“Nobody is exempt from improvement.” This is the title of a book by Bob Emiliani. It is an e-book that somebody told me about, and I watched an online clip. So much have life’s reading possibilities expanded these days.

Emiliani’s idea is that leadership is actually not one big thing that you have to be born with, but instead it is a set of skills that anyone can practice and learn. He actually gives a list of 15 leadership skills. And it is a darn good list. It has activities such as planning and budgeting, problem-solving, asking questions and listening, walking around and seeing.

I like this approach. It assumes that leadership is like many other skills — if you have a good coach, or a good teacher, and you practice, you can learn it. And then you can keep practicing and improving.

Practicing is key. Having a list of skills to practice and seeing your own progress is empowering. Having a coach is important. Coaches make you aware of your own behavior and give you feedback to help you perform better. They inspire you to practice. (Sometimes, they make you practice.) They help you reflect on your strengths, and use them, and they show you where you still need to develop. Reflection is the most important practice of all.

It leads to knowing that you know. And that fosters confidence. As they say in connection with experiential learning, reflection after doing is required. When I ran leadership workshops for women in higher education, I found over and over again that participants had plenty of skills but did not think of themselves as “management material.” They didn’t know they knew. Reflection turned out to be one of the goals of the workshops.

We always used to start out with participants introducing themselves: name, college, job. The very first year I ever did this, one of our participants literally could not stand up and say her name — she was just overcome with fear. The group got her through it, and by the end of the sessions she was building her confidence. More than 25 years later, I have not forgotten that incident.

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So, confidence. Knowing that you know. It’s one of the things I love about the new methods of mass customized learning in K-12, or the work of Jobs for Maine’s Graduates, or at The Partnership for Civic Advancement at the University of Maine at Farmington, or proficiency-based learning as they are now doing it at UMaine-Presque Isle. Reflection about your own learning, knowing your strengths, is built right into the method.

It can start really young. A few years ago, I was at an education conference here in Maine, and I heard two third-graders tell a roomful of grownups what skill they had learned, how they had learned it, and how they demonstrated their mastery. I think it was about math. These children were awesome. Totally verbal and in control. Probably at that age I would have been scrunched up in a ball, howling in the corner. Not these kids.

That same energy, mastery and confidence are features of every instance where students practice reflecting on their active learning. That’s why it is excellent to start in grade school, refine the practice in high school and expand the opportunities in college. Experiential learning and community-based learning can start really early, too.

Students can make a portfolio with examples of their best work and tell why they chose them. They can do a research project and make a final report. Maybe it’s an internship with a local business and a presentation to the board of directors. Perhaps they do student teaching and have to analyze what lessons were successful and which ones were not. Practice and reflection. Mastery and confidence.

An UMPI graduate, Theodore Van Alst, ’04, said it perfectly: “I learned not only that I deserve to compete with the best and brightest, but that I should expect to.” That’s the kind of confidence that leads to improvement during a whole career. Indeed, an entire life.

Theodora J. Kalikow is interim vice chancellor and president emerita of the University of Maine System. She can be reached at kalikow@maine.edu.


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