Leadership Quote

"Example is leadership." -- Albert Schweitzer

Leadership as Described by Alton Chung

"I see my role as that of facilitator, i.e. to ask a lot of questions, to ensure that everyone knows what everyone else is doing, and to hold the space for what we would like to become."

Chairperson Alton Chung from the National Storytelling Network
in Storytelling Magazine Jan/Feb/Mar 2012

We Are All In a Story

This is my first blog post from my new computer!  Yes, it was time to make the leap from my 2003 desktop ... I'm still in the (learning) process of moving things from the old to the new ... Did you know a CAT5 crossover cord is the cheapest cord to transfer information from computer to laptop?  At least that's what I've heard.  We'll see what happens when the item comes.



After trying to create a home sharing network and failing (my old computer needed to have Windows 7 which I was not willing to install), I hope this cord will expedite the process.

I debated about just uploading all my pictures to Shutterflly.  However, Shutterfly doesn't give you the option to download pictures saved on the site back to your computer.

So many technology options ...

At any rate, I wanted to share this quote with you.  It's my own when I was four years old.  Thanks to mom for writing it down so long ago!

"Everybody is growing up.  We are all in a story; Is it a real story?"

Leadership and the Future (quote)

“Leadership is having ideas that change the future.”  Glee, Season 1

A Customer Is the Most Important Visitor (Quote)

"A customer is the most important visitor on our premises. He is not dependent on us. We are dependent on him. He is not an interruption in our work. He is the purpose of it. He is not an outsider in our business. He is part of it. We are not doing him a favor by serving him. He is doing us a favor by giving us an opportunity to do so."

This quote is attributed to Mahatma Gandhi, but the exact source cannot be pinpointed.

Intelligence in Learning Environments

The following was posted on the storytell listerv: http://www.storynet.org/storytell.html. For me, it's a reminder about the overarching goal of libraries to provide access to all kinds of information and to provide programs that meet those educational gaps as well as to motivate learning in general as opposed to learning a particular kind of knowledge:

What Is Intelligence, Anyway?
By Isaac Asimov

What is intelligence, anyway?

When I was in the army, I received the kind of aptitude test that all
soldiers took and, against a normal of 100, scored 160. No one at the
base had ever seen a figure like that, and for two hours they made a big
fuss over me.

(It didn't mean anything. The next day I was still a buck private with
KP - kitchen police - as my highest duty.)

All my life I've been registering scores like that, so that I have the
complacent feeling that I'm highly intelligent, and I expect other
people to think so too.

Actually, though, don't such scores simply mean that I am very good at
answering the type of academic questions that are considered worthy of
answers by people who make up the intelligence tests - people with
intellectual bents similar to mine?

For instance, I had an auto-repair man once, who, on these intelligence
tests, could not possibly have scored more than 80, by my estimate. I
always took it for granted that I was far more intelligent than he was.

Yet, when anything went wrong with my car I hastened to him with it,
watched him anxiously as he explored its vitals, and listened to his
pronouncements as though they were divine oracles - and he always fixed
my car.

Well, then, suppose my auto-repair man devised questions for an
intelligence test.

Or suppose a carpenter did, or a farmer, or, indeed, almost anyone but
an academician. By every one of those tests, I'd prove myself a moron,
and I'd be a moron, too.

In a world where I could not use my academic training and my verbal
talents but had to do something intricate or hard, working with my
hands, I would do poorly.

My intelligence, then, is not absolute but is a function of the society
I live in and of the fact that a small subsection of that society has
managed to foist itself on the rest as an arbiter of such matters.

Consider my auto-repair man, again.

He had a habit of telling me jokes whenever he saw me.

One time he raised his head from under the automobile hood to say: "Doc,
a deaf-and-mute guy went into a hardware store to ask for some nails. He
put two fingers together on the counter and made hammering motions with
the other hand.

"The clerk brought him a hammer. He shook his head and pointed to the
two fingers he was hammering. The clerk brought him nails. He picked out
the sizes he wanted, and left. Well, doc, the next guy who came in was a
blind man. He wanted scissors. How do you suppose he asked for them?"

Indulgently, I lifted by right hand and made scissoring motions with my
first two fingers.

Whereupon my auto-repair man laughed raucously and said, "Why, you dumb
jerk, He used his voice and asked for them."

Then he said smugly, "I've been trying that on all my customers today."
"Did you catch many?" I asked. "Quite a few," he said, "but I knew for
sure I'd catch you."

"Why is that?" I asked. "Because you're so goddamned educated, doc, I
knew you couldn't be very smart."

And I have an uneasy feeling he had something there.

Nonviolent Communication (quotes)

Things to think about while helping an angry person:

Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life by Marshall B. Rosenberg

"Behind all those messages we've allowed ourselves to be intimidated by are just individuals with unmet needs appealing to us to contribute to their well being." (99)

"...messages previously experienced as critical or blaming begin to be seen for the gifts they are: opportunites to give to people who are in pain." (100)

Customer Service: Solve the Problem (Quote)

"Your job is to solve the problem, not to determine who is at fault."
From "Respond Confidently to Customer Complaints" in First-Rate Customer Service newsletter issue 595

The Soul of Leadership by Deepak Chopra

Seven Notes from Chapter Ten "A Template for Awareness":

1) "Leaders and Followers co-create each other.  Followers express a need, and the leader supplies a response.  Both arise together."
2) "The group's needs must be met wherever they are ... Needs fuel change."
3) "The outcome of any situation is defined in advance by the vision that goes into solving it."
4)  "Needs are designed to evolve, and a leader must be aware of this in order to foresee the future of the group and anticipate its needs."
5)  "For every need, the leader must play the right role."
6)  "The leader who understands the hierarchy of needs and responses will succeed."
7) "Leading ... means ... you spend time investing in relationships with those who turn to you for answers ... Unafraid of forming emotional bonds ..."

Leaders as Servants to Ideas and People

"Institutions function better when the idea, the dream, is to the fore, and the person, the leader is seen as servant of the idea ... It is the idea that unites people in the common effort, not the charisma of the leader ... Far too many of our contemporary institutions do not have an adequate dream, an imaginative concept that will raise people's sights close to where they have the potential to be ...(78)"
From The Power of Servant Leadership by Robert K. Greenleaf

I do believe that we should always reach for our potential; There is always something to learn.  However, sociology major undergrad that I am, I realize the importance of dynamics with people.  So I also recommend reading 151 Quick Ideas to Improve Your People Skills by Robert E. Dittmer and Stephanie McFarland.

And while we are on the topic of institutional/personal potential and communication skills VERSUS the mentality that the person with the most power (e.g. loudest voice, strongest kick) K.O.s ... OK's the role of leader ... try The Gentle Art of Communicating with Kids: From Toddlers to Teens by Suzette Haden Elgin, Ph.D.

I'm liking that I can now rightfully post 

images of book covers

that I find fascinating 

and appropriate to the topics of this blog.

Enjoy ... and please feel free to make a comment!

Mem Fox on Reading to Babies (Quote)

"The best time to start reading aloud to a baby is the day it is born.  The lilting rhythm of a simple bedtime book on that first thrilling, exhausting day is soothing for the tremulous parents and the new child and adds to the bonding between them.  It gives them something to "talk about" together."

From Reading Magic: Why Reading Aloud to Our Children 
Will Change Their Lives Forever by Mem Fox.

Emotional - Social Learning

"The goal for parenting should not be achieving a brittle "positive" psychology -- clinging to a state of perpetual joy in one's children -- but rather teaching a child how to return on her own to a state of contentment, whatever may happen."
-- from Daniel Goleman's Social Intelligence (183)

Google Books

Have a quote? Google Book search it.  (Note the new interface!)
 
"The overall purpose of human communication is -- or should be -- reconciliation." M Scott Peck