The Leader in Me Author: | Language: English | ISBN:
B0084H9CMS | Format: PDF
The Leader in Me Description
A growing number of extraordinary everyday schools, parents, and business leaders around the world are partnering together to produce inspiring personal leadership qualities and 21st-century skills in children.
In 1999, the A.B. Combs Elementary School in Raleigh, North Carolina, launched a new leadership program that taught Stephen R. Covey's The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People to a pilot group of children. The next year they instituted the program school wide. By the end of that second year, the average end-of-grade score for the school had gone from an 84 to a 94. The school reported significant increases in self-confidence and self-worth in the children, a dramatic drop in discipline problems, and impressive increases in teacher and administrator job satisfaction. More importantly, parents began reporting very positive changes in their children's demeanors, attitudes, and abilities. Students began taking an active interest in the world around them, and seeking out ways to become involved in decision making, problem solving, and conflict resolution.
As news of the school's success spread, more educators and schools around the world began adopting the mantra to "develop leaders one child at a time". Business and civic leaders started approaching and partnering with schools in their communities to provide resources for teacher training and student materials. Each school and family approaches the principles differently, yet they have all enjoyed the same incredible success.
The best way to prepare the next generation for the future is to emphasize the value of communication, cooperation, initiative, and unique, individual talent - for nothing undermines confidence more than comparison. Whether in the classroom or at home, it is never too early to start applying leadership skills to everyday life.
Drawing on the many techniques and examples that have already seen incredible success around the world, The Leader in Me...
- Audible Audio Edition
- Listening Length: 8 hours and 40 minutes
- Program Type: Audiobook
- Version: Unabridged
- Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio
- Audible.com Release Date: May 17, 2012
- Language: English
- ASIN: B0084H9CMS
This book caught my eye because I have been looking at how education will change to deal with the increasing need for more creativity and innovation within all employees in the future. This book provides a good overview of some changes tried by a number of primarily elementary schools that I did not know about, so it fulfills my need. However, it is primarily an overview. One looking for more of a how to do it will be disappointed.
Basically, the book tells the story of how, in particular, A.C. Combs Elementary School has adopted the seven habits as a kind of value set underlying the traditional curriculum across the school. Other schools are also cited, but with much less detail. Students have done very well, even on the standardized exams that are so important to schools today. In my experience this emphasis on underlying values is one key to a new generation of education, so this material validated what I have been seeing and provided other reinforcing models. (The idea of values is not "being good" but rather a way of life that brings success.) The seven habits do provide a good basis for leadership, and I am now considering how they can add to the initiatives I am doing. However, our focus on creativity and innovation means we use other values that reach beyond the seven habits, primarily think-team-trust. This does not detract from the value of the stories told here to stimulate more thinking about the ideal next generation of education for the 21st Century.
Note that Covey's company apparently now has a large business in providing materials and training for education activities such as those cited in the book. One could perceive this book as a sales pitch.
If you, as a parent, teacher, or mentor, are interested in fostering your child's growth in every aspect, then this book is incredibly helpful in doing so. The Leader in Me: How Schools and Parents Around the World Are Inspiring Greatness, One Child At a Time has real-life examples of case studies, such as the focus on A.B. Combs Elementary with over 800 students who represent 58 countries and 27 languages. With the strategy of "Developing Leaders One Child at a Time" they based their principles in both the 7 Habits and the Baldrige Program (see: [...] In this book there are implementable ideas for not only teachers and programs of involvement and leadership for children, but ways as a parent you could come up with similar practices at home and with the family doing outreach and community projects.
In the "Aligning for Success" chapter, you find practices taught to the children and many acronyms for education. If you read Malcolm Gladwell's most recent book Outliers: The Story of Success some of these things will sound familiar to you already. In the "Unleashing a Culture of Leadership" chapter, you'll see some ideas of traditions to incorporate, like: Leadership Day, Inaugural Ball, International Festival, Silver-Tray Luncheon, Service Projects and Celebrate Success Day. There are, of course, a lot of evidence from other schools who incorporate the 7 Habits into their curriculum and the stats provided, and a lot of talk about the 7 Habits.
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