Get Ready, Set, Grow!
Reading Leadersmithing, by Eve Poole took me down memory lane and sent me to my basement storage room searching for copies of Aesop’s Fables and The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. The mere mention of these books brought back delightful memories of reading these stories to my children and sobering moments of clarity about myself and my leadership journey. Stories seems to be a powerful learning tool for me.
In her research Poole asked leaders, “What do you know now as a leader that you wish you had known ten years ago?” Their answer, they wished they had known themselves better![1] This is the key that unlocked my leadership journey. It began in 1997, while trying to get my bearings in a communist country in which our visa situation and constant surveillance were destabilizing certainties. I was struggling with the long-term impact of living in third world countries and suffering with chronic health issues that left me second guessing who I was and what I was called to do. I set out on a journey of self-discovery, reclaiming lost parts of myself, and uncovering aspects I never knew existed. It felt more like a deep pit I had to claw my way out of than a leadership journey. The beloved stories mentioned at the beginning of this post and in Poole’s book made a lasting impression during that time. There were two key things I learned about myself when rest was required, my house was wonderfully full of children, and reading stories aloud was a favorite part of our day.
The Tortoise and the Hare: Lesson #1: I am a tortoise!
Slow and steady wins the race. I wholeheartedly endorse Eve Poole’s wise advice to, “Be a tortoise!”[2] I am slow moving. I always thought there must be something wrong with me because I was incapable of making quick decisions. I finally gave myself permission to be me. I couldn’t keep to a pace I was not designed for and adjusted accordingly. It was a key discovery that has greatly reduced my anxiety. As a nine on the Enneagram, I can easily see all perspectives and I can take a very long time to make decisions. This is a gift in disguise. My leadership roles rarely require quick decisions. Never-the-less, I am developing the tools to speed up the process when necessary.
The Wonderful Wizard of OZ: Lesson #2: I am smart, loving, and brave!
No amount of convincing by others was going to make me believe the above was true. I had to feel it to believe it for myself![3] I find it confirming how emotional intelligence and neuroscience keep coming up in leadership. Working as a counselor I am very familiar with the connection between feelings, thoughts, and behaviors, and the fight-flight-freeze reactions to stress and trauma. My experiences and the stories I told myself about them had a negative impact on me physically, emotionally, psychologically, and spiritually. Facing untruths set me free. Understanding how I hold untruths in my spirit, soul, and body continues to be life changing and leadership forming.
Leader in Transition: I asked someone close to me where they thought I fit on the Who are you? chart at the beginning of the book.[4] I was surprised by their response. Leader in Transition. After some reflection I came to the same conclusion. It was the question of what I fear most that convinced me. Taking Key Decisions is my biggest fear and my intended focus.[5] Poole suggests diarying critical incidents and curating our learning through intentional practice.[6]
Critical Incidents: Practice makes perfect!? Practice is practice. My goal is competency not perfection. That is more doable and less intimidating. Poole highlighted 17 critical incidents to learn and practice. The idea is to give leaders ‘muscle memory’ about archetypical leadership activities, so our bodies instinctively know how to do them when needed.[7] As I read through the list, I noted things of which I felt reasonably confident and quite a few that need more work. I’m reflecting on how Leadersmithing will impact my NPO. Working my way through this doctoral program is giving me ample opportunity to exercise and gain leadership muscle memory. Teaching some of the critical incident skills I possess may become part of my NPO. In the meantime, I am learning to learn.[8]
Taking Key Decisions: The title of this blog, Get Ready, Set, Grow! [9] is the name of the preschool curriculum I used with my children. It highlights where I am on my leadership journey. I’m ready to grow. The first page of the curriculum begins with a Preschool Teacher’s Pledge. I made modifications and created my personal Doctoral Student Pledge focusing on the critical incidents I need to practice.
Jenny, I solemnly commit to practice these critical incidents. I hereby promise to:
Give myself structured times for learning. (Effort – Habits – Numbers)
Practice child-like trust. Let go of unknowns. Focus on the knowns. (Uncertainty)
Wonder about possibilities. Offer suggestions and ideas. Hold them lightly. (Initiative)
Imagine and pretend I am a genius: Alchemist, Observer, Fool, Seer, Sage. (Creativity)
Believe several impossible things before breakfast. (Conflict)
Slow down, do some belly breathing, work through the problem. (MECE)
Remember I might need a snack and a nap (or a hug). (Fuel – Sleep)
Be understanding and loving when things don’t go right. Admit when I am wrong. (Character)
Be encouraging and patient when I need to ask for help. (Role Models – Missing Persons)
Give myself lots of free and unstructured time to have fun and grow. (Play – The missing 18th Critical Incident)
Take to heart that leaders are made not born!
[1] Eve Poole, Leadersmithing: Revealing the Trade Secrets of Leadership. (London, UK: Bloomsbury Publishing 2017), 10.
[2] Poole, Leadersmithing, 181.
[3] Ibid., 181.
[4] Ibid., x.
[5] Ibid., 15.
[6] Ibid., 3
[7] Ibid., 10-11.
[8] Ibid., 13.
[9] Morris, Eileen, and Stephanie Pereau Crilly. 1984. Get Ready, Set, Grow! Belmont, CA: David S. Lake Publishers.
About the Author
Jenny Dooley
Jenny served as a missionary in Southeast Asia for 28 years. She currently resides in Gig Harbor, Washington, where she works as a Licensed Mental Health Counselor and Certified Spiritual Director in private practice with her husband, Eric. Jenny loves to listen and behold the image of God in others. She enjoys traveling, reading, and spending time with her family which include 5 amazing adult children, 3 awesome sons-in-law, a beautiful daughter-in-law, and 8 delightful grandchildren.10 responses to “Get Ready, Set, Grow!”
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Hi Jenny, this was a fun post to read.
Oops, Pikes Peak State College just texted us that tomorrow is a SNOW day. In appreciation for technology I will open up a test that the students can do online.
Which sort of brings me back to my focus in the ESL classroom. In a nice coincidence, I was in the chapter that talked about how leaders learn (or people in general). In a nice segue it speaks into my NPO.
The topic is MARC. Meaning (the organization of material, building on previous knowledge), Attention (effort and motivation) Repetition (rehearsal) and Creativity (distinctiveness and uniqueness). Page 44
Meaning – As we have seen, if you can tag it as a new and particularly useful piece of learning, your brain will be naturally keen on it.
Attention – Apparently, healthy people do not usually get more forgetful with age, they just stop paying attention, because they have seen or heard it all before.
Repetition – Culpin, reports that short-term or ‘working memory only lasts for about 15 seconds. To transfer it into longer-term memory requires rehearsal. Even the act of saying it out loud will help, because it uses more of your brain than listening.
Creativity – My Very Excellent Mother Just Served Up Nine Pizzas (order of the planets). Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune (although Neptune is now a moon).
For my current students (all from the Caribbean, Central and South America). I find myself employing MARC. In an incredibly boring topic (Grammar), I have to stretch myself to make the class usable for the students. MARC is one of overarching ways of thinking that provides a window into an effective class.
The central issue for me (in my NPO) is to use proper background scaffolding (M), to grab their attention in needed integration topics (A), provide opportunities to practice the integration skills (R), and to do it in a creative way that helps them retain the information they need (C).
Shazam…
Thanks for your comments…Shalom…Russ
Hi Russell, I can tell you are an excellent teacher! I don’t know that I have heard of MARC before now. In that learning modality, how are emotions and belief in self (capacity and agency) addressed? How do those aspects of the learning process come up in your teaching? And, like me, what in your teaching experiences have you learned that impacted you?
Hi Jenny,
In that learning modality, how are emotions and belief in self (capacity and agency) addressed?
MARC p.44 is a very closely related to Krashen & Terrell’s Comprehensive Input for ESL teaching.
I don’t think that either MARC or Comprehensive input address emotions and belief in self. I am unfamiliar with the aspects of capacity and agency that you mentioned. (Teach me?)
How do those aspects of the learning process come up in your teaching?
Comprehensive Input focuses on Content Based Instruction for those in U.S. schools. Essentially, a biology teacher must be both ESL and Biology teacher. The teacher must provide scaffolding for the student (something in their backgrounds that supports the topic). An easy start is with vocabulary, placing the English (pineapple) next the Hungarian word ( Ananas). The student recognizes one and hangs pineapple as the English meaning.
And, like me, what in your teaching experiences have you learned that impacted you?
I love it when the student moves from the frustrating liminal phase and has his/her AHA moment! When the light bulb goes on it is a wonderful thing to witness.
Wow does this discussion count towards our 8?
Russ
Hi Russell, I don’t know that my question, “In that learning modality, how are emotions and belief in self (capacity and agency) addressed?” was well worded. My apologies! I appreciate your responses and your approaches to teaching and learning. I think in learning spaces we don’t often consider how emotions or beliefs about self play into our learning or difficulties with learning. Though I felt it was somewhat addressed or implied by Meyer and Land when encountering threshold learning concepts. I know for me capacity means I have to set boundaries and honor limitations. That was part of what I learned about myself being a tortoise years ago. Agency is how I am taking action and responsibility for my learning. Tackling concepts and mastering them moves me forward not just with acquiring knowledge but with emotion regulation and believing in my self.
When I worked as an elementary school counselor I taught a lot about emotions, compassion, empathy, and problem solving, and had plenty of aha moments regarding how I managed my own feelings. I taught the students belly breathing and it became a routine part of our class. It was especially helpful after recess! The amazing thing was watching the kids engage, calm down, and then tell me about the experience. I have been practicing breath work of some sort ever since!
I, too, was struck by Poole’s question, “What do you know now as a leader that you wish you had known ten years ago?” As you said, many leaders’ responses focused on self-awareness, which I would equate with emotional intelligence. I’m hearing this same theme again and again in many of our cohort’s NPO discussions. This focus on emotional intelligence seems to be making the jump from leadership gurus to the world of Christian ministry (to a greater or lesser extent depending on what corner of Christendom you find yourself in). I’m curious if we’ll start to see more church-based emotional health workshops or similar offerings. Peter Scazzerro writes about something like this in Emotionally Healthy Spirituality, but I wonder if we’ll start to see much more of this. Are you aware of churches around your area that offer workshops or focus on emotional health in some other way?
Hi Kim, Emotional intelligence is a topic of interest in some churches in my area. My husband and I have done some seminars locally. A few churches have their own counseling ministries with licensed mental health counselors offering care. Most of my referrals come from pastors and I frequently work with pastor’s wives and missionaries. I think there is more interest and curiosity now, but it does depend. Not everyone sees emotion as a reliable and trustworthy God-given gift. We fear what we don’t understand and most of us did not get a lot of help or education around understanding our emotions. In the church there can be some unnecessary shame attached to emotion as well. I would love to see more churches addressing emotion in healthy ways rather than denying feelings or labeling them as sinful. Having an emotion isn’t the problem. What we do with it can be. In between is the skills we need to manage, regulate, and get the message of what our emotions are trying to tell us. If we shut them down we can’t keep ourselves safe, or others for that matter. If we over react we can’t make good choices. Befriending our emotions is a very helpful tool for everyone. I am realizing how essential it is for leaders!
Jenny,
I will chime in regarding Emotional Intelligence that, yes, there is a growing hunger to grow in this area, especially in the wake of Covid19. We’ve been asked to teach on this subject multiple times in pastoral leadership settings. Eva Poole takes Hay’s emotional intelligence model (p. 80) and asks leaders to go beyond using it as a psychometric tool and practice transitioning between the boxes of self-awareness, social awareness, self-management, and relationship management until it can be done with ease and with trained emotional regulation (p. 81).
This takes the state of Emotional Intelligence beyond simply being aware of each situation to active integration in everyday circumstances. I can see where her rule of “apprenticeship” is constantly applied in whatever she teaches. Poole advises leaders that are faced with tough situations, to distance themselves and then reframe. This is simple, yet powerful if put into action within the teams we lead.
Ah. So much food for thought around this area of Emotional Intelligence.
Hi Esther,
I had noticed Hay’s emotional intelligence grid and underlined the question, “Are you good at scrambling back and forth over the walls between them? I think what she was really getting at was how high and how thick those walls are which increase the difficulty of moving back ad forth “with ease” as she puts it. Distance and reframing are really helpful. I take a step back and try to look at the situation as an outside observer and just notice what is happening while noticing what I am thinking and feeling about a situation. It takes a lot of practice. There are a few ministry situations that I wish I could go back and try that approach on now! I find that if I get caught up in taking things personally, the walls get higher and thicker. Good self-awareness. The grid also reminded me of the Johari Window which I think is also applicable to the topic of leadersmithing.
Thank you for writing such a valuable thing, Jenny!
I like your statement about competence over perfection. Paying attention to competence will allow us to admit deficiencies and focus on improving capabilities. As a counselor who is currently focusing on your NPO, what competencies do you have that are experiencing a forging process through this course?
Hi Dinka, Thank you for responding to my post. I think my answer to your question is coming in fuller detail with our next book and blog post. My competencies in empathy and compassion are being forged by a new perspective. I am beginning to understand why there have been times when being empathetic and compassionate were not the right tool I needed to use. In certain situations they really can backfire and sabotage my ability to provide effective leadership. More to come on that next week! Thank you for the question. How about you? Do have competencies that are being challenged in new ways?