Paper Example on Leadership Education

Introduction

There are many ways of knowing when it comes to the topic of leadership education. Allen and Shehane (2016) explored five fundamental learning paradigms - cognitivism (leadership studies), behaviorism (leadership training), humanism (leadership development), social learning (leadership mentors), and constructivism (leadership experience). Allen and Shehane (2016) argued that all five approaches are needed to educate a well-rounded and experienced leader. One domain, the skills-based or leadership training domain, is under-developed and a ripe area for exploration in leadership learning and education. The work of Ericsson and Pool (2016) provides an exciting template for leadership educators hoping to develop skill among participants.

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As leadership educators with unique and different pasts, we thought it would be interesting to reflect on non-leadership domains in which we have learned, practiced, and coached. Scott Allen will focus on his experience in springboard diving, Dan Jenkins on his experiences playing and working with jazz musicians, and Eric Buller on his involvement in the military. One goal of these reflections is to juxtapose the work of Ericsson and Pool (2016), specifically the idea of deliberate practice, and more closely examine how it informed the different domains previously mentioned. We each discuss how our experiences informed how we approach leadership education and our work as coaches within the Collegiate Leadership Competition (CLC) (www.collegiateleader.org). CLC was founded, in part, to create a practice field for leadership education. Built into the curriculum and design are multiple tenants of deliberate practice (Ericsson & Pool, 2016). For instance, there a curriculum with clearly outlined practice regiment, rubrics to assess skill attainment, an identified coach, opportunities for repetition and real-time feedback, and the opportunity for participants to work outside of their current ability level.

Deliberate Practice and Diving

Before engaging in leadership education, I was a diver. I spent years in the pool as an athlete and coached high school teams and youth throughout college. While I did not know it at the time, much of what I had inherited as "best practice" in the realm of diving was in fact, the attributes of deliberate practice. While taken for granted at the time, Ericsson and Pool's (2016) first attribute-"best performers have attained a level of performance that clearly sets them apart from people who are just entering the field" (p. 98)-clearly existed in the minds of the athletes and the coaches. For instance, divers such as Greg Louganis, Xiong Ni, and Fu Mingxia performed at the highest levels of the sport for years. In diving, athletes and coaches alike had mental representations of the "best"-even in a sport where subjectivity exists. As an athlete, I did not begin on the 10-meter platform. I started by standing at the end of the 1-meter diving board and jumping forward (front jump). Then I stood backward and jumped back (back jump). Next, I practiced an approach with a front jump, a front jump tuck, and so on. My education was sequential and skills built upon skills. There was a coach, most often an individual who has excelled at the collegiate level, and he or she guided our growth and development (Attributes #2-4 of deliberate practice).

As I progressed, practice became more and more of a chore. A front jump was neither challenging nor scary; however, a reverse 2 on the three-meter platform was challenging and scary. For years I was out of my comfort zone for 60 minutes of the 90-minute practice (Attribute #5 of deliberate practice). Because of the competitive nature of the sport, there were some definite benchmarks that each athlete and coach focused upon. For instance, the degree of difficulty of each dive should increase year over year. Likewise, an athlete's score was another indicator of success. In my case, I moved from getting 4s and 5s (out of 10) to 6s and 7s on my reverse dive. Likewise, my overall score increased as my degree of difficulty and scores increased (Attribute #6 of deliberate practice). As I began performing dives from higher levels (10-meter platform) with increased levels of difficulty, it required a higher level of concentration. A small slip up could result in a significant injury (e.g., hitting the tower or landing on my back/stomach). Likewise, I was coached during the dive which required me to pay close attention to their instructions and guidance (Attribute #7 of deliberate practice). Along the way, I had several coaches who guided the process. These individuals provided feedback, and I adjusted. At times, coaches would videotape my practice so I could see what they were saying and gauge improvement based on the footage. As I got better, I had stronger mental representations of what a "good" dive entails-a strong approach, keeping my head in line, getting into a tight tuck, kicking out, clasping my hands for the entry, and keeping my toes pointed (Attributes #8-9).

When my experiences with learning diving are juxtaposed with Ericsson and Pool's nine attributes of deliberate practice, the process I experienced makes so much sense. However, when I think about my work as a leadership educator, I see more clearly that's it's not there. The realm of skill development or leadership training needs work (see Allen & Shehane, 2016). As it stands, one would be hard-pressed to define the skills of an "expert" leader. My bias is that as a field, we have not done this work which is an incredible opportunity. When we founded the Collegiate Leadership Competition, one goal was to create a space for practice-a "practice field" for leadership education. With Ericsson's work in mind (Ericsson, Krampe, & Tesch-Romer, 1993; Ericsson, Prietula, & Cokely, 2007), we designed an experience that would bring us closer to Ericsson's notion of Deliberate Practice. We clarified the concepts we wanted people to learn, provided a coach, set up times for practice, and so forth. Likewise, we began exploring how one would begin to establish leadership practice, coach leadership, and judge leadership.

In corporate America, one could determine "best performer" (See Attribute #1 in Ericsson & Pool's list) based on stock price, Glassdoor ratings, or goal achievement; however, this does little to help the average leadership educator who rarely sees their students perform in real time, much less throughout their career. Meeting Ericsson and Pool's first attribute of deliberate practice is an elusive endeavor (as discussed by Rosch in this issue). We chose to simplify the long-term goal and provided an initial starting place for collegians. I sensed that in part, we needed to better define the basic, intermediate, and advanced skills required of an effective leader. Within the context of Collegiate Leadership Competition (CLC), we assumed that a student with true skill in a few domains, would be better prepared to lead if there was a proficiency in problem-solving, presentation skills, ethical decision making, negotiation, and having difficult conversations. When the CLC experience is juxtaposed with Ericsson and Pool's nine elements of deliberate practice, many exist, but there is room for growth. For instance, while the skills-based elements of the curriculum provide some clarity, we have much work to do when it comes to identifying "best performer" for coaches and participants (Attribute #1). Likewise, because Attribute #1 is not clarified, it will be difficult to indeed attain all of the other attributes that follow. And while this reality may seem daunting, I am excited about the work because it's an opportunity for many scholars and practitioners to explore, learn, and grow. Perhaps more important, as leadership educators, it's likely we will better prepare young men and women to succeed when serving in formal and informal leadership roles.

Deliberate Practice in Jazz

"Jazz, like leadership, combines the unpredictability of the future with the gifts of individuals." ~Max DePree

When I reflect on my approach to coaching CLC teams over the past three years, I teleport back to a time where I worked closely in teams where interdependent individuals were empowered to creatively contribute toward a collective goal-making jazz music. While I chose a different career path than that of a jazz musician, the hundreds of hours I spent leading and rehearsing alongside jazz musicians from middle school through college had a profound effect on how I practice and teach leadership. At the risk of misarticulation, I lean on Max DePree's (1992) stories as the senior executive of Herman Miller. More specifically, from his book Leadership Jazz, where he compares servant leadership to the task of conducting a jazz ensemble:

"One way to think about leadership is to consider a jazz band. Jazz-band leaders must choose the music, find the right musicians, and perform in public. But the effect of the performance depends on so many things-the environment, the volunteers in the band, the need for everybody to perform as individuals and as a group, the absolute dependence of the leader on the members of the band, the need of the leader for the followers to play well." (DePree, 1995, p. 454)

I approach coaching leadership as I would a jazz ensemble-I expect it to be messy (Wheatley, 2009). What do I mean by this? When working with jazz musicians, I imagine each musician as colors on a palette. Collectively, our goal is to mix those colors-those experiences and technical skills each musician brings with and to their instrument-to complement and integrate with the ensemble and create jazz music. As individual members of a team, each leader brings their own strengths and weaknesses. It is the responsibility of the coach and each team member to blend individual talents to realize team goals. Through this metaphor, the team dynamic is an organic, moving painting reminiscent of a Van Gogh or the landscapes of the motion picture "What Dreams May Come" (1998).

Yet, we are not just aimlessly mixing colors and applying them to the next canvas. Instead, like jazz, there are measurable goals and distinct techniques that must be mastered for the jazz "combo" to work. For instance, Ericsson and Pool (2016) argue that the field must be "already reasonably developed -- that is, a field in which the best performers have attained a level of performance that clearly sets them apart from people who are just entering the field" (p. 98). For jazz musicians, one of the first lessons learned is to "go out and buy some jazz records" and then go home and listen. Like leadership, jazz is a product of social construction, that is, individuals create it, and likewise, we know good leadership when we see it, just as we recognize good music when we hear it. Asking a young jazz musician to listen to Miles Davis, John Coltrane, or Duke Ellington is similar in many ways to ask a student leader to watch Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., deliver his "I Have a Dream" speech or a video of Steve Jobs running a meeting (YouTube, 2014). King and Jobs were superior performers.

As a CLC coach, one of my chief responsibilities is to design curriculum that is "informed and guided by the best performers' accomplishments and by an understanding of what these expert performers do to excel," in order to, "help a student improve his or her performance" (Ericsson & Pool, 2016, p. 99). However, it is just as important to convey to CLC student team members as it is to jazz musicians that, just because you may shine individually as a leader, doesn't mean that you'll shine collectively as an ensemble. It is each individual's responsibility to figure out how they might best contribute to the team. Accordin...