10 Reasons Helping Professionals Like Educators Are Natural Leaders—Whether They Know It or Not
It’s been a long-held assumption in
the U.S. workplace that you’re either a service-oriented professional or a
business-minded professional—either a “do-gooder” dedicated to social causes or
someone more interested in earning a good living as you climb the corporate
ladder. I don’t buy into that assumption, not only because my own career
trajectory disproves it, but because some of the most talented and effectual
leaders I’ve seen have started out as boots-on-the-ground helping professionals
who later took their particular aptitudes and abilities and applied them to the
highest tiers of leadership in the organizations they serve.
In the case of educators, the “highest-tier” positions would include school principals, district superintendents, university deans and presidents, chief academic officers, state Department of Education heads, and, heck—why not?—even the U.S. Secretary of Education. Teachers are uniquely suited to ascend to such roles because they have inherent traits that equip them to adeptly manage the tasks and functions leadership positions in educational institutions demand and they possess a skillset that comes naturally to them and is only reinforced by their on-the-job training and experience.
But the thing is, teachers don’t always see this potential in themselves—they’re so devoted to their students that they often don’t believe their qualities and competencies qualify them to advance … and advance high, if they want to. But they do have this capacity, they are wonderfully qualified to lead both people and systems. If you’re an educator, here are 10 reasons why you were born to lead.
#1: You’re a Natural
Most teachers will tell you they knew what they wanted to be when they grew up since early childhood. It’s like they came out of the womb with the necessary helper’s mentality that translates seamlessly to servant leadership. You are already compassionate in your treatment of people, you already know how to forge through their struggles, you display fairness and practice equality in your classroom every day. And you’re an uncommonly good communicator, able to break down barriers to understanding and explain things in accessible terms. That’s what a leader does.
#2: You’re Already Viewed This Way
You may see yourself as an educator, but others see you as a problem solver, a fixer, a mediator, and a bridge to comprehension. People come to you for advice, don’t they? Your colleagues confide in you and deem you dependable, I’ll bet. You don’t need to train yourself to be an active listener and a rational decision maker amid high tension because you evidence these abilities daily. You know how to calm, to mitigate, to guide—all essential to deft leadership.
#3: You Don’t Need an MBA
So many people get tripped up by the erroneous belief that they can’t run an organization without an advanced business degree. That’s simply not true. You can learn how to read a P&L statement, negotiate leases, or present to a board through books, online classes, a mentor. But you can’t learn passion or vision or a soul-deep desire to extend the good for the one into the good for the many. These qualities matter more to the vitality and vibrancy of an organization than a framed diploma on the wall.
#4: You Have Essential Training
Leading an organization requires knowing how that organization runs—what obstacles need to be hurdled and what gaps need to be filled to make progress. Both your formal education and your on-the-job training have provided you with tools you’ve learned to employ to make your workplace more functional. And by default, helpers embrace helping others, so you’re already conditioned to put the best interests of your students first. Leaders lead effectively by putting the interests of their people first.
#5: You Know to Defuse Crises & Formulate Plans
If there’s anyone who knows how to put out fires, it’s a classroom teacher of school-aged children. If there’s anyone who knows how to set an agenda—for a whole year at a time, no less!—it’s a teacher. There’s not much difference between an annual business plan and a class syllabus or curriculum; they’re both about enacting a long-term objective and then deescalating any challenges that get in the way of successful implementation. It’s all in a day’s work for an educator.
#6: You See the Whole Picture
A big part of being a skilled leader is being able to look beyond the individual issue (Jonah’s difficulty with a math problem) to the larger goal you’re working toward: educating an entire generation of people so they can have productive, rewarding futures. Because you can see the forest for the trees, you’re gifted with the perspective need to manage staffs, make policy, and improve communities. Your macrovision trumps your microvision even during trying times.