Speaking on Transformational Leadership at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln
Kimberly Greer, PhD, One of 5 women who are Deans at the Minnesota State University – Mankato and WELC Coordinator Professor Marilyn Grady, University of Nebraska – Lincoln
I was honored to be a keynote speaker at the 26th annual University of Nebraska’s Women In Educational Leadership Conference. Highlights of my keynote address follow with comments on transformational leadership and one family’s belief in the power of education.
As every good leader knows, you must apologize for the wrongs that are done and I must sincerely apologize as a graduate of The Ohio State University to those of you who are from Nebraska for what happened when Ohio State played Nebraska. (The Ohio State Buckeyes were victorious 63 to 38 in the 2012 football game.)
In preparing for today, I read that The University of Nebraska established the world’s first undergraduate psychology laboratory. And that you are one of the leaders in distance learning. I have a Masters in Psychology earned through a distance learning program. If I’d have known about your University, I might have become a student. (While most college students arrive on campus fresh out of high school, I was a member of a growing number of college students old enough to be their parents. For me going back to school was risky and challenging. But I had a vision which is the place that leaders operate from.)
My desire for graduate education happened because I became a student in a transformational training. I (had my BA), was already one of the first women to own and operate a full service ad agency, married, and we had a daughter. Through this transformational training program, I fell in love with working with people. I went back to school to learn about the foundations of transformational training, how and why it worked.
My commitment to leaders and leadership, community service and education comes from my family. I come from a proud loving family. My great grand father was William T. Kenney son of Eliza G. Kenney and probably the former Rose Slave John Kenney. (Source: Family and Kathryn Grover’s “Make A Way Somehow: African Americans In Geneva, New York 1790-1965) Imagine how it would be for you if you could not by law learn to read and write. My grandmother did laundry for Trinity Episcopal Church. Grandfather started the colored children’s (as we were called then) Sunday school, was a porter on the railroad and carted college students to Hobart College. My mother was one of 8 children, 2 girls, 6 boys, most of who went to college. Education is vitally important in my family.
If you are wondering if I was named for a boy, no I am not. I am named for my mother’s mother, Josephine, and her only sister, Eloise.. My father worked for an ad agency, when the soldiers came home from the war, he lost his job. So with no money, he went on to make his fortune and my mother never saw him again. His no longer having a job when the soldiers came home after WW2 was an outcome of affirmative action. (The GI Bill of Rights of the 1940s included provisions for low-cost mortgages to veterans so they could purchase homes and get an education. “Although local conflicts occurred over hiring priorities and preferences for returning veterans, there was plenty of work to go around.” However, this abundance of opportunity did not include Negroes (another of the names used then) or other people of color. Jim Crow laws, racism and segregation was key to the US social structure until the legislation of The Civil Rights Act of 1967 — legislation that was truly the result of transformational leaders in action.)
Mother and I moved to Toledo Ohio. And we were poor. I remember going to school in clothes from the Salvation Army, eating chicken neck soup until I thought I’d grow pinfeather and having two pairs of shoes, one pair for church and one pair for school when the Sunday-go-to-meeting-shoes wore out.
One day, when I was about 8 years old, my class was told to write a poem. As I said, I was a lover of learning.…I expected praise for the poem that I’d written but instead what I got was my teacher asking “who wrote that, I know you didn’t.” I was shocked and numb and humiliated, an experience that stayed with me until I was able to “handle it” in the transformational program and reframe my beliefs about who I was, the contribution I could make, leadership and education.
(In his book “Brainwashed: Challenging the Myth of Black Inferiority ” Tom Burrell writes that “one of the greatest propaganda campaigns of all time was the masterful marketing of the myth of black inferiority to justify slavery within a democracy.” The last several centuries still haunt us, and hinder our advancement and achievement.”)
As a participant, I was able to challenge that belief and others. I learned that a belief is “just something we hold to be true and act as though it is”. That there is power in language, for example, as in the difference between a “have to” and a “get to”. We can act as though we choose everything including our attitude. That regardless of circumstances, she or he can be a leader — it is a skill that can be learned. Today, I am even more aware that being a transformational leader carries with it certain priorities, especially for women. We must own our power, take care of ourselves the way we do for others, accept mentors and coaches and form strategic alliances.
In research, begun in 1986, among more than 150,000 leaders, James M. Kouzes and Barry Z. Posner discovered 5 practices that all leaders have in common. 26 years later they are still relevant: Inspire a shared vision. Encourage the heart. Model the way. And, enable others to act. Also challenge the process, which is what I love about the breakthrough work in non-cognitive education that I recently discovered.
This American Life is one of my husband’s favorite programs. One morning I was walking by his studio and I heard a child’s voice hollering with exasperation “10 MINUTES!”. I stopped and was soon to discover a new form of education (which, for me, is excitingly like transformational leadership’s experiential education in its ability to change lives for the better.)
Ira Glass was talking with Paul Tough, author of the new book How Children Succeed, about the traditional ways we measure ability and intelligence in American schools. They talked about the focus on cognitive abilities, conventional “book smarts” in American education, the emphasis placed on standardized testing and the growing body of research that suggests we may be on the verge of a new approach to some of the biggest challenges facing American schools today. “Non-cognitive skills” qualities like tenacity, resilience, impulse control are being viewed as increasingly vital in education. Ira also interviewed Nobel Prize winning economist Professor James J. Heckman, University of Chicago, who’s been at the center of this research and this shift. Through research It was found that the children who had greater self control did better in life. I’m no expert on this and I expect people like the researchers at the University of Nebraska are on the front lines of the research. I am looking forward to the breakthroughs that will result through your efforts. For me, I intend to read and learn more about non-cognitive learning as another tool of transformation.
I’d like to end with these often repeated words from the remarkable transformational leader Steve Jobs. We can never hear them enough:
Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.
Do what it takes to live your dream. Be a transformational leader, a self-expressing visionary–who makes a positive difference in the lives of themselves and others through her or his actions, who changes the world for the better in some way. Thank you.
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My special appreciation goes out to Dr. Marilyn Grady, Professor and Conference Coordinator, Kathy Wesley, Graduate Assistant, Department of Educational Administration and Aundria C. Duncan-Wagner, all from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln for their warm welcome and commitment to leadership and education, also to Mary Dee Wenniger Editor and Publisher of Women in Higher Education for her contributions to the advancement of women in education.
