In my second year of teaching, a guest clinician named Pete came to work with my high school choir. Pete had been teaching for about three decades at this point, and that fall morning inspired my students and lit a flame in me as a teacher. Pete captivated the students as he molded and shaped their sound and them as individuals. In just moments he led the choir to musical excellence that we had yet to achieve. It was humbling to watch this transformational experience, and it was also a catalyst that started my journey to grow as a leader in the classroom. I wanted to be more like Pete to know how to better serve, influence, and empower young lives to reach their fullest potential.
It is my hope with this blog to share insights that I learn on my continual journey to grow as a servant leader. Thanks for joining me. I hope you can relate, connect, and grow in whatever capacity you lead. To steal a phrase from Craig Groeschel’s leadership podcast, I believe “everyone wins when the leader gets better.” Your organization, your ensemble, or your classroom will benefit as you improve your ability to lead.
Vision is often discussed as an important or necessary attribute for leaders. Vision provides the foresight that helps us move into a new reality or better solution. It is seeing the unforeseeable. With clear vision we can focus our goals and plans. Without vision, there is no unified direction in which to lead people. In this post, I want to narrow the focus and highlight one specific way that leaders apply vision: seeing potential in people.
In my profession as a music educator and conductor, I recognize that we conductors have an incredible vantage point to see people from the podium, and how we view them directly impacts how we lead them. If we only focus on the large vision, we might simply see people as servants to our vision of the music. However, we can also choose to see each person as a valued individual with a depth of potential, ready to add their unique voice to the musical creation. I believe this focus of vision is the most important and powerful. Yes, we need to have a sense of where we are leading people, but we need to see and value the people that we lead for them to live into their fullest potential as we all realize the vision together.
Pete led my students to a greater musical experience in just minutes than anything we had experienced after weeks of rehearsal under my instruction. Here are four important factors that we can all learn from Pete’s leadership with my choir that morning.
- Pete connected with individuals. Even though Pete met my students for the first time that morning, he connected personally with specific individuals in the group. Now, he couldn’t do this with each one, but he commented on specific things that he saw and heard from several students in the group. He gave encouragement to individuals as well as the whole. Students felt noticed and heard. Not every student received this personalized attention, but I sensed the whole group feeling seen and valued as they were not simply lumped together as whole. As leaders, it is so important to not only look at the forest. We need to see and value the individuals that make up the whole.
- Pete believed my students were capable of more. Pete saw more potential in my students. I don’t know if he was just hopeful, but he believed they could achieve more and raised the bar. As leaders, we need to see beyond what is on the surface or what is first presented. There is usually more potential within, and it often takes a leaders’ push to help people experience their full capability.
- Pete saw opportunities to teach. Pete saw areas that he could offer direction and gave clear instruction to correct and guide several issues in the music. I don’t remember the specific bits of instruction shared that day. It could have been completely new information or just a new voice saying a similar thing, but the guidance gave my students a clear objective to practice. He then gave time to attempt and fail with frequent bits of encouragement and feedback. As leaders, we need to see growth opportunities and then provide our followers with a logical path to practice and learn to be successful.
- Pete’s self-confidence allowed him to focus on building the confidence of others. As a young teacher, so much of my attention was self-directed. I wanted to do a good job for my students, and in trying to do so, I was thinking mostly about myself. This limited my capacity to give full attention to seeing my students. With years of experience, Pete didn’t have to think about how or what he was doing. His full attention was on the students. As leaders, we need to be comfortable enough in our own skin and competent enough with the skills for the role that we can give our full attention to those we are leading.
What a great gift we leaders can offer when we see and then articulate the possibilities and potential in the people we lead. Seeing and believing the best in people helps them live into that reality. I encourage you to visualize specific people that you lead and then write down the ways that you believe they can achieve more. What untapped potential do you see in them that they can’t see themselves? How can you connect with and encourage them to pursue their very best? What structured learning activities do they need to succeed? How do you need to learn or grow to best serve your students? If you are unsure with any of these questions, maybe reach out to a mentor like Pete to help you grow on your own journey. Give your students a gift of seeing their fullest potential, and then help them live into it!