This article was written on 13.07.2024
Yesterday was a productive day. Early in the morning, I had coffee with Mr. Jeff, the ex-GM of UEM Sunrise. What I admire about him is that he’s always very positive, always focuses on possibilities to make things happen, and he has never badmouthed anyone. At least, I’ve never heard that from him. This is something truly rare. He’s the one who helped us fight for such a great deal on our houses during MCO, and we bought them by faith when the economic outlook was gloomy. So, I thought of inviting him for our fortnightly Friday fellowship in the evening and going through the Global Leadership Summit (GLS) series.
It was a bit impromptu, but I thought it would be meaningful as he had never visited our house and could get a chance to witness how he has blessed our family formation and this beautiful community. We had meaningful conversations with key leaders that day, and in the meantime, we ironed out many details about the new campus. The day ended with a fellowship discussing the GLS series by Patrick Gelsinger (Pat), CEO of Intel and board member.
The topic of his talk was “MAP Your Leadership Path: Mentors. Audacious Goals. Passion.” Our discussion questions were:
- Who are or who will be your mentors?
- What are some of your audacious goals?
- How would you articulate your passion and your purpose?
He also spoke about “The 5 L’s of Leadership” – Gelsinger’s framework for developing your own leadership style:
- Listen and Learn: How can you extract the utmost wisdom from him/her/them through active listening and learning?
- Link and Lift: In what ways will you apply insights from Pat Gelsinger to connect individuals and all facets of the organization?
- Love: How can you strengthen your love for your purpose, for people, and for your organization’s mission?
It was a meaningful evening.
This morning, we started traveling to school around 6:30 AM and picked up key leaders from the Stellar International School academic team to attend a workshop in Muar. Today marks the first breakthrough workshop among the four international schools in Johor, led by Uncle Tou Boon, a well-respected man. Many of our important cultures are shaped by this man. For instance, before every meeting begins, part of our culture is to have everyone share a word about their mental, emotional, physical, and spiritual well-being. Why do we talk about our feelings? Simply because emotions affect learning and vice versa. When looking at the brain, these areas often overlap with each other. Emotions are essential to learning and learning outcomes; therefore, they are central to effective and efficient teaching and learning processes.
We are dealing with human beings, not human doings. Hence, we need to create a safe space for our team members before anything else, including starting the meeting. This is perhaps the simplest 3B formula to get our team members to perform: Before we expect them to perform, as leaders, we need to help them feel a sense of belonging. Then, they will choose to believe, and finally, behave.
We also touched on the purpose of each school. Why does Stellar exist?
In Sir Ken Robinson’s TED Talk “Do schools kill creativity?” (TED 2006), he argues that schools often prioritize academic and intellectual achievement at the expense of other forms of intelligence, such as artistry or musicality. So, the following should be a common purpose that every school should strive for:
- Self-awareness: Education should enable young people to engage with the world within them and the world around them.
- Existing system: Convergence. “What’s the right answer?”
- In reality: Divergence. There’s always more than one answer.
- Cultural: Schools should enable students to understand their own cultures and to respect the diversity of others.
- Economic: Education should enable students to become economically responsible and independent.
- Social: Education should enable young people to become active and compassionate citizens.
So, what do we want to be known for? That’s the purpose of Stellar. Let’s focus specifically on the four areas: self-awareness, cultural, economic, and social.
Self-awareness
In light of AI, we acknowledge that the value a teacher could add to the students would diminish tremendously if we don’t strive for continuous improvement. How do we achieve self-awareness? It’s almost impossible when we are so self-centered. First things first: get rid of self-centeredness. This is perhaps the toughest part of all. We won’t be able to reflect or achieve self-awareness when we are self-centered. It requires a lot of humility. Why is it so tough to be humble? Because we didn’t realize that humility is not thinking less of yourself; it is simply thinking of yourself less. On the other hand, it also requires a strong sense of security. One tool we could use to help us evaluate ourselves is the Johari Window. Are we secure enough to reduce our blindspot? To discover what might be known to others and not to me? The issue is how to be secured? This requires a lot of practice, starting from understanding where we park our sense of security and identity. Is it on how others view us? If yes, then we won’t be able to open up about our shortcomings, or won’t feel secure enough to be vulnerable, or even apologize for our mistakes.
Cultural
Speaking on self-awareness, that can’t be overcome overnight. It has a lot to do with culture. For instance, as I entered my mentor’s church, I would be more huggy naturally. But it wouldn’t be appropriate to do that back in JB. How do we build a culture of self-awareness and self-reflection? Hence, we want to instill a culture of coaching at Stellar, driving the school towards self-awareness, a habit of reflection, starting from ourselves—the top leadership. That itself is a culture—servant leadership. The highest position you hold, the greater you should serve. We believe leadership merely gives us an opportunity to serve better. We have been starting our coaching journey at the top leadership level for almost a year now.So, first, we define the leaders who buy into that, then only are we able to implement the ideas. Most of the time, we fall into the trap of hiring managers to lead, as long as KPIs are met, then it’s fine. We often inherit the formality, but neglect the real function of it. As long as we get things done, we leave the rest of the culture for another time. It’s a huge topic.
Economic
Most schools understand this part: strive for straight As, get students to the best universities, and universities will get our students the best jobs. Why? Straight As get the school fame. But what about bringing students from failing grades to Cs?What about getting a student who used to give up on themselves to start believing they can be someone great and create an impact on society? What about getting the most rebellious kid in the school and training them up to be a school leader?Helping our students find their purpose in life? Aren’t these more meaningful and have a real implication on economics?Why are schools not shouting about that? Grades are an important metric, yet not the only metric that matters. We all know academic excellence doesn’t guarantee future success. Not anymore.
Social
Honestly, we always thought this aspect was contributing to society. In fact, it’s far more than that. It’s not about doing charity, not about fulfilling what we were taught during moral lessons in school. It’s also not a zero-sum game—the more we give, the less we have; or I will only give only if I am better off. Take one thing I’ve observed personally throughout my career journey so far: We often have the fear to speak to successful business leaders. However, of those who achieve true success, apart from the common trait that they are extremely busy, I find them extremely approachable and down-to-earth. In fact, there’s very little protocol needed for them. Why? There are too many things that are more significant than formality. But why do they need that formality in public? There are a lot of public expectations or perceptions that can’t be changed. Most of the time, they are an icon that represents an organization or a conglomerate. Hence, the more you give,the more you will be able to give. It’s strange. Why? Being socially compassionate, possessing humanity, is in fact the highest form of self-actualization. Once you see a social issue that others don’t see, or others could see but don’t feel what you feel, you start to own up to that part of the issue and try to gather resources or like-minded people for the same goal.That itself is powerful and makes you much more purposeful and strong, hence a great leader.
To be continued…
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