In a spirited General Session on the first day of ASCD's fall conference, Cile Chavez called on school administrators as well as teachers to develop human potential through "meaningful leadership." A leadership title is not what brings honor, she stated, "but rather a style of leadership characterized by idealism, intuition, and integrity. Without these qualities," asserted Chavez, "leadership is merely a technical function that cannot command respect."
Chavez, the president of a consulting company in Littleton, Colo., said that idealism is what helps educators keep their focus on the learner. Lamenting that the politics of education can sometimes cloud an educator's vision of what is possible for learners, she suggested that idealism provides new eyes with which to begin the real voyage of discovery.
To be idealistic is to possess "audacious hope, the opposite of despair," she said. Encouraging leaders to develop an agenda of idealism, Chavez suggested that human growth and development ought to be viewed as the centerpiece of what is ideal and the motivation for keeping promises.
Moving on to how meaningful leaders use intuition, Chavez recommended reading Who Moved My Cheese? An Amazing Way to Deal With Change in Your Work and in Your Life (New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1998). This new book by Spencer Johnson and Kenneth Blanchard, authors of the best-selling The One-Minute Manager (New York: Morrow, 1982), is a deceptively simple story about questioning our assumptions, she said. Leaders often need to discard obsolete baggage—false assumptions—before they can open themselves to change and transform schools into places of realized potential, Chavez explained. Letting go of old beliefs requires leaders to develop a trusting, intuitive spirit, she noted, and argued that in schools where leaders move forward intuitively, they do not compromise on productivity, purpose, or passion.
Chavez recommended a simple curriculum for intuitive leaders—namely, that they keep asking themselves "What is possible in the realm of the ideal? What would it look like if ____?" She insisted that innovative practices combined with true empowerment bring lasting results.
Addressing the third ingredient of her meaningful leadership model, Chavez noted that the word integrity derives from the Latin noun integer, which means whole or complete. "It means to walk your talk, to discern right from wrong," she reminded her listeners. "But another way to understand integrity is like this: We need to be the way without getting in the way."
Chavez concluded her remarks by inviting ASCD members to examine their intentions. "Regardless of the external forces at your places of work, ask yourselves how you would describe the human spirit in your organization," she said. "Meaningful leadership values the human soul and spirit. It is soulful and empathetic. In developing human potential, this is the kind of leadership that is a source of inspiration."