Tom Sherrington's post on Behaviour really stirred something in the Twitter-sphere (I am not calling it X); his ability to mix vulnerability with real-world applications of his thoughts and experience spoke to a readership crying out for honesty and nuance in our binary world - something we at EduPulse are actively trying to fight.
Goffee and Jones's Why Should Anyone Be Led By You? (2019) is a prominent text taught in the MA Educational Leadership with the National Institute of Teaching and Education (conflict of interest alert) and really emphasises the importance of authenticity in leadership. Course writers Nigel Pattinson and Peter Ireland use this seminal text as a narrative line throughout the degree. It occurred to me that this sense of authenticity is exactly what drove Tom's post and his admission on Twitter that he had 'thought hard' about posting it only proves that he knew his moment of authenticity came with some risk.
I often find myself in reflective and overly critical moods where I've been confronted by my own failings and shortcomings as a leader through either being called out for it or through my own decoding of a situation I knew I should have handled better. But how can you make these moments meaningful enough to learn from them? What if we consider these moments not as individual moments with no connection but as Ausubel might recognise them?
Sarah Cottingham recently gifted us all with her Ausubel's Meaningful Learning in Action (2023) and this book immediately sprung to mind. Perhaps, instead of taking all of my individual errors as disconnected moments in time related only by virtue of my making them, I should be considering them in light of assimilation. If I take a previous error as relevant and existing knowledge and place my latest mistake in the position of new information, then I should be able to create new meaning and learn from my mistakes (Cottingham, 2023, p.26).
Vulnerable to Meaningful
Vulnerable leadership involves making meaningful connections between your past experiences to light the way forward those you lead. Connecting with your team members on a personal level, understanding their individual strengths, weaknesses and experiences demonstrates your ability to present meaningful leadership to them. Meaningful, here, to you too because your assimilation of past experiences and subsequent creating of new meaning, a new positive moment of reflection. By fostering these connections, we can better tailor our approach to teaching and guiding our team members, ultimately facilitating deeper learning and growth for all.
Tom's blog took his vulnerability, through honest and critical self-reflection, and it became meaningful when his readership were able to apply it to their own discreet bodies (or islands?) of knowledge and experience and create new meaning for themselves.
Our own journey from vulnerable moments to meaningful actions as leaders is surely a daily commute through the traffic of safeguarding, diversions of behaviour and the invisible roadworks of arbitrary paperwork and admin but this does not mean it's not important or impactful when we get it right, or, wrong. This means that Tom's assertion that we shouldn't allow things to get in the way of the important work we do is made only more pertinent when the most challenging 'thing' or obstacle is the one we impose on ourselves. By allowing ourselves to assimilate our experiences through acknowledgement of errors and being of a mindset that allows growth, we cannot underestimate the positive impact this will have on our own leadership journeys and those of the people who follow us.
I sense there's more to this thread and concept which we'll explore further in our upcoming book, but I couldn't let this thought lie unaddressed.
So, here's to Tom and others out there whose vulnerability we can make meaningful to ourselves for the betterment of all.
Chris
April, 2024
References
Cottingham, S. 2023. Ausubel's Meaningful Learning in Action. John Catt
Goffee, R., & Jones, G, (2019). Why should anyone be led by you? : What it takes to be an authentic leader. Harvard Business Review Press
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