education Archives - Page 5 of 6 - Lisa Colón DeLay

Leadership Week [Day 2] Invitation

The key to successful leadership today is influence, not authority.

— Kenneth Blanchard

Today’s Wisdom:

A Good Leader Invites.

Some bosses are still tyrannical and ill-tempered. Is it just immaturity, or is some of this vestiges of wartime attitudes that still seep into the management and leadership styles of corporations or even families?

“Do as I say. That’s an order, soldier!”

The big flaw in a bossy leadership style is that civilians are not subject to demands of rank and orders from a autocrats.

They can quit.

They can walk off the job, or worse than any of that, they can undermine everything and stay onboard, resentfully.

What kills morale more than passive-aggresive subordinates mucking up the works, sabotaging projects, and sucking the life out of a group? It’s dire.

Instead, Leaders of this era must INVITE rather than command.

That means that good Leaders draw in their followers rather than intimidating them.

Despot types will always be among us, but the focus in Leadership development these days isn’t about demanding respect. It’s about what gets results and makes positive change. It centers on earning respect.

Do you remember a time when a Leader invited you?

The best examples often come from the world of coaching and mentoring. These relationships are not forced, but forged, mutually.

There, Leadership is not where Authority is the predominant issue; trust is what counts.

I’m happy to be a Contributor at the Deeper Leader SyncrhoBlog that runs September 10-14th.

You’re welcome to add your voice too. Go here to get details. When you contribute, I’ll be sure to check for your link and read your contribution.

Leadership Week! [Day 1]

I’m proud to be a Contributor at the Deeper Leader SyncrhoBlog that runs September 10-14th.

You’re welcome to add your voice too. Go here to get details. I’ll be sure to check for your link and read your contribution.

Today’s Wisdom:

A Good Leader Listens.

Have you ever been talking to you boss and trying to communicate an urgent point, and you can tell that your boss is thinking about other things? He’s only waiting until you stop talking for a nano-second to tell you something he thinks is more important. I still gets surprised when this happens to me.

So many failures of leadership could be avoided by listening well in the first place. But, here’s the surprise. This is actually a spiritual problem.

A spiritually mature person is an excellent listener.

Truly listening helps those who lead not just to properly assess what is really happening so one can choose a good response, but it also helps a Leader find new talent to raise up new Leaders. Leadership is all about influence, and influencing others to be spiritually mature as they lead is crucial. In case you haven’t noticed the examples of immature and failed leadership are legion.

When we mentor others we must be attuned to what ones their gifts to lead others well. Too often we skip this part on our way to imparting our “wisdom” and getting them to absorb what we have to offer them.

Good Listening skills are rare and under-developed, so to get better at listening start by paying attention.

Did you ever have a boss who didn’t listen? Let me know.

Tomorrow I’ll talk about the next thing that makes a good Leader: INVITATION

Come back and read it tomorrow!

What Makes a Good Leader?

This is the first question of the Leadership Synchroblog sponsored by Evangelical Seminary, running September 10th-14th.

Though most of us don’t run big companies, command platoons, or lead mega-churches, but we’ve all had our experiences with leadership.

And in certain ways we all lead:

• As a parent

• As a mentor, coach, or teacher

• In ministry

• On a project

• At our job

• In our neighborhood

…and so on.

So you’ve probably learned some things along the way through your own experiences. OR, conversely, you’ve been led by an inapt leader…so, you know what NOT to do.

Whatever your story, you can read excellent Leadership resources AND join in the first Leadership Synchroblog in the week of SEPTEMBER 10-14th (2012).

Weigh in on “What Makes a Good Leader”. Other topics will follow, usually twice per month. You can check the blog for guest writers and new Synchroblog topics. Write you own contribution and then connect to this bigger conversation.

By contributing, you’ll be part of making leaders better and a larger community with this focus at the fore. We’ve invited some leading experts in the field to weigh in too, so don’t forget to check out what they have to say on Leadership at the blog.Contributor GUIDANCE / REQUIREMENTS:
To participate…
• Use the Leadership Synchro Contributor Badge– (up there)

• Encourage growth in maturity. (This means your piece should be positive toward education, training, and development, and notring negative or disparaging toward others. Such as a specific Leader’s failure, for instance.)

• Link back to through the Badge (or use a text link), that links back to this address: http://www.evangelical.edu/macl/

• Comment on a blog post at least one other Synchro Blog participant. Optimally, once per day (or more), during Sept 10-14th.

• Promote your own post (and the series) well through available outlets (like Facebook, Twitter, Stumble on, google+, etc) to generate interest.

Thank you for caring about this subject and doing what you can to nurture better leaders!

The Evangelical Seminary will host links to all contributions.

A Practical Guide to NOT getting an Advanced Degree

Photo Credit: Arallyn! via Compfight

I’d love to save you save money right now. I love education, but I do sense that our system is outdated by 50-500 years. I can hardly think of anything more stifling to creativity and innovation than this strange situation.

So many people in the North America are getting advanced degrees, I’ve noticed. Have you? I see a boat load of cautionary tales in the whole matter.

First of all….Have you noticed how much advertising is directed at feeding the desire to improve one’s self through education?

It gives me pause.

An affluent country can create a whole education industry that can make little sense when pragmatic end goals are apprehended. Indeed, it already has!

It seems many diploma seekers actually don’t actually know what they want…but it’s hard to dismiss education as a waste of time. Yet, education has never be easier to get…and for free. I have a list of places. More on that in a moment…

Since the job market is horrible many are delaying entry into it or avoiding it by enrolling in a masters program, etc. This trend depreciates advanced degrees across the board, duh.

Really the industry have never been shadier since public school teachers have been required to earn a masters degree to keep their jobs. Programs spring up to meet the need and basically make the whole thing a mockery. Busy work and rigamarole replace andragogic excellence. You thought I’d say pedagogic, right? See how outdated the whole thing is…pedagogy is a medieval term. Yeah, right…so anyways…

For people who value high-quality learning and scholarship it’s an affront.

BUT Why do people enroll?
…lots of reasons:

• To add Credibility (maybe some resume fodder)

• To soothe something on the inside

• In hopes that new opportunities will open up

Though plenty of places will give you the paper you think you want…it might not give you what you are really looking for. I contend that it often won’t. (Seth Godin has hit on this too. It’s worth the read.)

The reality is that without careful consideration the results are more debt and angst than possibilities. A Masters Degree or PhD may help to land a college teaching job…except for the fact that there’s a genuine glut of people with advanced degrees and fewer jobs than ever. School budgets are being slashed. Everywhere. Don’t want to teach? Then an advanced degree is the wrong tact much of the time. This illustrates the point that system is quite broken.

If you are (or someone you know) is in or planning to enroll in an advanced degree program, remember to ask the harder questions. The why questions.

• Are you putting something off?

• Are you afraid of something?

• Do you need or want something that really isn’t about the credit hours?

**In reality Success can come in numerous ways through the vehicle of technology. Times have changed.**

If it’s really education that you want. That’s all cool. Free Education initiatives are underway at so many top universities, like MIT, CMU, Berkley, Tufts, Yale, Princeton, Norte Dame and others. It’s AMAZING. Check it out.

In the end it’s results and experience that give you success, not who you paid on your paper chase.

Success has a lot to do with creativity, hard work, ingenuity, and perseverance.

I hoped I’ve saved you (or someone you know) some time and $.

Don’t hug a Pufferfish

6821porcupine_fish — I'm much bigger now!

What a HUGE temptation to be self-satisfied as we acquire knowledge.

We soon secure a kind of confidence (or inflation) when we know things others don’t. Too little does our increased knowledge humble us as we recognize all the many things we do not know.

Our opinion of ourselves may intensify and improve, despite not using our gain for the benefit of others. It’s a strange irony. And I’ll bet it’s far easier to see this in others than in ourselves. What do you think?

It reminds me of the fish you see here. The porcupine fish (often confused for the pufferfish) have the ability to inflate their body by ingesting water or air, and swelling up. At 2 times their size vertically, they try to avoid death by scaring off smaller-mouthed predators. Their pointy spines, distend outwards when the fish is inflated, and some species are poisonous. A tetrodotoxin resdies in their internal organs, such as the ovaries and liver. This neurotoxin is at least 1200 times more potent than cyanide (from wikipedia).

One downside to furthering education is the routine bypass of true humility once some comprehension has been achieved. Knowledge ends there, perhaps. We like it because it helps us somehow comfort ourselves. It gets ingrown and fetid. Too often it is used to showoff, or deflect others when we are threatened, or to feel superior inwardly. Too often it is not united to wisdom, which should be our true goal. In wisdom, knowledge and maturity converge to bless others. Wisdom helps our knowledge to give back, and reproduce goodness in kind.

Knowledge without mindful experience won’t produce wisdom. A wise one is continually teachable, and can learn from any other person. A solely knowledgeable person compares themselves to others, and feels confident or insecure depending on who they are stacked against.

It’s not that education, knowledge, and learning is negative, on its own. It is the way we use our new understanding and expertise that is the issue of greatest import.

Paraphrase of I Corinthians 13:2b. “…If I can comprehend all mysteries and all knowledge, and even possess mountain-moving faith, but disregard love, I am of no good use.”

I have to keep a close watch that my knowledge does not trap me into a foolish corner where wisdom cannot be found. I have to be mindful that I bless and not oppress others through gained knowledge. My God grant me his grace and nature to do it.

Who in your life has impressed you with his or her humility coupled with knowledge?

For me, I find Jesus a great example here. Also some of my learned professors have had incredible humility coupled with awing intelligence and academic achievement. It is a beautiful display of the Fruit of the Spirit.

How do you struggle with this, at times?

What helps you keep in-check?