The Student Leadership Guide

Brendon Burchard

• Publisher: Morgan James Publishing
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN: 9781600374920
• eBook ISBN: 9781600377921
• Edition: 4
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Leadership in Education

Experts Academy Press is proud to present the first and only leadership book on the market that is (1) intended for students, (2) written from both theoretical and popular viewpoints, and (3) structured with a real-world, service-oriented framework that students can instantly use to make a difference in their classrooms, communities, and early careers. Leadership is conceptualized from the principles that it is a collective and participative process, different from management, and firmly rooted in service. The book's framework--Envision, Enlist, Embody, Empower, Evaluate, and Encourage--reflects six key leadership practices students must learn in order to lead with competence and confidence. The Student Leadership Guide has been praised by educators and students alike for its theory-backed content and its practical, inspiring call to action and service.

CHAPTER ONE

THE SEARCH FOR “LEADERSHIP”

I’ve been withholding something from you for some time now. Hoping that you would begin to form an idea of leadership through the previous section, I purposely left out a discussion of exactly what I believe “leadership” is. I’ve told you the principles guiding leadership in this text, but I haven’t given you a definition. Before I do, it’s helpful to look at what we call a leader.

First, a leader is not simply someone with specific traits. Just because you may have traits common to leaders, such as self-confidence, integrity, strong cognitive abilities, and an in-depth knowledge of your subject,³⁴ does not automatically qualify you as a leader. You can be completely trustworthy, inspiring, and possessed of amazing expertise, but you still may not be a leader.³⁵ Although having these traits may enhance the perception that you have the ability to lead,³⁶ you can have all these traits and be in a room alone.

Further, a leader is not simply someone who displays specific behaviors. Just because you focus on getting tasks and goals accomplished, seek to maintain group and interpersonal functions, and make lots of decisions, you do not automatically qualify as a leader. You can do all these things and be a manager, but not necessarily a leader. If you can accomplish goals and get people to do things, that in itself doesn’t make you a leader.

DEFINING LEADERSHIP

So what is a leader? Many theorists argue for a definition of leaders as “those who consistently contribute certain kinds of acts to leadership processes,” and go on to state that “the only sure means of identifying leaders is through the analysis of leadership processes.”³⁷ Drawing from these statements, and for the purposes of this book, a leader will be defined as a person engaged in, and who intends to consistently engage in, the leadership process.

From that statement, we must assume that leadership is a process. If you think about it, for leadership to occur, a process must take place wherein leaders and collaborators somehow come together, agree to do something, work with one another, and take actions to do what they have agreed on.

Understanding this, leadership is the process of leaders and collaborators coming together through an influence relationship and seeking envisioned changes that reflect their mutual purposes.

This definition is an extension of Joseph Rost’s Leadership for the Twenty-First Century. He defines leadership as “an influence relationship among leaders and followers who intend real changes that reflect their mutual purpose.”³⁸ (Rost later stopped using the term “followers” and began using the term “collaborators,” for the same reasons I discussed earlier.)³⁹ This book makes two departures from Rost’s definition: (1) by moving from leadership as a relationship to leadership as a process, and (2) by speaking not of leaders and followers who intend real changes, but of collaborators who are actively seeking envisioned changes. These are not merely semantic changes, but meaningful distinctions that I will draw out as I discuss each important component of the definition below.

Leadership is a Process.

People don’t just randomly become leaders or collaborators. And worthwhile purposes are not fulfilled by little, halfhearted efforts. A process occurs in which the leader-collaborator relationship is created, maintained, negotiated, strengthened, or ended. A process also occurs wherein leaders and collaborators envision changes and actively seek to accomplish them.

These ideas can help deconstruct the idea that leadership is simply a “relationship.” A relationship is a connection between people. And while there is certainly a very special relationship between leaders and collaborators that sets leadership apart from other relationships, leadership is not just the relationship. Leadership theorists have struggled for decades to understand how leaders can strike the right balance between task and relationship. They have done so because both components are involved in leadership: a relationship is being formed, and tasks are getting done. By seeing leadership as just a relationship, we write off the idea that something is getting done, that a process is happening, both inside and outside the relationship, to achieve important purposes.

Leadership is a process, in which (1) an influence relationship is created and maintained between leaders and collaborators, (2) the leaders and collaborators decide what constitutes real change and what reflects their mutual purposes, (3) they seek to create those changes, and (4) they adapt to redefine or ultimately achieve those purposes.

Leaders and Collaborators are in
an Influence Relationship.

As we have seen, there is a unique relationship between leaders and followers. Both influence each other throughout the leadership process; leaders are not just doing something to passive followers. An influence relationship means that behaviors of either party are not coercive or based on power over another person (power wielding). Rather, the relationship is based on power with others, formed by collaboration and noncoercive persuasion. This point is important because it shows that collaborators do not have to do what leaders suggest, but must want to because they have helped shape those suggestions and believe they are desirable.

Further, an influence relationship means that the leader and collaborators mutually influence one another. There is two-way communication. Perspectives from all parties are heard, respected, and considered in decision-making processes. Collaborators have the ability to say no, to choose appropriate strategies and purposes, and to shape decisions that influence their world.

As leaders, we must constantly remind ourselves that we are in a relationship with people, not in a hierarchy. We are in a community or family, not an organizational flow chart. We are in a relationship based on mutual needs and interests,⁴⁰ not on self-interest.

Leaders and Collaborators are Seeking Changes.

Leaders and collaborators do more than just intend real changes. They are doing something to create those changes.

“Seeking” means they are actively pursuing changes. They don’t have to accomplish them; they just have to engage in behavior, right now, that attempts to accomplish changes. The seeking happens in the present tense, which is important. Leaders and collaborators are not merely intending or hoping to seek change. If they only wish, leadership is not happening—dreaming is. Leadership is happening when leaders and collaborators are actively seeking changes now.

“Change” means that leaders and collaborators seek to alter the status quo. While this may seem obvious, change is really substantive. Rost uses the term “real” to describe changes. To him, “real means that leaders and followers intend changes in people’s lives, attitudes, behaviors, and basic assumptions, as well as in the groups, organizations, societies, and civilizations they are trying to lead.”⁴¹ He felt that change must be meaningful and “transforming.” Thus, simplistic goals don’t necessarily count as changes; real changes are those that have meaningful impact and transform our lives.

Envisioned Changes Reflect Mutual Purposes.

Leaders and collaborators must envision changes together and agree to seek them because they believe that those changes are beneficial for those in the influence relationship. According to Rost, changes “must reflect what the leaders and followers have come to understand from numerous interactions as the mutual purposes of the leaders and followers.”⁴² Rost purposely doesn’t say that the changes must reflect the mutual purposes of all the leaders and followers. That, he realizes, would be too high a standard to be practicable. Nevertheless, to the extent possible, envisioned changes should represent the common direction and purposes of the leaders and collaborators.

This point is significant because it reminds us that leadership does not happen if the changes reflect only the leader’s ideas. The leader must communicate the vision with the collaborators, and the collaborators must agree that the vision reflects their ideas for change. If not, the collaborators must be able to influence and work with the leader so that the vision reflects mutual purposes.

The word “purposes” is also important. Leaders and collaborators must envision mutual purposes, and those purposes are generally broader than goals. Purposes are the overarching reasons goals are typically pursued. For example, a goal in an organization may be to get 500 more customers by the end of the month, but its purpose would be to become a greater force in the market and position itself to be an industry leader. A goal in a volunteer organization might be to raise a certain amount of money by the end of the year, but its purpose is to serve the people it represents. Purposes, then, are more about mission than about goals.

So now you know what leadership is: the process of leaders and collaborators coming together through an influence relationship and seeking envisioned changes that reflect their mutual purposes. But how does that help you? You know what leadership is, but how do you do it?

E⁶: THE FRAMEWORK OF LEADERSHIP

You’ve come this far. You’ve learned the principles that underlie leadership, and you have a good working definition of leadership. You have now begun to understand leadership in more complex ways than most students ever do. Now it’s time to learn how to put the understanding into practice.

Since a leader is a person engaged in, and who intends to engage consistently in, a leadership process, you need to engage in leadership. To help you do so, I’ve created a framework helps to bring leadership into reality.

The framework is called E⁶. It stands for the six activities that I am convinced make leadership come into fruition: envision, enlist, embody, empower, evaluate, and encourage. Certainly these are not the only words that could describe leadership, but it just so happens that taken together, they create a framework that is both memorable and representative of the definition

Envision
Enlist
Embody
Empower
Evaluate
Encourage

—THE LEADERSHIP FRAMEWORK

To see how this framework operates, let’s look at an example. Let’s say you want to lead your fellow volunteers to perform better so that your organization can reach its ambitious fund-raising goals.

To lead others to become stronger performers, you could

1. Envision ways in which they could better perform;
2. Enlist their support in shaping and pursuing exactly how to perform better;
3. Work to embody the principles and behavior you wish others to model;
4. Help them understand how to be better volunteers and empower them with the information, decision-making authority, and autonomy to do so;
5. Evaluate the vision, your ethics and performance, and their progress; and
6. Constantly and consistently encourage them to sustain the journey, to grow, and to become wiser, freer, more autonomous, healthier, and likelier to become servants themselves.

The same process could apply to starting a new student group or club, enhancing an organization in your community, strengthening the bonds of your family members, or raising money for a local charity.

E⁶, in this light, is a framework for enacting leadership. Each activity in the framework is not necessarily chronological or mutually exclusive. With this in mind, you should not assess your leaders by what “stage” of E⁶ they are in, or if they are faithfully following the framework. It is not my intention to give you the framework of leadership, just a framework that is memorable and representative of what I believe happens in leadership. Thus, this framework can serve as a guide for those...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• About The Author
• Table of Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• Chapter One - The Search for “Leadership”
• Chapter Two - Envision
• Chapter Three - Eenlist
• Chapter Four -Embody
• Chapter Five - Empower
• Chapter Six - Evaluate
• Chapter Seven - Encourage
• Conclusion - Beyond the Classroom
• Note to Readers
• Endnotes
• References
• Reader Notes