Starting with Why

"All leaders must have two things: they must have a vision of the world that does not exist and they must have the ability to communicate it." —S. Sinek

I've recently finished reading Start With Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action by Simon Sinek. His TED Talk ("How Great Leaders Inspire Action") interested me for several reasons.

1. As a home educator, I have worked to inspire not only my own children but also others who have questions about home education, such as: What do I need to know to teach my own children? Where do I find curriculum? How can I start my own support group? 
2. As someone who would like to see better alternatives to traditional education, I am curious about why some teachers in schools are able to inspire students while others are not. By studying what makes teachers effective leaders, perhaps I can become a more inspiring teacher myself.
3. As a mentor, I wanted to explore Sinek's ideas about leadership so that I could share those ideas with young adult students who are interested in becoming leaders themselves.

Leadership isn't just for CEOs and Presidents. As Sinek describes it:

"Just about every person or organization needs to motivate others to act for some reason or another. Some want to motivate a purchase decision. Others are looking for support or a vote. Still others are keen to motivate the people around them to work harder or smarter or just follow the rules." 

Sinek goes on to explain that successful leaders are the people who appeal to our hearts—or our guts. Our initial reaction to them isn't entirely rational; what they say to us just "feels right," our "gut instinct" tells us they are on to something good. They show us a vision of the future and, if we share their beliefs and values, we feel inspired to work toward making their vision a reality. Once we know why we want to move in a new direction, making decisions about how we will proceed and what we will do comes more naturally.

Sinek argues that "if you don't know why, you can't know how." I agree. Before I could decide how to homeschool, I needed to have a vision of what success might look like. I contemplated abstract ideas about what it means to be educated, to live a meaningful life, to respect ourselves and others as whole people (with inner as well as outer lives), to be fully present, mindful and balanced. Conversations with other homeschoolers helped me to  imagine myself and my children thriving without school. Once I was able to see a way of living that was profoundly different from what school offered my children, I was able to make appropriate decisions about how I would help my kids to learn. Choosing materials, experiences, and activities was easier once I knew why we were in the business of home educating.

We educators routinely say our goal is to "help students learn," but exactly why do we want students to learn? Asked another way, what is our shared vision of the future and how does helping students learn fit into that vision? What type of learning environment do we imagine would cause us (teachers and students) to leap out of bed in the morning and rush to get ourselves to work?

Sinek doesn't say all people need to become leaders. He recognizes that every successful movement, organization, and institution needs both leaders and followers:

"Leadership is not about power or authority. Leadership is decidedly more human. Being a leader requires one thing and one thing only: followers. A follower is someone who volunteers to go where you are going. They choose to go not because they have to, not because they were incentivized to, not because they were threatened to, but because they want to."

Visionaries paint a picture of the future so we can see what direction to take; followers, those who share the values and ideas expressed by the visionary, work on implementing that vision. Whether you are a homeschooling parent, a teacher or an administrator, if you are focused on choosing curriculum, preparing lesson plans, and devising assessments—the "hows" and "whats" of schooling—you are undoubtedly making important contributions to the students and institutions you serve. However, without a passionate visionary to provide direction, most of us tend to choose the security of the familiar ("how we've always done things") over risky new ideas. Thus, there's little innovation, progress or change. Worse, without a leader capable of inspiring people to act, educators and their institutions tend to resort to other forms of "motivation," carrot-and-stick manipulations that ultimately reduce enthusiasm and satisfaction in the longterm.

Over the years, there have been times when I've temporarily forgotten my original reasons for homeschooling. Worried about my child's developing writing skills or difficulty with math problems, I lost perspective. It was at those times that I had to return to my original list of "Reasons Why I Homeschool" and use it to evaluate my choice of methods and materials. Did anything conflict with my vision of our family thriving outside of school? If it did, I knew I had to make some changes.

Similarly, schools thinking about incorporating new technologies into their programs should ask the question "Why?"before they consider how or what to add. Without a clear vision of what schools of the future should look like, teachers will end up using the new equipment in old ways, reinforcing an obsolete system instead of transforming it.