Hello Dance!

Leadership and Cake

20 Sep 2010 Leave a Comment

by hellodance in Good Eatin', Leadership, Los Angeles

This morning, as I was sitting in my neighborhood Starbucks finishing Nick Kristof’s Half the Sky and starting to read Servant As Leader by Robert Greenleaf, I realized that I hadn’t called my mother in over a week. My mother is the closest human connection I have, for more than the obvious reasons. She and I share a passion for the arts and also for the welfare of our neighbors. It’s a fair assumption that many of the decisions I have made along my career path have been a direct result of her influence in these two areas, even though we pursue these passions in vastly different ways.

After downloading onto her all of the great things I’m learning having just started grad school and how cute the girls I babysit for are, even when they’re naughty, I finally asked her how she was. She sighed and said, “I’m starting to think that my coworkers and people around me are looking at me as a troublemaker.” My mother is the elected union representative of her district for the Hawaii State Teachers Association. She adamantly opposes the education reform that began during the Bush administration and is being continued as Race to the Top in the Obama administration. Her goal is to protect the jobs of teachers by educating them about their rights, and standing up to non-teacher administrators who base teachers effectiveness on the results of standardized tests that don’t take into account many of the subjective factors like language, economics, and nutrition that also effect student performance. I admire her strength of will to voice her opinions, in spite of her superiors at the department of education that have told her explicitly to back off. She, however, was understandably discouraged by the lack of support.

One thing that I noticed in our conversation was the fact that my mother did not see herself as a leader. She wanted to stand up for those who were being threatened by the bigger system, but she felt alone. It made me reflect and share with her the Bolman-Deal frames of leadership I’m studying in my leadership classes at Pepperdine and how knowledge of her own frame, and also knowledge of her own Myers-Briggs personality type would help her communicate effectively with the teachers she was trying to protect as well as those administrators that told her that she would need to shut up or be forced to resign.

Were I in her position, as an ENFP Myers-Briggs type and human resources leader, I would make an effort to reach out to the teachers in my district. I would paint a picture of myself as a fun loving, conscientious advocate of my fellow teachers. I would not only organize monthly meetings, I would talk to as many individual teachers as possible, add them as friends on Facebook, start conversations with them on their walls based on our common interests and work towards making as many people as possible feel that I am listening to them, much more than my opposition. These teachers would not just be connections, they would be friends. The issue at hand would be less about the limitations we as teachers were facing, but i would attempt to inspire them to see their own potential, and give the community of teachers a place to go to find research that validates the importance of public school teachers and thus, empower them. When all teachers feel empowered with their concerns having been heard and validated, my theory is that they will want to join together to prevent being taken advantage of by the larger entity that may not be investing in their efforts adequately. Many voices would make a greater impact than one.

This conversation with my mom confirmed to me just how much of an ENFP I really am, complete with the wide circle of friends, creating empathetic connections, and enthusiasm for a particular project. My personality type seems to be naturally inclined for leadership in the human resources frame as identified by Bolman & Deal. I realize that my approach is unique to me, and any challenges that potentially arise would be a result of these decisions I make from my own frame. For example, I may jump to conclusions much to easily based on information I receive from this network. Perhaps because I am so enthusiastic, I may run out of steam if I don’t feel supported enough. I may even doubt myself because I may not have enough information: we ENFPs aren’t so good with details.

I encouraged my mom to try to think like I was thinking, even though (if I were to venture a guess) her leadership style is probably more of the structural set, and her type might be an INTJ, which means that her most comfortable method of communication would be vastly different from my own: whereas I am definitely an extrovert, she is definitely an introvert. I’ll have to remember to make copies of my course work and hand it to her when the semester is over and maybe, just maybe we’ll be changing the world at the same time.

After a conversation like that, though, my priorities turned to the subject of left over birthday cake in my fridge. I wonder how many other ENFPs in the world also have a Winnie-the-Pooh-like sweet tooth after talking with their moms about such big ideas…

Eat Me!