These days (especially these days) managers spend time, energy and money (their company’s and their own) in an effort to move from manager to ‘leader’. They study examples and best practices, read books, attend seminars and classes, take advanced degrees, check out software, turn to the spiritual (if so inclined)—you name it, someone’s tried it.

Everywhere you turn you hear/read about how you need to be a ‘leader’ to get ahead, otherwise you’ll end up a <gasp> follower.

You probably won’t believe me if I say that the basic premise is bunk.

The dream is to find a silver bullet—all you need to do is say/do THIS—but it ain’t gonna happen.

But here’s the well kept secret—you already possess the closest thing to a silver bullet that exists and it’s all in your mind.

That’s right, it’s your MAP and, like a snowflake, it’s totally unique—yours, and yours alone.

And the magic that turns the bullet from lead to silver is your ability to consciously choose to change your MAP through your own awareness.

How cool is that? The very thing that frees you to soar and it’s not only yours, but also within your control.

Who could ask for anything more?

So never forget!

You are the silver bullet!

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Stephen Covey says, “We simply assume that the way we see things is the way they really are or the way they should be. And our attitudes and behaviors grow out of these assumptions.”And we, the people, did assume.

We, the people, assumed that the visions presented by the leaders on and off Wall Street were true.

We, the people, assumed that all those experts were correct when they lauded the Wall Street crowd.

We trusted them, even though it’s not the first time that the Wizards of Wall Street broke our hearts—and our economy.

Last year when I wrote about CEO pay I said, “If little girls are made of ‘sugar and spice and everything nice’ and little boys are made of ‘snakes and snails, and puppy dog tails’, then these CEOs are made of ego and greed and the skill to mislead.”

We, the people, have a short attention span and we’re lazy.

It’s so much easier to listen to the experts and then blame them when things don’t work out. Less painful than looking in the mirror and taking responsibility for our own contributions as passive followers.

But why should we? Our leaders take no responsibility.

President Bush pats us on the head, says he knows things are difficult, but doesn’t take responsibility.

Alan Greenspan, a great believer in deregulation, still thinks derivatives are good and puts the blame on the leaders who, he says, got greedy.

Whereas five years ago Warren Buffett called them “financial weapons of mass destruction, carrying dangers that, while now latent, are potentially lethal.”

But it’s so much easier, not to meniton comfortable, to listen to the experts who say everything is fine than to the experts sounding a warning.

Our leaders may have led us down the garden path, but we, the people, were happy to follow—being careful to keep our rose-colored glasses intact and firmly in place.

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Wednesday Phil Gerbyshak over at Slacker Manager shared his application of Edward Brown’s description of the two dominant leadership models, Charismatic Leadership (often described as arousing the emotions of the populous through imagery and poetic prose) and Traditional Leadership (Often described as operations-centric and unilateral while courting consensus building) and analyzed Obama and McCain in that light.

I thought I’d add to that with a guest post from Korn/Ferry International’s Kevin Cashman and Ken Brousseau (detailed bios at end of post), in which they apply their CEO assessment, expertise and constructs to the Presidential candidates.

Note: The candidates are discussed in random order and reflects no preference by the authors.

An Expert Analysis Of Our Presidential Candidates’ Executive Leadership

Voters commonly cast their ballots based on the critical issues and policies, but what about the equally crucial assessment of a candidate’s leadership strengths and approaches?

• Who is the leader beneath the speeches, policies and ads?
• How would experts describe the unique leadership styles of Barrack Obama and John McCain if they were being assessed for a global CEO position?

Two leadership authorities from one of the world’s largest talent management firms, Korn/Ferry International, point to four critical and differentiating facets of Obama and McCain’s leadership:

• decision-making styles;
• emotional temperaments;
• learning agility; and
• power-of-voice versus power-of-connection.

Overall, Cashman and Brousseau say that

• McCain’s strengths appear to be action-orientation, adherence to principle and a fiery tenacity to achieving results, whereas

• Obama tends to demonstrate exceptional learning agility, collaboration and is calmer under pressure.

1. Decision-Making Styles – Cashman and Brousseau assert that both candidates are principled decision-makers, but differ in their propensities to quickly or analytically make decisions and hone in on single versus multiple courses of action. Korn/Ferry’s research (see this Harvard Business Review article) at  shows that those unable to lead in a “complex style” have low likelihoods of succeeding in their positions, yet once they’ve risen to a top level, it’s possible to succeed with multiple approaches.  They observe:

• McCain is a more uni-focused thinker who focuses on one key principle or goal and tenaciously holds to a particular action rather than changing positions. When not in action-mode, he shifts to a more complex style that’s both analytic and uni-focused, efficiently studying the facts, and making and sticking to what he senses is the best decision.

• Obama also operates in the complex mode, but more often uses a creative and integrative style that is analytic and more open to alternate possibilities.  Before making a judgment, he studies an extensive array of information and options, then gradually forms a strategy combining multiple objectives, actions and viewpoints.

2. Emotional Temperaments – The ability to manage the emotions of one’s self and those around them is a defining aspect of leadership at any level.

• When principles are challenged or threatened, McCain seems to be more emotive and combative to win the day. Achieving high performance works best for him in a high-octane pace where things are very active.

• Obama tends to maintain equanimity and gets introspective to sort out the best solutions to win, asking his staff to provide him with some reflective time each day.  His high performance is achieved by reflecting, synthesizing and collaborating.

3. Leadership Agility and Ability to Deal with Ambiguity -The key leadership competency in shortest supply is the ability to deal with ambiguity, according to the research of Korn/Ferry and others and supported by past Presidents who’ve described the job as “everything happening all at once.” Though we often dub political leaders who change their positions as wishy-washy, Cashman and Brousseau say that can be a sign of agility, as good leaders summon past lessons and observations to reframe thinking in first-time contexts or changing global environments. Agility – found to be much more predictive of potential and success than raw intelligence – has components related to mental, people, results and change.

• Obama demonstrates exceptional mental agility and has proclivity for dealing with change and people, but critics may question if his results agility on a large-scale have been sufficiently demonstrated.

• McCain, in contrast, shows a strong results orientation and a measure of mental agility, but his history of working amid volatility and commitment to tradition may call his agility with people and change into question.

4. Exerting Power-of-Voice or Power-of-Connection – Cashman and Brousseau say that many leaders can be understood as either heroic leaders who assert their power-of-voice or more interpersonally inclined leaders who employ power-of-connection. The key is being able to exercise the weaker, non-default area.  According to research by Zenger and Folkman, leaders who excel in people or results only, reach the 90th percentile of leadership effectiveness nine or 13 percent of the time, but those who possess both reach that level of success in two-thirds of instances.

• McCain, as someone who forcefully asserts for results, best typifies the heroic “I” type of leader, who leverages personal influence to impact results.  The downside can be too much drive and not enough relational connection.

• Obama and his collaborative approach characterize “We” leaders, who leverage collaboration, relationship and synergy to get results. In crisis situations, however, sometimes more “I” is required.

The leadership experts say Obama fits the overall archetype of a “magician” leader, someone who blends ideas and people to produce new solutions to unsolved problems.

McCain, on the other hand, is more of the traditional “warrior” leader, bringing about results through force of will or assertion with little fear of adversarial relationships or situations.

I’m no expert, but it seems to me that we’re more in need of a magician who “blends ideas to produce new solutions” than a warrior who applies “force of will.”

It seems to me that most of the “leaders” who crashed their companies on the rocks, as well as the current Administration, either are, or have a strong leaning towards, the warrior model.

I’m tired of “I” leaders proclaiming their visions, unwilling to brook any kind of disagreement.

I (we?) can only hope that the calamities we’re facing foster a stronger application of “we”—in both politics and business

About the authors:
Kevin Cashman, author of the newly expanded book Leadership from the Inside Out, founded LeaderSource, a Minneapolis-based international leadership development, executive coaching and team effectiveness consultancy that joined with Korn/Ferry International in 2006. Leadership from the Inside Out, available in second edition in September, was named the #1 best-selling business book of 2000 by CEO-READ and one of the top 20 best-selling business books of the decade.  Over the past 25+ years, Cashman and his team have coached thousands of senior executives and teams to enhance performance.

Kenneth Brousseau, Ph.D., is CEO and co-founder of Decision Dynamics LLC, a firm specializing in behavior profiling and human resource systems design. Prior to forming Decision Dynamics, he served as a management and organization professor at the University of Southern California Graduate School of Business Administration.  Dr. Brousseau specializes in behavioral assessment systems for purposes of employee selection, organizational development and career management.  He is coauthor of The Dynamic Decision Maker, and he has authored articles on career development, work system design, team development and organizational design in publications such as Harvard Business Review, the Journal of Applied Psychology and the Academy of Management Executive.

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By Wes Ball. Wes is a strategic innovation consultant and author of The Alpha Factor – a revolutionary new look at what really creates market dominance and self-sustaining success (Westlyn Publishing, 2008) and writes for Leadership Turn every Tuesday. See all his posts here. Wes can be reached at www.ballgroup.com.Diana Ross’s old hit song saying that the world just needs “love” may not be the answer, but there is indeed a universal need out there that would help us overcome our current economic dilemma.  What the world really needs now is a little honest leadership.  And I mean that literally.

The “con games” that have been played upon investors (and the American public) in this current financial debacle are just the latest in thousands of years of dishonest dealing in order to gain something.  In the mortgage fiasco, the potential losses from giving mortgages to high-risk individuals was supposedly “spread around” by selling them as part of larger packages of mortgages to unsuspecting investors.  The idea was to pass along the risk to others (in other words: be able to put the blame and consequences on someone else).  But the dishonesty of this caught up to everyone involved, including both the innocent and the guilty.

One of the things I learned in researching for my book, The Alpha Factor, was that Alpha companies don’t have to market themselves with such dishonesty.  That’s not to say that they don’t have selfish humans working in the company who make bad and occasionally dishonest decisions, but their sales are not based upon such dishonesty.  Their longevity and sustainability is only possible because of the honesty of what they offer and provide.

Leadership by its definition requires honesty.  Without honesty a leader cannot last long, because the trust that will sustain him will evaporate as soon as the lies are discovered.  Without honesty, the foundation of the organization being led will be compromised and everything built upon it will be vulnerable.  A few may be able to maintain their leadership for some time through sheer effort, but that effort must increase over time to overcome the increasing resistance that will naturally occur due to the false foundation upon which it is built.  Much like an aircraft where air resistance increases at the square of speed (which is the limitation to top speed), an organization built upon faulty, dishonest leadership must work geometrically harder to maintain itself when built upon dishonest foundations.

Here are five simple tests that we all learned in grade school, but that have largely been forgotten:

1. If it’s too good to be true, then it probably is.  (This is probably the oldest one, but how often have we all slipped on that, believing that the “easy” way we believe so many people make money is true and possible for us?)
2. If it contradicts what mom said, it is probably a lie.  (Now I know there are many untrustworthy moms out there, but I got into far more trouble by not believing my mom than I ever did by trusting her.)
3. Everything will cost you something.  (Nothing comes without cost — especially, when we are told that someone else will have the burden of all the cost or risk, and we will only get the gain.)
4. If it’s a “favor,” it probably isn’t.  (The person who offers “favors” usually has more to gain than you do; you just can’t see it until it is too late.)
5. Two faces are one too many.  (If the person making the offer has a history of contradicting himself or of doing things that don’t match with his words, then don’t believe him – no matter how sincere he sounds).

I’ve been around long enough to have been caught in far too many crazy schemes for me to admit.  But in each case, when I looked back at it, the warning signs were there.  If I had used the five tests above, I would have said “no.”  Instead, I wanted to believe that perhaps I had been wrong in how I thought things worked.  Perhaps I could actually get that thing that seemed too good to be true, that contradicted what my mom had told me, that had no cost to me and only gain, that was being offered by someone who was doing me a big “favor” or who had suddenly changed the way he operates.  I never won any of those.

As the CEO of a company, there have been many times I was tempted to “push the truth,” but I was lucky enough to learn that every time I did, I paid a terrible price.  I always saw that honest leadership led to far greater gains than any shortcuts I momentarily thought might get me there quicker.  I also learned that the people I led were far more willing to give their respect and loyalty to me when we were being honest, no matter what the short-term consequences were of that choice.

As long as humans are on this planet, there will be a need for leadership.  But the secret to leadership is that it can only exist with the consent of those being led.  If we refuse to accept dishonest leadership, then it cannot be leadership. But, if we choose to believe that we can gain something that contradicts those five tests, we deserve everything we lose.

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By CandidProf, who teaches physics and astronomy at a state university. He shares his thoughts and experiences teaching today’s students anonymously every Thursday—anonymously because that’s the only way he can be truly candid. Read all of CandidProf here.

Wes Ball, Tuesday’s regular guest, posted his response to my posting about the Dallas Independent School District grading policy.

He makes a point that a nurturing approach is a good one.  And I agree with him that giving students the opportunity to fix mistakes within defined boundaries is a good learning strategy, and one that I routinely use for my college students.

However, the key point is in the definition of those boundaries.

DISD has virtually removed boundaries. That is not acceptable.  If you go to a doctor for a serious illness, would you trust your doctor’s treatment if you knew that he or she virtually never got it right the first time?  Just what are the defined limits of acceptable shortfalls?  Sometimes, you just have to get it right.

Just look around and you will see the consequences of teaching people that they don’t have to be held responsible. If you teach students that sort of thing, then they will go into the workforce with that attitude.  And then you will have such things as lenders not thinking through who they lend money to, borrowers not thinking if they can repay loans, and top executives for major corporations not looking towards the future of their companies.  After all, if everything goes bust somebody will come along and bail them out and make everything OK, right?

But I think that the attitude that it is OK to set up policies that do not hold students responsible for their own misdoings is simply a carryover from the DISD’s top leaders’ own philosophies.

Now, it turns out that they don’t want to be held responsible for their own screw ups.  Apparently, DISD hired some new teachers last year, but forgot to think about how to pay for them.  This led to a $64,000,000 budget shortfall in 2007. That is expected to soar to nearly $84,000,000 this year.

How can top executives in charge of such a large district foul up enough to miss out on the fact that they were spending 64 million dollars more than they were taking in through taxes? This is not a small sum of money.  This is not simply a minor accounting error.  This is not just someone putting some expenditure in the wrong column of a data table or listing it under one account instead of another.  This is a major blunder.

But are the top school district executives held to account? Uh, no. The ones being held to account for this are the teachers who are facing losing their jobs.  Up to 700 teachers may be laid off in the middle of the school year.

What effect will that have on students who started learning from one teacher only to be shoved into another, over crowded, classroom with a different teacher?

And what of the teachers, themselves?  If they lose their jobs, they lose their way to make a living.  Teaching jobs don’t pay a lot to start with.  And teaching jobs are keyed to the academic year.  Teaching jobs begin at the start of the school year.  It is almost unheard of for a teacher to be hired in the middle of the year.  So, these teachers are out of a job until next August at the earliest.  Is that fair to them?

No, I think that accountability is important.  I think that standards need to be held fast.  I think that the bar needs to be set, and students, administrators, employees, and everyone needs to make it.  A good leader needs to encourage his followers to meet the challenge and to make the grade.

And if they don’t, then there must be consequences.  If the leader screws up, then he needs to face the consequences, too.

I’m including links to various news stories for more in depth information.

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/latestnews/stories/091708dnmetdisdcuts.1bd57b1.html

http://cbs11tv.com/business/education/disd.teacher.layoffs.2.819119.html

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/localnews/stories/DN-disdbudget_23met.ART.State.Edition2.26b709a.html

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The terms ‘leader’ and ‘leadership’ are bandied about constantly, but nowhere more often than in politics, especially during elections.

But did you know that nearly five thousand years ago a Chinese philosopher proved that truly great leadership couldn’t exist in the political arena?

Not true, I hear many of you say.

OK, first, consider three generally acknowledged descriptions of true leadership by Lao Tse in the Tao Te Ching.

• Be gentle and you can be bold; be frugal and you can be liberal; avoid putting yourself before others and you can become a leader among men.

• The superior leader gets things done with very little motion. He imparts instruction not through many words but through a few deeds. He keeps informed about everything but interferes hardly at all. He is a catalyst, and though things would not get done well if he weren’t there, when they succeed he takes no credit. And because he takes no credit, credit never leaves him.

• As for the best leaders,the people do not notice their existence.
  The next best,
  the people honor and praise.
  The next, the people fear;
  and the next, the people hate—
  When the best leader’s work is done,
  the people say, “We did it ourselves!”
  To lead the people, walk behind them.

Now name for me just one politician who comes even close to fitting these descriptions.

Sadly, the oxymoronic coupling of ‘leader’ and ‘politician’ usually is just plain moronic.

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By Wes Ball. Wes is a strategic innovation consultant and author of The Alpha Factor – a revolutionary new look at what really creates market dominance and self-sustaining success (Westlyn Publishing, 2008) and writes for Leadership turn every Tuesday. See all his posts here. Wes can be reached at www.theballgroup.com.It doesn’t make any difference what your political views are, everyone recognizes that Sarah Palin’s nomination as candidate for VP for the Republican Party changed everything… not only at the Republican convention, but also at the DNC.  There was obvious fear in both the eyes of Democratic spokespersons and the words of their primary candidate.

Why would something so simple have such a major effect?  I believe it is an example of the power of the Alpha model at work. Let me explain…

We saw that John McCain was the underdog, despite the apparent closeness of the polls.  Almost everyone assumed that this one was in the bag for Obama.  He is smooth, well-spoken, and inspirational, even when you’re not quite sure what he is saying.  His original message was one of joining together for a great purpose that made many persons who are not tattooed with a cute gray elephant on their foreheads aspire to be part of the movement to a brighter tomorrow.  Obama had not even had to tell anyone how that brighter tomorrow might occur to gain that following.

John McCain, on the other hand, had never been able to quite generate the support his poll numbers seemed to indicate he had, because his stiff jawed approach and constant reminders that he was the candidate with experience rang un-inspiringly hollow.  Going into this convention, the Republicans were trying hard to put on a good face, but it was obviously hard to do.

Then, magic happened.  It wasn’t that she was another “Maverick.”  It wasn’t that she was a “real” woman, who can shoot her moose dinner, cook it up, and still make it to work at the governor’s mansion the next morning in time to bust the tail of some nasty oil executives.  It was something quite simple, and it happened when we saw her speak:  she was inspirational.  She was real.  She, like Obama, could make people feel that they could be part of something great.  She made people aspire to be part of this “maverick” movement, and that even if you are a lifelong small-town resident, you can be part of this great country — you don’t have to be an ivy-league elitist.

The best part was that she was able to tell the “my experience is better than yours” story more inspirationally than John McCain, not because she has more experience, but because she was so inspirational and aspirational.  It meant something coming from her, where it just did not mean that much coming from McCain, because not that many really cared.

This is the Alpha model at work.  The Alpha innovation rule is:  Ego-satisfaction over-rules functional satisfaction.  You can have the performance advantage and still lose to someone who is more inspirational and aspirational than you.  Make people feel that they will feel good about themselves (self-satisfaction) and that others will feel good about them (personal significance), and the only factor performance has in the equation is to act as “proof” that you are telling the truth.

This campaign has suddenly become one where issues will be important.  They weren’t before.  Before it was who makes us feel that we want to be part of a movement.  Now it’s going to come down to who can prove that their claim of that benefit is real, based upon how they are going to achieve their goals.

A couple of months ago, Obama would have won without anyone really knowing how he was going to do anything.  Now he will be forced to explain it, because there is another inspirational “gun” in town who is stealing the scene.

If candidate McCain can join in the inspirational, aspirational game plan, this could now have become an unbeatable ticket.  If not, it will still be a very close race with the small set of independent voters measuring who they really believe will give them the Alpha leadership they desire.

Does Sarah Palin provide you with ‘ego-satisfaction’? (Miki)

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By Wes Ball. Wes is a strategic innovation consultant and author of The Alpha Factor – a revolutionary new look at what really creates market dominance and self-sustaining success (Westlyn Publishing, 2008) and writes for Leadership turn every Tuesday. See all his posts here. Wes can be reached at www.theballgroup.com.

Psychologists will tell you that only about 15% of the population thrives with change.  But they will also tell you that almost no one really likes it. Change causes pain – personally and organizationally.  And pain causes uncertainty, which makes everyone uncomfortable.  So we all try to avoid change, if at all possible.

Who wouldn’t like to think that what works today might work ten years from now?  The trouble is: change is happening all the time.  In fact, change is occurring so quickly today that, if you get some useful information, you better react to it right now, because it may no longer have value a week, a day, or an hour from now.  The days of believing that waiting to make a decision is a viable option are long gone.

The key to success in today’s business environment is not to avoid change, but rather to be the master of it—that is, to own it.

But change for change’s sake doesn’t go very far.  Fads die almost as quickly as they are birthed.  Change that continually drives customer expectations, especially change that drives them higher in the areas that customers want their expectations to be fulfilled at higher levels (i.e., ego-satisfaction), will create following behavior among competitors.  And following behavior puts the leader being followed in control.

How do successful change-leading companies make that happen? Here are the specific steps a company must go through to make it happen and become the change leader:

• Top management must be convinced that change is desirable.  This is by far the hardest and most critical step.  Few top managers would say they don’t want positive change, but few have the heart to really follow-through on what it takes to make change happen successfully.  They all too often want to solve a short-term issue and then go right back to business as usual.  Without this top-down desire to change, nothing useful happens.  And any positive change driven from the bottom up is quickly undermined.
• Uncover customer desires and aspirations – that is expectations they wish they could have fulfilled but don’t really believe can be.  The company that uncovers and addresses these wishes has the key to long-term loyalty and greater profitability than most companies ever dream of gaining.  Just ask Apple, or Harley-Davidson, or John Deere, or any of the other Alpha companies out there.
• Use what you discovered to drive new and higher expectations.  You won’t be able to fulfill every dream or aspiration a customer has (that’s why there are always new opportunities to raise the bar.  But, when you drive new and higher expectations from dreams and aspirations, you not only make your company the one to beat, but also the one to follow.  Customers, competitors, distributors, retailers, and referral agents will all look to you for insight as to what is important and what they should be doing.  You begin to own change in your category.
• Define the future by defining the path of future changes in expectations.  Intel has already defined the next five generations of processor performance.  It’s for everyone else to follow their lead.  As you define that future in broader terms than just product performance, you generate the path of a true leader.  Once you have most people following your lead (even if they are not all buying from you), you have control over continually driving expectations for the entire category higher.

It starts with a desire to create change. It is sustained by defining the path change will take for the category that makes you the leader and makes your company, its products, its communications and its people the proof that customers can get what they have dreamed of getting.

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I know, you were expecting to read about the fifth chapter in IBM’s The Enterprise of the Future (a steady Saturday feature since July 12 (be sure and download your free copy), but I’m taking a break in the name of politics.

As you all know, John McCain announced his running mate in an acknowledged effort to blunt the Democratic convention momentum (yawn). Nothing new there.

McCain chose Alaska Governor Sarah Palin. Based on my limited knowledge of political maneuvering, her main advantages are gender, Conservative credentials, and age.

Upon reading here and there today, I got the impression that the Republicans are hoping that “Hilary women” will vote the Republican ticket because the Vice Presidential candidate has the same plumbing. Never mind that Palin stands in diametric opposition to most of Clinton’s beliefs.

At the Democratic Convention and in the media Obama was hailed as a personification of Dr. King’s Dream, but If he (an eighth cousin to Dick Cheney and an 11th cousin to G. W. Bush) does win he’ll actually be the seventh black president (after Thomas Jefferson, Andrew Jackson, Abraham Lincoln, Warren G. Harding, Calvin Coolidge and Dwight Eisenhower)—just the first one who shows and, as Americans have proved over and over, appearance is everything.

Are we [the American people] really as shallow as we’ve made ourselves out to be?

Is our vision truly so focused on form that substance sinks into oblivion?

By CandidProf. This is the second part of a discussion about what today’s teachers face and the choices that they make. Read all of CandidProf here.

There are some students who come along who are indeed beyond anything that we should realistically be expected to deal with.  Yet, all too often, we are expected to deal with those students.

Every semester I get a notice from the Disabled Students Office about several students who are taking my class who are registered as disabled.  We are expected to make “reasonable” accommodations.

Unfortunately, nobody seems to know what constitutes “reasonable.” Some students have hearing problems and need to record the lectures to play back later.  No problem.  Others need extra time on tests.  I can do that.  Some with visual difficulties need class handouts to be printed with extra large fonts.  OK, that is not such a big deal.

These all take extra time, but I put them in the category of students that I mentioned earlier that simply need more of your time.  But, of course, we have NO training in how to handle such cases.  Again, we are trained in our disciplines, not in how to deal with disabled persons.  We have people who have studied that, but they have not studied the individual academic disciplines, so they can’t help.

The real problem comes with those students who have major disabilities.  For example, students who are blind or have major motor impairments.

We have curricula set up that involves students doing certain things to learn; part of that is lecture, homework, and tests.  But in the sciences, there are also labs.

I have had students come along that simply could NOT do the regular laboratory work.  In some cases, safety is an issue.  How to you keep a blind student safe in a chemistry lab when there are open flames, beakers of dangerous chemicals, and fragile glassware?

What about a biology student whose hands shake and then tries to use a scalpel to dissect something?  This means that you have to stick with that student through the laboratory exercise to make sure that they are safe.  But you are also supposed to be watching out for other students.  It often isn’t possible.

One solution is to meet with the disabled student to do the lab at some other time with just them.  That means that you are effectively teaching an extra class, only not being paid for it.  Some institutions have TA’s to help, some don’t.  But, do you want to put the safety of this student in the hands of a TA even less trained to deal with them than you are?

I have had blind students before.  The Office of Disabled Students is supposed to have someone to read the textbook to them and to read the test questions to them.  Only for physics questions those people don’t understand the symbols that we use and they don’t want to come to class to learn the material, so they ask me to read the text and questions. Of course, that is extra, unpaid, work.

I have had other students with cognitive difficulties.  One in particular required me to sit with her for about 3 hours after each one hour lecture explaining things.  There are three of those per week.  I worked with her for about 9 hours per week doing each lab that the other students did in less than 3 hours.  That means that I was spending about 18 hours per week, extra, with just that one student. I still had a full teaching load, plus my other duties.  And, of course, I did not get paid one dime for that extra 18 hours per week.

There have been other times when I have had to write entirely new laboratory exercises for some students who could not do what the existing labs required because of some physical limitation.  That is even more work than teaching an extra section of the class because I was unable to use the existing lab manual.  I had to spend about 6 hours per week writing new labs and then 3 hours per week doing the lab with the student.

Naturally, I did not get paid for teaching a special section of the class for this student.  I don’t want to sound like all I’m after is money, but it really is not fair to expect me to put in all that extra time without ANY compensation other than that I feel good about helping someone.  At least they could cut back on my teaching load, or actually count these special circumstances as part of my regular teaching load, but they don’t.  I do it all on top of a full load.

Some might suggest simply not having the students do the exercises, but then that defeats the whole purpose.  Those are supposed to be teaching experiences that help them learn.

Besides, is it fair to give laboratory science credit to a student who does not do a lab of any kind?

Is it fair to the disabled student to just hand them a degree if they have not earned it?

Apparently we got in trouble some years ago for giving a student a degree in a field that required passing a state licensing requirement, only for said student to be unable to pass that state licensing exam and get a job in the field because of their disability.  The department in question had made many adjustments to its curriculum and requirements in order for the student to pass classes.  The problem was that the student was unprepared for what came later.

Would it be right to adjust the curriculum so that a student got an accounting degree even though they had a cognitive problem that prevented their understanding numbers?

There has to be a better way.

This quickly gets past where I feel like I have any experience or ability to truly help someone.  However, all too often, it falls on my shoulders to do the work.  Of course, I am not the only one.  This is happening in colleges and universities all over the nation.

Obviously disabled people can do quite well. I have met a blind astronomer and a blind computer scientist.  I know of a deaf news reporter.  Look at Stephen Hawking.

But these are people who did most of the work in overcoming their disabilities themselves.  They did not have their accomplishments handed to them.  They earned them, and they did so the hard way.

I know that I am probably going to upset a lot of people with these posts.  But I see this as a problem facing us in the colleges and universities.  I am not suggesting that we not work with disabled students.  My fiancée is disabled and I really appreciate all that was done for her in her education.  That is particularly true because I recognize that most of that was done by individuals who bent over backwards for her.

Until she met me and saw how much I have to do to help disabled students, she had been thinking that it was her university that had done all of that work.  Now, she realizes that the university probably didn’t do as much as she thought.  Rather, it was her professors who did most of the accommodating.

But I don’t want to leave her out.  She has worked hard to not let her disabilities disable her.  She often never asked for what would have been reasonable requests.  She worked to perform like everyone else and she still does.  To me, she seems to be quite a leader herself.

Readers of this site, I suppose, are looking for insights into leadership.  Well, as I see it, a leader’s role is often more than just directly job related.

We are all human beings and human beings interact in all sorts of complicated ways.

We cannot totally separate our individual beliefs, feelings, and emotions from our professional selves.  We bring all of these things into the job.  They are what build the framework of how we see things, both on and off the job.  So, when extraneous things are going on, they impact how we do our job.

Sometimes a leader needs to recognize that the people they are leading are people not robots.  They can’t totally forget whatever else is going on in their lives.  So, in order for them to be the best followers, their leader needs to help them address these outside influences.

Unfortunately, that takes time and it is often beyond what the leader is trained to do.  I think part of the innate “leadership potential” that some people have is in their ability to help people focus on the job at hand.

You also have to know your own limitations.  You need to know when dealing with these outside factors is over your head.  That is when you need to refer the problem on.

Leaders have limits, too, and the best ones know their limits.

What do you consider “reasonable accommodation” in a college setting? [Miki]

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