If You’re a Manager, Be a Teacher First
Don’t set your team up for failure
“Servant leadership is all about making the goals clear and then rolling your sleeves up and doing whatever it takes to help people win. In that situation, they don’t work for you; you work for them.” (Ken Blanchard)
Throughout my life, from high school to college, I’ve had bad teachers. Bad as in uninspiring, bored with their profession, acting as if they were there just for the money.
Bad as in always waiting to catch us doing something wrong and failing to satisfy their expectations. Bad for not knowing how to keep us interested, how to encourage us to explore more, how to motivate us.
Most of my teachers tried to “lead” through fear. Fear of bad marks, fear of being embarrassed in front of colleagues, fear of their bad moods or anger.
One of my language teachers seemed to only find pleasure in showing us how untalented, unskilled, and imperfect we were. She expected us to interpret poetry in her own way, not based on our feelings and perceptions.
I remember one of my chemistry teachers, she looked and behaved like she had given up any hope for a better life. During classes, she would just sit at her desk, with no desire to teach us anything, while telling us to do whatever needed to…
