Character Building

One of my job's perks is the wisdom and creativity of those who care about the education of children. When I share with others that I am the Headmaster of a 7-12 preparatory school, their interest boils up to the surface and they offer comments, insights and ideas for educating the young in a complex world. Over dinner last week, my radiologist friend spoke with great energy about leadership and how desperately we need to teach it in our schools. My first reaction was to think how overly saturated society has become with that concept until he defined it as "character building." Leadership, he claimed, is helping others become comfortable with themselves. That idea struck me as a possible missing link in the way we teach and nurture our children. Too much of what we do is aimed at information accumulation and honing of skills be they useful or personal. To consider leadership as helping others get comfortable with themselves makes the task of educators a bit more challenging. Suddenly, we need to use intellect and soul. To develop true leaders, we need to look beyond a student's performance. And how interesting it is to me that this definition of leadership has nothing to do with power, authority or "getting to the top." Before one is ready to meet others in any capacity, he or she needs to be at home with the sum total of who they are. It all seems elementary and yet not at all characteristic of our more common, mercenary understanding of leadership.