have an outcome that 31 leaders would be happy with. And that is just what happened!

To me this shows we have listened to our presenters. As Howard Baher (2010) told us, "you don't always get what you want, you get what you need, and it comes at the appropriate time." Oh how true this was! As Carole Commodore, Bonie Laugerman, & Pauli Nikolay (2010) shared, "embrace dissonance". That was really important as we went through this process.

May we all (however focusing on my own personal learning...may I) take this experience and allow this process to recreate in our work environments. While many of us are considered the leaders, let us try to seek the leaders within the group. Let the unexpected leaders shine. Let those leaders who want to step back, to step back as that is an important process as well.

What is it about Cohort's 15 and 16 that make us such a cohesive group? What is it that allows 31 leaders to figure out how to work together toward a positive outcome? I'm not sure, but I bet it involves the grace of God. Learning about leadership for the greatest leaders right around me.