A Transformational Approach to Career School

Leadership
The definition of education is “the process of receiving or giving
systematic instruction” and an education is “giving moral, intellectual,
or social instruction.” Both derive from the Latin educare, which
means “lead out.” Regardless of the type of education we either
receive or propose to provide to others, leadership is at the heart of
the education. How we lead determines whether or not the process
inherent to education is successful for the ourselves and others.

In my burgeoning career as a member of the career college

community, I have had the honor to serve both as a faculty member
and as a leader (first at the program manager level and subsequently
at the director level). As a new faculty member, I had the good
fortune to work under a very supportive director and campus
president. Both felt very strongly that the role of the faculty was (and
is) to assist in the student in achieving career success, as well as
personal maturation. While it took me some time to appreciate this
role, I can now concretely understand how important the “personal
maturation” aspect of our role is.

There is, however, one challenge with this role: how can or should we
accomplish it? In my mind, it is a different onus altogether to assist
our students in personal maturation. For most of my instructors, as it
was for me, the initial view is that the role of the faculty is to teach. To
teach, regardless of its formal definition, often means to deliver
information that we then expect the student to learn. To learnis to be
able to utilize the information both within its received context and—
within reason—in novel ones. To teach someone to enter medical
record information, take blood pressure, or to give a massage is a
concrete skills that can be evaluated objectively. Success inthis aspect
can be measured. But how do we teach someone “to mature”?

The definition of maturing is growth in one or more dimensions of life:

social, mental, spiritual, etc. But the essence of maturation is
transformation. To mature, a tree must take the elements surrounding
it—earth, water, sunlight, wind, and air—and change them, through its
own processes, into usable tools for growth. A tree is endowed at birth
with the structures and tools to achieve this; otherwise, it quickly
withers and dies. Human beings are much the same, in that we must
take what our environment gives us and transform it into something
useful. The challenge is that, unlike the tree, people required
nourishment in dimensions below those of survival. We require,
according to Maslowe and others, elements such as beauty, purpose,
and internal drive to strive for greater things. Without these, we begin
to wither as individuals and, over time, feel ourselves relegated to role

Copyright © 2009 – Stuart Rice

of automaton within our own lives; or, perhaps worse, as a battery
used to empower the lives of others.

While the career school or college literature suggests that our role is
changing, we remain the choice of many people who view jobs as work
rather than as a venue for engaging and evolving their best qualities
and ideals. Hence, they seek “job training,” and we may very well be
—although we may not like to admit it—“just” giving them job training.
At our best though, we strive to give our students a perspective that
allows them to see themselves in a new light. But to do this, we must
transform our students. Which brings us back to our previous
question: how do we teach someone to mature? How do we teach
some to transform?

Teaching transformation is a top-down process that must be a lived

philosophy and reality for leadership, the faculty, and then the
students. Therefore, the only way to transform the lives of our
students is to be engaged in the process ourselves at a leadership
level. The remainder of this article will look at the ways in which we
can implement a model of transformational leadership within our own
communities.

The “ground” for transformation is the five key dimensions in which we

can experience change in our lives. I show these five elements in
Figure 1 below. The physicaldimension of wellness corresponds to our
self of well-being and stability within our body. This can mean freedom
from disease, a sense of the body’s ability to perform in response to
our demands, and self-esteem regarding our physical appearance. The
emotional dimension of wellness corresponds to a recognition of our
emotional state by those around us. The ability to express emotion
and to have that expression recognized by others, without judgment or
evaluation is a critical component of well-being, even more so than
being “understood.” The psychological dimension corresponds to the
preponderance of satisfaction, stability, and consistency. This same
concept can be expressed, in the negative, as the absence of anger,
fear, and doubt; however, it is more important that the positive
expression of this exist since a leader can actively achieve this. The
intellectual dimension corresponds to the fulfillment of cognitive needs
for development and expansion, as well as appropriate challenging of
staid and outmoded models of thinking. Intellectual growth demands
appropriately delivered challenges to modes of thinking, particularly
those that are motivated by the other aspects of the model. Finally,
the spiritualdimension involves the development of a sense of purpose
and the unification of our moment-by-moment narrative with that
purpose. While seemingly the sole purview of religious or “spiritual”
practice, tending to the spiritual is perhaps the most important
function of the leader.

In each of these definitions, I emphasize particular elements. These

emphasized points correspond to the key elements of the
Copyright © 2009 – Stuart Rice
transformational leader, which can be delivered as 5 descriptive
statements. These five descriptive statements are:

The transformational leader…

1. Tends to physical health through effective techniques to

maintain or expand the scope of physical ability;
2. Recognizes the emotional livelihood of herself as a prerequisite
to acknowledging the emotional lives of others;
3. Maintains an internal sense of satisfaction, stability, and
consistency through timely recognition and integration of new
information in light of these values;
4. Embraces the unknown and uncomfortable as the ground for
rapid and lasting growth; and,
5. Persists in her role because it is synonymous with her internal
vision of herself.

To these five statements we can add—once they are internally

achieved—“and helps others do they same.”

The vehicle for embodying—notachieving—these statements is an

active practice of self-reflection and self-examination in relation to
them. Therefore, the first action for the transformational leader is to
engage this practice on a consistent basis. Because self-reflection is
most effective when the leader uses a structured process, the following
grid can give shape and support to that effort.

<insert question grid here>

When performing self-reflection, particularly one in which we rank or

measure ourselves, two missteps are fairly common. The first is that
we forget that this is self-reflection. No one is evaluating our
performance, and no one else will read this. Forgetting that we are
self-reflecting can lead us to view our processes as better than they
are because we are afraid that we are being evaluated. The second is
that we become overly critical with ourselvesand view our work poorly
because we become mired in the mentality: “I could have done better.”
There is nothing wrong with the statement—in fact, that statement is
critical to self-improvement. However, it can also be used as a shield
to allow us to exist in sustained mediocrity in relation to our potential.
This is not acceptable to the transformational leader.

Based on this, the first recommendation for creating a culture of

transformational leadership is to commit, as a leader, to a sustainable
process of self-reflection. The transformational leader documents this
process sothat there is awareness of, and respect for, the personal
growth and the changing nature of self-perception. When a leader
commits to self-reflection, he or she inherently grows all dimensions of
the self.

Copyright © 2009 – Stuart Rice

Self-reflection, while valuable, must also lead to action. Consequently,
the next stage of transformational leadership must be concrete action
within the five dimensions that we can actively change. These
concrete actions are highly variable, but anyaction should be linked to
the specific aspects of the self-reflection. Since most of us are familiar
with the elements of physical wellness—even though we may avoid it!
—we will take a look at actions within the emotional and psychological
dimensions.

All human beings have an emotional core. The emotional core consists
of the range of internally expressible emotions that each of us can
experience. For example, most people have an internal emotional
states that we label “anger,” “happiness,” or “joy.” However, each of
us can experience those internal emotions in different ways, to
different degrees, and at different levels of visibility. In response to
the same situation or stimulation, a person may experience
“compassion” with tearful eyes or a wide smile; in a way that makes
them feel suffused with the sensation or localized to a specific place;
and may have a very demonstrative display or a very subdued.

Regardless of how we express, it is important that our emotional state

is fully and authentically expressed. Importantly, the transformation
leader does not deny or suppress the emotional core of his or her
leadership. Stoicism is not a virtue in transformational leadership.
Instead, an authenticity regarding emotional reaction is critical. In his
work developing non-violent communication, psychologist and
communication expert Marshall Rosenberg places incredible
importance on this point. Being able to identify our own internal states
is a critical first process in dialoguing with others in a way that takes
into account emotion. Identifying and positioning emotions,
particularly in critical dialogues, can dramatically increase their
effectiveness without becoming maudlin or mawkish.

Therefore, the first action in relationship to emotion is to develop an

awareness of:

1. The way in which we express or suppress emotion;

2. The degrees to which situations invoke our emotional response;
and,
3. That way in which we externally express or suppress our
emotional state.

The “answers” to these areas can be in the following form:

1. I really try to suppress my feeling of anger.

2. I get angry when a person who I don’t feel knows something
“fakes” an answer.
3. I suppress this emotion by crossing my arms and biting my lip.

Copyright © 2009 – Stuart Rice

While this exercise may feel difficult or hokey, the lack of emotional
awareness can play a huge role in why we either resist situations or
have difficulty in handling them. Once we become aware of our own
emotional core, we can then interact authentically with others.

In the area of psychological awareness, it is important to scope the

area of inquiry. This is neither “pop psychology” or “therapy.” Rather,
it is deeper mental questions and issues. The idea brought up above
was the “preponderance of satisfaction, stability, and consistency.”
Like the emotional area, this can be difficult to investigate. There is an
old Zen phrase regarding meditation: “The mind cannot polish the
mind.” It often challenging for us to ask questions about ourselves,
particularly something that connects to our fundamental ability to
experience a state of being. Satisfaction, stability, and consistency are
states of being. To assist in this process, we can look at the following
brainstorming questions:

1. What does the term “stable” mean for you?

2. How do you feel in the situations that are the opposite of this
term?
3. What does it mean for you to be satisfied?
4. How do you achieve satisfaction in your daily life? in your work
life?
5. How would you define consistency? What does it look like?
6. How do you experience consistency in your daily life?

What may come up in response is an amalgam of different types of

words, cutting across multiple areas of life: physical, emotional, social,
etc. Importantly, do not censor these thoughts as they come up.
While avoiding any forcing, try to exhaustyour thoughts on the subject.
Then, examine the list. Is there anything that surprises you? seems
inconsistent? Again, don’t cross out the things that don’t seem to fit.
These are all valuable insights.

Based on your definition lists, begin to connect the things in your daily
personal and professional life with this list. How much parity or
disparity is there between your list and your experience of everyday
life? What concrete decisions and actions could you take to make
changes that would improve your sense of stability, satisfaction, and
consistency?

Using these three dimensions as a starting point, the potential

transformational leader can begin the process of self-reflection and
self-examination. From this self-reflection and self-examination we can
begin to develop our own internal and external process of
transformation. From this seed, we can begin to transform the
organizations and people around us.

Copyright © 2009 – Stuart Rice