Gaining by Giving How to be a Servant Leader

Interview and Leadership Philosophy

Section One

Introduction

The school district is a title 1 school district in a low socio-economic neighborhood. The demographics consist of 68% African-American, 22% White, 10% Hispanic. The school district has stated that it wants to promote more social justice learning throughout the schools in the district. Thus, the Superintendent of the school district is very vocal about social justice issues.

Interview

How and why did you become a leader?

Very early on I became a leader in my family—that’s where it starts. Helping out my mother with the chores in the house, making sure we’re all fed, bills are getting paid. I got my first job when I was 14 and I was helping in every way I could. You know if you don’t learn it home, it’s tough to get a sense of your own power to lead, because that’s the best place, the best opportunity to get it.

What is your personal background?

I come from a single-parent home in a very working class neighborhood. I know what it means to have a blue-collar work ethic, but also what it means for people to struggle. We have a district here that reflects a lot of the problems in the economy, in society in general, where there isn’t always the kind of stability and the values that really foster a sense of accountability. I got that at home and from my church, and I had teachers along the way who supported those values, and that’s what we need more of today, because not every family is able to do it on their own.

How did you learn from the obstacles and challenges faced?

I learned that it’s important not to get down on yourself or on others because you never know their situation and you should never think of your own situation as beyond repair. There is a strength in weakness as Scripture tells us, and what that means is the more you realize you’re down for the count the more you realize how dependent you are on God for getting you through. He sees what you need and His love is more abundant than anything else—so you put your trust in Him and He is always faithful.

What has been the lasting impact of your leadership?

We are growing and developing in ways that we need to. Bringing communities forward, and stressing the importance of integration between schools, businesses, families, churches—everything: you’ve got to get people involved and engaged because that’s the only way to make it all work.

Do you promote an ethical and productive school culture? If so, how? If not, why not? What could be done to remedy this situation?

Ethics are important, but what kind of ethical system are we going to have? A lot of ethical egoists out there, and that’s not good. We don’t need more people thinking about how they can use others to benefit themselves; we need people of strong character, people who are going to make a difference in the lives of others because they understand this is why they’ve been put on this earth, to love and show love and gain from giving rather than from taking.

Do you demonstrate a collaborative spirit, informed by relevant research and evidence? If so, how? If not, why not? What could be done to remedy this situation?

Obviously collaboration is a big part of what I bring. It’s based in research, yes, and it’s based in personal experience. Growing up, I could not have made it on my own, not in a single-parent home. But I had siblings, I had neighbors, I had a church community, and we all supported one another out of a spirit of generosity and love and that got us through difficult times. Today, we have teachers who bring that and we want to instill that same generosity and spirit of collaboration in our students and throughout our staff as well.

Section Two

My own leadership philosophy is based on the same spirit of collaboration and generosity as that of the Superintendent. It focuses on the transformation and change, which means there needs to be a vision of what I want to achieve, and I need the ability to communicate and justify that vision so as to get stakeholders to buy into it. I need the support of stakeholders to help implement it, and that means I need to be open to feedback so that I can hear their voices and respond to them with the same kind of support I seek from them in return. I would call my philosophy the philosophy of gaining by giving. The main value here is that we are not in this by ourselves and we are not dependent wholly upon ourselves: we are in a community, given to us by God, and He is going to help us achieve good things that glorify Him so long as we do what is right, show love and compassion to our fellow man, and stay humble in the process. We have to meet life with a sense of joy, taking joy in giving, and gaining the peace and satisfaction that comes from this spirit. Life is a collaboration, a true collaborative process; uniting under a single vision is my aim. That vision is to implement professional learning networks (PLNs) that use social media platforms like Twitter to connect teachers and students and families into a virtual community that actually facilitate the development of the real-world community as well (Rodman, 2018). Keeping everything united and integrated in spirit of giving is the core component of my leadership philosophy.

As Jentz (2009) points out, it is predictable that people will feel powerless from time to time. It is those moments when the community has to be there, and social media is such a huge part of people’s lives now. It is tool that can be used for good, but too many people use it to attack others, and that is not the way we want to use it in my philosophy. I want to lead by example, and that means setting up PLNs and promoting them so that people feel they are genuinely part of a real legitimate community of like-minded people, young and old, all of us striving to be the best versions of ourselves. So in a PLN, there could be a group of teachers interacting with a group of parents and learners and business owners, supporting one another with common sense, understanding, and advice. People are powerless until they realize where the real power lies, and then they are no longer weaker but strong, so long as they buy into the vision.

Helping teachers become leaders is the topic of the essay by Phelps (2008) and it gets to the core of what my Superintendent said defining a vision and assisting everyone in the role they are meant to play. Everyone has a role, and that is a lesson my Superintendent learned early on in life: so be a role player. Think of the greatest NBA teams in history. Think of the way Alex Caruso embraces his job as a role player on the LA Lakers. That team does not win a championship without guys like Caruso. It does not matter if you have LeBron James or Anthony Davis—it takes a team with a deep bench to make it all the way to the top (Syvstum, 2020). That is the lesson I want to instill: we need role players, and no matter how big or small they are, each one is so important and needs to know that what they do is vital. That is how you build leadership: even the smallest role players can become the biggest role players over time when they have that sense of self-worth, that sense of contributing to the whole and gaining by giving. If you give your all, you win the prize. Caruso by himself does not get a ring. LeBron by himself does not get a ring. Together, accepting their roles, being aware of how they can help others—that is what gets them all a ring.

As Oncken Jr. and Wass (1975) note, the leader has to realize he is working for his followers, for the stakeholders buying into the vision. They are not working for him; they are working to achieve the vision. The leader is nothing without his followers, and he is a leader because he gives himself to them, to the vision, to the goal. Even when the going gets tough and all the metrics say that one is failing, it does not matter: Fleshman (2013) shows that in this fight to succeed, we all need to be scrappers, coming back against the odds, demonstrating grit and perseverance, and showing our ability to bounce back from adversity by developing that most important of all qualities: resilience. Be resilient to the odds, be resilient to the environmental factors that can wear people down; be resilient to the statistics; be open to God’s love because that is where the grace comes from to get through anything. I want my teachers and learners and parents and community leaders and business owners to be aware of that fact. No matter who they think they are or what they think they can do on their own does not matter one whit. They have to think in terms of giving, because God sets the example and God is always giving more than we deserve. Keep that mentality and that spirit alive and the reward will be great. That is the vision I want to communicate.