I’m a hands-on, “all eyes on me” kind of leader. When I have directions to give, I need everyone’s attention. In discussions, I like to facilitate the group. Unsurprisingly, I’m a middle school math teacher! I signed up for LearnServe’s Jamaica abroad trip because I strongly believe in Learnerve’s ability to create experiences that enable high school students to become leaders of change in their communities. I never thought this experience would also enable me to be a better leader by seeing the leadership of my students.
When I think about what it means to be a great leader, I think about inspiring people through charisma and empowering people through encouragement. So it’s been a bit of a shock for me to see my students lead so effectively without using charisma or encouragement.
Take our time at Mary’s Child as an example. Yesterday was our first day at Mary’s Child, an organization that supports teen mom’s in Jamaica with a place to live during and post-pregnancy that is safe and allows them to continue to learn. For this project, our students are to facilitate a human-centered design process in order to identify and address the challenges that these mothers face. On the first day, we learned about their challenges through one-on-one interviews. It was important for us to focus our project on the needs that the mothers identified rather than what we thought their needs were. After the interviews, we reviewed our notes as a group to identify a challenge statement for our project – Mothers at Mary’s Child want to feel respected by their peers.
The goal for the second day was for a group of three students to lead a brainstorming session with the mothers on ways they could address this problem statement. As we waited in a dim classroom with ceiling fans churning the hot air, I eagerly checked in with each student leader. I was ready to get started and wanted to know how I could be helpful. I didn’t really get a clear answer from them. Several of the mothers from Mary’s Center slowly and quietly filed in and sat on the other side of the muggy room, clearly unsure of what to expect. One by one, the LearnServe students pulled chairs up next to them and began asking how their evening was and how their babies were doing. Surely after this small-talk, I thought, we’d get started on the brainstorming session. But, I was wrong.
For over an hour the LearnServe students talked with mothers about their favorite TV shows and movies. There is a community room at Mary’s Child with a large TV and that’s where many of the mothers spend their downtime. I was a little surprised at how many favorites they all had in common. For most of the hour, I paced in the back of the room, trying my best not to hijack what I felt was a derailed train. “Hey,” I would ask one of the students leading the activity, “should I hang up the poster board now?” “Do you need any markers or paper?” They answered with nods and continued talking.
Just as I was starting to wonder whether we’d spend the whole morning chatting, one of the student leaders stood up and wrote “Brainstorming” on the poster paper. There was a lot of energy in the room and it took a while for conversations to die down. “Finally!” I thought, “she’s going to explain our findings from yesterday’s stakeholder interviews and jump into the brainstorming.” Instead, she started with a question. “Do you think that the mothers here are respectful to each other?” There were a couple of murmurs of agreement from the mothers, clearly thrown off by the question. The LearnServe Student restated her question. “Y’all are always nice to each other?” Laughter burst from the mothers and then the frustrations began pouring out.
The mothers shared stories, teased each other, and went on tangents. The students let them talk with only a few gentle nudges to keep the conversation on topic. After several minutes, another LearnServe student chimed in, “how would you like to be treated?” The responses from the mothers were written on the poster paper. Soon, we had a few interesting ideas, and the mothers were eager to try one of them outright then and there. Each of them wrote down a list of personal boundaries that they wanted other mothers to respect.
As you might imagine, I was initially pretty skeptical. This was not how I showed the students to facilitate the activity. More importantly, this was not what good leadership looked like to me. There wasn’t much control, focus, or direction. But, I stayed in my seat at the back of the class and continued to observe silently. After seeing the mothers laugh with each other as they shared their frustrations with the group and then engage seriously in coming up with possible solutions, I began to see the activity, not as out of control, but as a different form of leadership that I could learn a lot from.
The set up of the activity is not ideal. Two groups of young people with seemingly little in common came together to do the difficult work of addressing one group’s biggest challenges. But, instead of diving right in, the Learnserve students focused on building relationships with the mothers and creating a common context for all of them to work from. After 45 minutes, everyone seemed to have a lot more in common. This allowed the mothers to feel comfortable sharing their thoughts.
After creating a shared context, the Learnserve students didn’t tell the mothers about their findings, they asked about them. This energized the group as they were able to take ownership of their own challenges and also take ownership of addressing them.
The group discussion went in a lot of different directions, and by the end, the Learnserve students were visibly exhausted by the effort of keeping the group on topic and improvising the structure of the activity. But, the students stuck to their approach which created a sense of collaboration and positivity that kept the ideas coming.
The morning session ended with the mothers walking and talking in pairs out of a much brighter room for lunch. I was beaming the drained students slumped into their chairs. Mission accomplished.
Our students led differently. Instead of inspiring through charisma, they inspired through connection. Instead of empowering through encouragement, they empowered by giving up control. I don’t know that this was intentional. My sense is that the students led by intuition which was a powerful reminder for me. They read the room and led in the way that felt most comfortable for everyone rather than how they imagine leader must be. I’m not only proud of them, I’m taking notes!
Ryan Steinbach
LearnServe Jamaica 2019 Trip Leader
DC International Public Charter School