The Leader In Me

After reading a book called "The Leader in Me" by Stephen R. Covey about elementary schools teaching the seven habits to five year olds and reading of the success they were having with elementary grades I remembered that I had read his 7-Habits of Highly Effective People back in 1991 and thought well of it. The stories of teachers and principles working together to teach leadership to elementary aged children inspired me to develop such a program for our home as a means of teaching my children leadership.

So I put together power point slides and we had a family meeting. We only were able to cover the introductory materials because we try to keep these meetings to 20 minutes because they have homework and other responsibilities too. The paradigm shifting stories were well received. They seem to be OK with learning the material. We had our 18 year old, our 16 year old, our 14 year old, our 9 year old, and our 5 year old around the table with a 28 year old guest too. It seemed to go over well. I gave them a hand out of the elementary school version of the 7-habits because the language is more to the point and clear without business jargon for the kids to stumble over. We'll see how this goes. So far, so good.

I watched a Conductor lead 95 kids in amazing music

In March, on of our daughters had two Japanese students stay with us for a week. It was great to see them absorb how different their cultures are from one another. Anyway, the Japanese band students and the US band students practiced together with American conductor Robert W. Smith. When the evening came for all the community to go see the joint Japanese-American concert, it was fascinating to watch Mr. Smith lead the 95 members of the band in amazing renditions. The way he asked for more from certain sections of musicians with body language and the way they responded and the wonderful music was a wonderful example of leadership in action.