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Designing Tomorrow's Leaders
By Jean McAulay
Peter Senge, acclaimed author, founding chair of the Society for Organizational Learning and a senior lecturer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, says it’s the role of leaders to create a compelling vision of the future because that’s what motivates people to give up their current views and ways of working for new ones.
John Kotter, Harvard professor of leadership and bestselling author says, “Leadership defines what the future should look like, aligns people with that vision and inspires them to make it happen despite the obstacles.”
And, Warren Bennis, prolific researcher and writer, Fortune 500 consultant and member of four United States Presidential Advisory Boards, expresses it poetically by saying, “Leaders must encourage their organizations to dance to forms of music yet to be heard.”
Life University is striving to compose such unique melodies with a vision for contemporary chiropractic education and the profession that will inspire students and others to conceive and implement a vitalistic approach to health in completely new ways.
Nurturing Our Future
“Too often our profession has let others define and lead us,” says Guy Riekeman, D.C., president of Life University. “At Life, we share a strong vision about a different path toward true health and we’re committed to developing the leaders who will make that vision a reality.”
The university’s commitment to developing effective leaders is evidenced in the inclusion of Leadership and Entrepreneurship as one of Life’s Eight Core Proficiencies woven throughout the academic experience. The university is convinced, as Bennis and many other leadership experts assert, that leaders are made, not born.
“Understanding how power is wielded, how others exert leadership and your own potential for stepping into leadership roles are key to evaluating the actions of leaders and being prepared to serve as one yourself,” explains Brian J. McAulay, D.C., Ph.D., Life provost and a published academic researcher in organizational behavior.
Life’s Doctor of Chiropractic students study varied contemporary leadership theories and models and specifically hone in on how leadership applies in the entrepreneurial setting, such as a solo or group chiropractic practice.
“There is no longer a dichotomy of leaders and followers,” explains Deborah Ancona, Ph.D., professor of management and faculty director of the MIT Leadership Center. “We all follow and we all lead. Even with teams of undergraduates working together, every person on that team can lead and follow at various points in the project based on areas of expertise or passion for various parts of the job. The best teams are created when people shift from leading to following depending on what the group is doing.”
Ancona says it’s critical to understand that no matter how qualified and effective a leader is, everyone is incomplete. “Creating effective leadership means surrounding yourself with people who complement your skills and creating structures that enable effective leadership at all levels, not just at the top.”
Learning by Doing
Through electronic portfolio assessments, Life students will relate what they are learning about leadership to highly specific, individualized applications in their own lives. They will identify the leadership style most suited to their strengths and weaknesses, critique their own leadership behaviors in a real-life event, and document their leadership experiences during on- and off-campus projects. They gain an in-depth understanding of the concept of “servant leadership” developed by Robert Greenleaf in his book of the same name. Especially geared to the mindset of healthcare providers and others who choose to serve, servant-leadership encourages collaboration, trust, foresight, listening and the ethical use of power and empowerment.
Life even employs a director of student involvement and leadership who works with individuals and groups to nurture leadership development through on-campus clubs, organizations and activities. During intensive, two-day seminars students evaluate and gain an understanding of their own styles, learn about organizational skills for use personally and in group settings and even tackle nuts-and-bolts issues of leading campus organizations such as budgeting, event planning, fundraising and motivating and supervising others. Students who complete the first session are given opportunities to hone their teaching and presentation skills by leading additional sessions for new participants.
Ancona and her colleagues also emphasize action learning. “We’re big believers in learning by doing. We teach students leadership models and skills that are fundamental to any curriculum, but to really learn how to lead is to do it.” At MIT that means everything from project-based courses to simulations, case studies and what Ancona calls Just-in-Time teaching in which faculty respond to student initiatives and interests and support them in reaching their self-directed goals.
“Bennis says leadership is a byproduct of a desire to express yourself fully and freely, and I think that concept aptly describes most chiropractors I know,” Riekeman says. “Leadership stems from having a strong guiding purpose and overarching vision of how things could be and chiropractors are particularly strong in their willingness and ability to eschew the status quo and conceive a new way of doing things,” he says. “Our leadership skills will grow and develop through life and through new experiences, but we can also jumpstart those skills here in the classroom and a laboratory setting, both by being strong examples as faculty mentors and by exposing students to the most contemporary thinking on the topic.”
Envisioning Something Different
Looking beyond the everyday, Life also sees as part of its 2020 Vision for the University, the creation of a think tank on campus embodied in a new, planned facility called the Octagon: The Center for Infinite Thinking. Devoted to further development and nurturing of the Eight Core Proficiencies, the Octagon is planned as a physical space that will house endowed chairs for each of the proficiencies and stimulate new thought and inquiry on these topics. An endowed chair in leadership will bring special symposia and unique experts to campus to challenge current thinking and expand the skill sets of our students and faculty.
In addition to educating students about leadership skills, Life strives to be a model and incubator for leadership as well, nurturing the development of entrepreneurship but also encouraging intrapreneurship within the institution. “Our innovative new major in positive psychology and life coaching grew out of the initiative and vision of faculty member Dr. Peggy Gibert, who developed the concept for the program and essentially sold it on campus,” explains McAulay. “It wouldn’t have come to fruition without her intrapreneurial spirit and the institution’s willingness to support that spirit and the risk taking and new thinking it involves. Likewise, our new Sport Science Institute and Human Performance Laboratory was the brainchild of Dr. John Downes and that effort will provide important biomechanical testing services to the local health care community and be a living laboratory for chiropractic and sport health science majors,” he says.
“As an organization that is educating entrepreneurs, we’re also nurturing intrapreneurs and helping to remove bureaucratic layers and other constraints that keep people from bringing ideas to the table and turning them into reality,” McAulay says.
“Life will continue to put itself out there, pushing the edge,” Riekeman says. “We’re already leading the profession with our unique business and practice management program; a Clinical Education Track that integrates case-based learning throughout the senior year, our smoke-free healthy campus and our role in the American College & University Presidents Climate Commitment, and with our performance on national boards. We’ll continue to envision a bigger, bolder future and to take risks, create strategic alliances and invest in the people who will get us there,” he says.
“Bennis says the next generation of leaders will need a broad education, boundless curiosity and enthusiasm, a willingness to take risks and a strong sense of vision. Life would add to that list personal integrity, strong interpersonal and relationship skills and a holistic or systems outlook,” Riekeman says. “We’re cultivating those competencies among our students because they will be the molders and shapers of our world as they become the leaders of tomorrow.”
©2006 Today's Chiropractic