VOLUME VI – CHAPTER XXV
THE FLIGHT UPSTAIRS
OWN UP YOUR MISTAKE
There is a Chinese saying- “ The longest journey starts with but a single step”. You took your first step in teaching when perhaps you were around 24. Now you are 35 and you have been installed in the gadi – Principal. From having a job as a teacher you have achieved a status as a Principal but from now on to a point when you are accepted as an Educationalist- It is a long haul. You have to ascend several steps- each one of which will help you to understand yourself a little more and a little better from a rough hewn stone full of haughtiness to a smoothly polished pebble of humility- There are several steps for you to climb up one by one, slowly, steadily and surely.
The Minister’s visit – a special function planned- all details worked out- each staff assigned individual responsibilities- programme items rehearsed- A dry run exercise also conducted previous day.
On the scheduled day just when the dignitaries were seated on the dais the power went off. The whole hall enveloped in darkness. A shrill voice of a girl upsets this minister. Candles were lit. After 10 minutes, power is restored.
As the proceedings started you gave the welcome speech, then a student who got selected to go to Japan, teacher who got selected to go to U. S. A were asked to describe their visits and benefits accrued and then you asked the minister to speak. After that you asked the Vice- Principal to propose the vote of thanks.
The faces of the Correspondent ,the School Pupil Leader and his father were to be seen to be believed, because of the opportunities they had lost to come into the lime light. After the function, during the customary dinner given by the School Chairman, the Principal apologized for the mistake he had committed in not asking the Correspondent to honour the Minister and also the School Pupil Leader to give the vote of thanks. The Chairman, a seasoned person complimented him on owning the mistake and said “Our Principal who is a very competent person, had done his best to save the situation by asking the School Pupil Leader to give the memento to the Minister before the vote of thanks.
When you make a small mistake or a strategic mistake, better to own up the mistake. It will reveal your humility, that you are open and also pave the way for all the staff to do so. By owning a mistake you show that you are aware of what had misfired and that you know how to plug the leak. You also show your leadership qualities by not making somebody else as a scape goat. As Christopher Gergen, Director ( Entrepreneurial Leadership Initiative) Duke university and co-author of “Life Entrepreneurs: ordinary people creating extraordinary lines” says:- “ The most useful thing you can do is to translate a mistake into a valuable moment of leadership”.
Harvard University Amy Gallo in her “You’ve made a mistake. Now what?” says you have to respond quickly before others judge your ability. If you discuss the mistake with a peer or a senior they can help you to gain a better perspective for future guidance. To gain more expertise in this area. Please Read:- Madeleine. L. Van Hecke’s “ Blind Spots: Why smart people do dumb things”.
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VOLUME VI – CHAPTER XXVI
GOLD BECOMES JEWEL AFTER GOING THROUGH A FURNACE
To adopt the words of Peter Drucker, they always searched for change, for the novel and new, responded to it wisely and exploited it as an opportunity. They personified the observations of Keith Mc Farland by looking at every change in life as an invitation to discard the old line of thinking and to look for now and a higher order of thought and action.
Like hardly sailors who, when facing the prospect of a gale, trim their sails and flake an advantage of their adversity. All these educational leaders did not have a smooth sailing in their lives. The author had witnessed the trials and tribulations, the pulls and pressures, the stress and strain, the agony and anguish, the despair and disappointment, the sinister comments and the snide remarks, the baiting and battering, all that they had faced and weathered. These ringside opportunity to observe how they bounced on every occasion was an object lesson in education management for him.
You can become great only if and after you pass through the furnace of difficulty that also after going through the eye on a storm, how you react to these testing times is the barometer of your inner strength. When every day becomes a smooth affair, and you enter a comfort zone that is your danger signal. Then when a crisis suddenly arises, you will find it difficult to bounce because that spring is missing. Every crisis is a new challenge. What technique helped you to overcome an earlier one may not be helpful to face a later one.
When a crisis comes naturally anxiety will also crop up. Your secret lies in your containing your anxiety and lead your staff to overcome that crisis. General Eisenhower, won the II World War in Europe because he didn’t reveal his fear, his anxiety.
Your real force lies hidden within you. Your secret lies in your ability to bring it out. Whenever a crisis situation arose in a KV the author used to form a strategic team comprising representatives of different cadres and seek their suggestions. If you depend only on your PGT’s, you won’t get to see the issue from various angles as they will all belong to the same breed.
Your secret lies not in wavering, not in procrastination, not in being unsure of yourself, not in knowing how to respond, not in changing track often.
A staff or a student leader should not hold you to ransom – “let sleeping dogs lie”, shall not be your policy. You shall not ask yourself, “Am I capable of handling the crisis? Don’t say “High winds are closing in from all sides. I am caught in a bind” and finally don’t go on altering your action plans that will leave everyone around you dazed and confused.
Your secret lies in your infusing in your staff a brave heart to meet the crisis head on and also telling them that they all together can surely overcome the crisis. Infusion and motivation a two guns with which you shall fight.
To know more about the bounce and buoyancy you should develop, you would better read “Bounce” – by Keith Mc Farland
Have you visited the “Yes Bank”? you will attribute certain basic values to a Bank like trust, transparency, courtesy, punctuality, etc., But this bank has actually painted its office pillars with each value and brand belief.
The Headmaster of Kshatriya Vidyasala, Virudhunagar had values painted on the school corridor walls. The Director of Education , Tokyo told the author in 1958 that the secret of Japan’s success lay in the six sentences painted on the walls on either side of the entrance in every school. In the morning when they entered the school they read:
“This is my school
I am proud of my school
I shall make it proud of me”
In the evening they read another set of three lines
“What this school cannot do, Japan cannot do
What Japan cannot do, the world shall not do
Only the sky is the limit for our achievements.
This is called “School space detailing” used to project the school’s philosophy. The author had used this in all five KV’s of which he had been the Principal and also motivated several schools to have them painted substituting the word ‘India’ for Japan.
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VOLUME VI – CHAPTER XXVII
PROJECT YOUR SCHOOL
Yours may be an excellent school. But you have to communicate that you have excellent staff, transparent operations, how you care for your students and staff (Human Capital), how your action are based on trust, how you are inducted based on trust, how you have inducted the use of educational technology, how your school is responsible for the harmonious development of the child’s personality, how you have grown and where you want to go.
Many schools display at the entrance on wooden boards with the names of rank holders. Instead can you welcome your parents and visitors with a display on the photos of student and staff achievers, old students who have brought fame and credit to the school, distinguished parents, photos showing the values listed above, photos of Principals, Distinguished Visitors, service to society and so on. This will add value and vision to your school.
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A PERSON being transferred from one goal to another will have two Constables who will escort him. The “Punya” and the “Papa” (good consequences and bad consequences of actions) are the Constables who lead man from one birth to another. You must escape from their attention and avoid migration from one goal to another; act – but do not calculate the consequences. That is to say, do not worry about the consequence; leave it to God who prompted the act and made it possible. Dedicate the act, the will, and the wish, all to God. – Sri Sathya Sai Baba
