Lemony Webbles

leadership

Here's a fun quote about the meaning of leadership, in the context of homeschooling, from "Teach Your Own" by John Holt and Patrick Farenga:

"Leaders are not what many people think- people with huge crowds following them. Leaders are people who go their own way without caring, or even looking to see whether anyone is following them. "Leadership qualities" are not the qualities that enable people to attract followers, but those that enable them to do without them. The include, at the very least, courage, endurance, patience, humor, flexibility, resourcefulness, determination, a keen sense of reality, and the ability to keep a cool and clear head even when things are going badly.

This is the opposite of the "Charisma" that we hear so much about. Charismatic leaders make us think, "Oh, if only I could do that, be like that." True leaders make us think, "If they can do that, then by golly I can too." They do not make people into followers, but into new leaders. The homeschooling movement is full of such people, "ordinary" people doing things that they never would have thought they could do- learning the law, questioning the experts, holding their ground against arrogant and threatening authorities, defending themselves and their convictions in the press, on TV, even in court. Seeing them, other ordinary people think they can do the same, and soon they do.

This is why it can be a little misleading to speak of the homeschooling "movement". Most people think of a movement as something like an army, a few generals and a great many buck privates. In the movement for homeschooling, everyone is a general." p. 66

This page of the book stood out to me because I feel myself immersed in trying to figure out how to 'do' homeschooling and at the same time to defend my right and good sense in choosing this path to family and friends. Doing those two things at the same time is a lot for me to keep in my head, especially with pregnancy brain, where I'm all 'baby baby baby' in my head all day. Anyways, the above quote is encouraging to me because it reminds me that it's ok to do what I think is right, even if it's different from what most other people are doing. That's always nice, as I add homeschooling to the long list of things that are different and unusual about me.

And since it's Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day, it seems especially appropriate to talk about what makes a leader effective.