Skip to main content

Do you call yourself a leader? Part II

In my last post, I wrote about my resistance to calling myself a leader and how I think I've figured out where that resistance comes from: 1) it feels like bragging, 2) I don't fit the mental image I hold of what a leader looks like (i.e., white male), and 3) I don't want the responsibility I associate with being a leader. So the next questions I'm asking myself are: Does it really matter if I claim the leader label? And if it does, how do I get past this resistance I feel? Some of the conversations I had with colleagues earlier this week are helping me see that yes, it does matter, and what's particularly interesting to me is that I think some of the reasons why it matters are actually going to help me get over the resistance.

For starters, a big reason I think it matters if I call myself a leader, and that also definitely makes it easier to do so, is that those first two sources of resistance are essentially founded on sexist and racist beliefs, and that's just bullshit (pardon my language). I mean, whether I want to call myself a leader or not, I am doing the work of leadership, and others see me doing that work. So if I shy away from fully owning that, I am just perpetuating the implicit bias that says girls (and particularly Asian girls) shouldn't "brag", or that says girls taking credit for their own good work is "bragging" in the first place. I do have to say, that voice inside telling me that it's presumptuous to call myself a leader is a really hard one to shake, and I know it will continue to be. But if most men don't seem to worry about this, why should I?

As for the belief that leaders are "supposed to be" white men, that's a lot easier to reject. Not only is that just objectively wrong, but if people like me, a Japanese-American woman, don't step up and call ourselves leaders, how will we ever really get rid of that bias? The more I've thought this, the more I feel like I practically have a social obligation to get over myself and claim my leader identity.

The third source of my resistance, that sense of obligation that I feel comes with the leader label, is also hard to shake off. But one of my colleagues at the Leadership Institute said something that really resonated with me. He talked about how he views his leadership as an honor and privilege that has been bestowed on him by colleagues and he thinks about being a leader for them. Others made similar comments, about focusing on the work, on serving others, and I really like that too. I think the more I can re-frame my mental beliefs about being a leader in terms of opportunity instead of obligation, the less resistance I feel. If I focus more on the fact that being a leader is an honor and allows me to serve others, instead of focusing on the expectations and responsibility, then it feels less like something scary and stressful, and more like something I can (and should) be proud to claim. I think this is also why the leader label matters - by not thinking of myself as a leader, I wonder what opportunities I may have missed out on. Are there times when I might have been able to do more, to offer more, if I had thought of myself as a leader, as someone who could and should do more?

I suspect these ideas will be rumbling around in my head for a while and are sure to come up on this blog again. As always, I'm curious if others have similar thoughts (or complete different thoughts!) so please feel free to share in the comments... 

Comments

  1. Jennifer - I couldn't agree with you (and your wise colleague) more. It is indeed an honor to serve in a leadership position. These are positions of great trust, and I think Tony Hsieh said it best: "...the best leaders are servant leaders - they serve those they lead.

    Thank you for your leadership!

    --james

    ReplyDelete
  2. I totally agree with you. Sometime one does the work of a leader without claiming the title. However, once called upon to serve as a leader, it is an honor. The purpose is to serve others to one's ability no matter what. This gives one satisfaction. Bashar H. Malkawi

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Comments that contribute to the discussion are always welcome! Please note that spammy comments whose only purpose seems to be to direct traffic to a commercial site will be deleted.

Popular posts from this blog

This is about getting through, not re-inventing your course

As someone who has worked hard to build a lot of interactivity into my courses, I have never been interested in teaching fully online courses, in part because I have felt that the level of engaged interaction could never match that of a face-to-face class (not that there aren't some exceptional online courses out there; I just have a strong preference for the in-person connection). But the current situation is not really about building online courses that are 'just as good' as our face-to-face courses; it is about getting through this particular moment without compromising our students' learning too much. So if you are used to a lot of interaction in your F2F class, here are some options for adapting that interaction for a virtual environment: [NOTE: SDSU is a Zoom/mostly Blackboard campus so that's how I've written this but I am pretty sure that other systems have similar functionality] If you use clickers in class to break up what is otherwise mostly lect...

Designing effective courses means thinking through the WHAT and the HOW (in that order)

I think most folks have heard by now that the California State University system (in which I work) has announced the intention to prepare for fall classes to be primarily online. I have to say, I am sort of confused why everyone is making such a big deal about this - no matter what your own institution is saying, no instructor who cares about their own mental health (let alone their students) should be thinking we are going back to 'business as usual' in the fall. In my mind, the only sane thing to do is at least prepare  for the possibility of still teaching remotely. Fortunately, unlike this spring, we now have a lot more time for that preparation. Faculty developers across the country have been working overtime since March, and they aren't slowing down now; we are all trying to make sure we can offer our faculty the training and resources they will need to redesign fall courses for online or hybrid modalities. But one big difference between the training faculty needed ...

THE podcast on Implicit Bias

I keep telling myself I need to get back to blogging but, well, it's been a long pandemic... But I guess this is as good an excuse as any to post something: I am Bonni Stachowiak's guest on the latest episode of the Teaching in Higher Ed podcast, talking about implicit bias and how it can impact our teaching.  Doing the interview with Bonni (which was actually recorded a couple months ago) was a lot of fun. Listening to it now, I also realize how far I have come from the instructor I was when I started this blog over a decade ago. I've been away from the blog so long that I should probably spell this out: my current title is Associate Vice President for Faculty and Staff Diversity and I have responsibility for all professional learning and development related to diversity, equity and inclusion, as well as inclusive faculty and staff recruitment, and unit-level diversity planning. But I often say that in a lot of ways, I have no business being in this position - I've ne...