Your School Has a Superpower. Are You Using It?

Superpower	Problem They Solve
Super Strength Durability Stamina	I feel weak and defenseless. I’m run-down and burned out.
Agility Superspeed Flight	I feel under attack and need to evade people or problems. I don’t like where I am and want to get away.
Intelligence Reflexes Enhanced Senses	I feel inadequate when solving problems. I wish I could think faster or see the world better.
Accelerated Healing Invulnerability  Weapons Mastery	I’ve been hurt and want the pain to disappear. I need protection from harm.

Maybe you felt something reading that list. Perhaps you landed on one or multiple lines and stayed there momentarily, thinking, “Yes, that’s me. I need that power to help me solve that problem.”

 

The idea behind superpowers is that there is a giant problem in the world, and it would be nice if a single person could solve it. Have you ever felt that it’s you against the world and you are just striving to make something happen? You need an actual superpower.

 

Leadership Culture as a Superpower

I believe that organizations that prioritize growing more leaders will outperform those that don’t. Those who do have unlocked a superpower called “leadership culture.” Instead of one person fighting to overcome all their problems, leadership culture means that you have developed a team of like-minded people who can solve problems and serve people together! 

 

Let’s define (and add up) a couple of terms:

 

Leadership is the influence over your actions and those of others.

+

Culture is the ingrained values and attitudes of a group that ultimately shape the 

behaviors of its members.

=

Leadership Culture is a group whose values and attitudes are biased toward helping its 

members grow in leadership and influence over themselves and one another.

I was a high school band director for 17 years. Each day, I had the privilege of leading nearly 300 students aged 14-18. To do that effectively, we needed more leadership than I alone could provide. We based our entire organizational culture on leadership. We built processes that biased our attitudes toward influence and leadership. Using the Habitudes® curriculum, my students learned a new leadership concept every week and then practiced using it with each other all semester long. As an example, let me tell you about Carolyn.

 

Carolyn loved the Habitude “Hot Air Balloons” and how it emphasizes encouragement as a leadership habit and attitude. She wanted to motivate our marching band of nearly 200 students and needed a creative superpower to make it happen.

 

She and our leadership team devised a unique way to encourage their fellow students. Carolyn’s idea used simple white plastic spoons. At rehearsals after school, if a leader saw a student doing really well, they’d hand them a spoon. There’s no deep meaning behind it. It was just a cute recognition of a job well done. Then, they took it a step further and bought golden plastic spoons to give out at the end of practices to the entire section (i.e., flutes, trumpets, or drums) that the student leader team felt did the best job that day. She would say: 

 

“While you were all out, standing on the field, some of you were OUTSTANDING on the field.” 

 

And they would award the golden spoon to the section they had chosen.

 

This may seem silly, but let me tell you, it was one of the most motivated, excited groups of students I ever taught. They HAD to have the spoons!

 

Encouraging and motivating a team of nearly 200 students may sound like it would take a superpower. And it did. That superpower was the culture we built around Habitudes and leadership. As their leader, I biased our processes toward leadership. I gave them the knowledge and the freedom to practice that leadership. What followed was some of the best team culture I’ve ever seen.

 

You can create your group of superhero leaders with Habitudes. 

 

Give us a call, and let us tell you how.