Colleagues,



Last year I and three colleagues gave a workshop about leadership in the MEd
progam at OISE in Toronto. I’d like to share a few points.



We began by discussing whether leadership was a role, a process, or a
relationship. We concluded that it could be any of these and all of these.
We also used Peter Senge’s work about leaders as designers, teachers, and
stewards to generate conversations.



We found these quotes insightful:

"Contemporary definitions most often reject the idea that leadership
revolves around the leader's ability, behaviours, styles or charisma. Today
scholars discuss the basic nature of leadership in terms of the
'interaction' among people involved in the process - leaders and followers.
Leadership is not the work of a single person, rather it can be explained
and defined as a 'collaborative endeavour' among group members. Therefore
the essence of leadership is not the leader but the relationship."  Joseph
Rost, 1993

“To lead people, walk beside them ... As for the best leaders, the people do
not notice their existence. The next best, the people honor and praise. The
next, the people fear; and the next, the people hate ... When the best
leader's work is done the people say, “We did it ourselves!”  Lao Tsu

The above quote resonates in particular for me. We tend to look towards the
“top” for our leaders, but as the previous quote suggests, leadership isn’t
about a hierarchy but about people, relationships, and collaboration. Often
our most effective leaders are the unsung heroes who do what they do day
after day with passion and commitment – this is especially true for adult
learners. I’m so pleased to read today about initiatives that recognize this
and that are engaging learners in opportunities to contribute and
collaborate.



If you are interested in reading more about leadership, here are a few
resources:



Goleman, Daniel. (1998). *Working with Emotional Intelligence*. New York:
Bantam Press.

Goleman, Daniel. (2002). *Primal Leadership*. Boston: Harvard Business
School Press.

Greenleaf, Robert K. (2003). *The Servant-Leader Within: A Transformative
Path*. New York: Paulist Press.

Kouzes, James M. and Posner, Barry Z. (2002). *The Leadership Challenge*.
San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Marquardt, Michael. (2005). *Leading with Questions*. San Francisco:
Jossey-Bass.

Prewitt, V. (2003). Leadership development for learning organizations.
*Leadership
& Organization Development Journal*.  Vol. 24, Issue 1/2, pp. 58-61.

Senge, Peter M. (1990). The Leader’s New Work: Building Learning
Organizations. *Sloan Management Review*, 32(1), 7-23



I’d like to add something on a personal note. While researching for this
workshop, I noticed a dearth of material about leadership written by women –
most of the books and quotes I found were written by men. We didn’t touch on
this in our workshop but it became a topic of interest in our group work and
class.



I know it’s *not* that there is a lack of women leaders, but it’s a
reflection of whose voices are heard, who has power and who is given power
to speak and be recognized. I can think of many women who have lead and
inspired, just as the Lao Tzu quote suggests, by being with the people,
working together.



If you are interested in reading about some of these women, take a look at
the Omega Women’s Institute which “dedicated to cultivating women's wisdom
and developing a new power paradigm that honors the regenerative,
cooperative, and healing qualities of the feminine [along with the
masculine].”



http://eomega.org/omega/womensinstitute/



I’d be interested to hear your thoughts, especially as there are many women
on this list who are leaders in the adult education field, who have inspired
me, and whom I respect and admire.



Regards,




-- 
Anita H. Webb, MEd
One WITH One
www.onewithone.org
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