Listen to Episode #1 of Phronesis. David Rosch was my first guest - I Have a Fear
Dr. David Rosch is Associate Professor of Leadership Studies at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Learn more about David's work by visiting the Journal of Leadership Education - David Rosch, Google Scholar - David Rosch, or Illinois Leader Lab.
Quotes from This Episode
Resources Discussed in This Episode
About The International Leadership Association (ILA)
Connect with Scott Allen
Listen to Episode #1 of Phronesis. David Rosch was my first guest - I Have a Fear
Dr. David Rosch is Associate Professor of Leadership Studies at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Learn more about David's work by visiting the Journal of Leadership Education - David Rosch, Google Scholar - David Rosch, or Illinois Leader Lab.
Quotes from This Episode
Resources Discussed in This Episode
About The International Leadership Association (ILA)
Connect with Scott Allen
Note: Voice-to-text transcriptions are about 90% accurate
Scott Allen 0:01
Okay, everyone, welcome to episode 101 of the Phronesis podcast. And you know what I'm excited about today because we are going back to Episode One. So my guest, for those of you who've been playing along here is Dave Rosch, he was actually our first guest. He's now our 100 and first guest, and Dave is at the University of Illinois. He's an associate professor of Leadership Studies. And he is an expert in the study and practice of developing student leaders. I am so excited to have you back, Dave. It's been 100 episodes, I'm thinking it may have been about March 2020. I think that that's when this project began, and I'm still in my bedroom.
David Rosch 0:45
That's a little sad.
Scott Allen 0:51
It's not sad, it's good. It's good. I don't normally record from my bedroom. But circumstances today I'm kind of relegated to the bedroom. And we were talking a little bit about before we started how, throughout these last couple of years, we've probably worked in some interesting spots in different nooks and crannies of our homes. And this afternoon, as we record, it just happens to be the bedroom. So Dave, thank you so much for being back. Obviously, we've been in dialogue in recent months, and really doing some nice writing. And you participated in those in the episode with Keith Eigel and Karl Kuhnert, which was so much fun. I don't know. I mean, you know, you started off this journey with such a perfect quote. And it was something like to the effect of, you know, "I have a fear..."
David Rosch 1:37
I fear that we're not making a difference. So this is back in March 2020, you know, in the prehistory of Phronesis. Yeah, all the things that we're trying to do informal leadership education, we're not really making a dance. Yeah, how students are developing, we're still leaving it up to chance, some students are taking what we're doing, and they're running with it, and they're growing, and some other students are not. And we have no systemic knowledge of how to do a better job in that. I am excited to get some of your current thinking on that topic. How do we get that systemic knowledge? What are you thinking? What, what's top of mind for you, in recent months, as you kind of think about that puzzle? Because it's such a fun, beautiful, wonderful puzzle. And I can't wait to hear what's at least got your attention in recent times? Sure. Well, a few different things. The first is that I think the folks who are new at studying leadership, one of the first things they hear about is that we have 1000 different definitions of what it means to lead. It's an oft-cited quote about the concept of Leadership Studies. And I actually don't agree with that. I think that most people when they teach leadership, there's more consensus than we think. And I would like to start some conversation in our field around what does it really mean to be an effective leader in a way that we can all get around some agreement on I think that there are, there's definitely going to be diversity around the edges, there's definitely going to be context-specific concepts and skills and attributes and knowledge that different people need to know how to lead effectively in different environments. But I honestly believe that there is more agreement about what constitutes effective leadership across these contexts than we might think it's easy to point to the fact that there is no consensus, but I think that we need to start doing the hard work of having some conversation around consensus building
Scott Allen 3:28
Well, and even coming to some shared general understandings so that we can start building a body of knowledge based around some of those shared understandings. I mean, people right now are still using terms like leadership development, leadership, skill, building, leadership, education, leadership learning, like they're synonymous, and I don't know necessarily that they are or that they should be. So at least a group of folks kind of has to come to some general consensus. And then how do we move forward building from there? And it may not be that as you said, in every context, those are the definitions being used. But at least some faction of people has to begin building with a shared understanding.
David Rosch 4:11
I totally agree. I totally agree. And the problem like how we got here, I think, is relatively simple to understand leadership is multidisciplinary. There are folks who are coming at it from a perspective of Business and Management. There are folks who are coming in from the perspective of an educator, there are folks who are coming in from the perspective of a community developer, etc, etc, and, and on and psychology, sociology. So I think that the language that those disciplines use is a little different. So I think that I mean, it's logical that we would have some ambiguity in terms of vocabulary. To be clear, I don't think the issue is vocabulary, per se, but I think that we haven't, we just need to get all those folks together in a room and say, "Well, what do we agree with?" There are things that we disagree with and rightly should disagree with across contexts and there should be different things to different people focus on it. I would like to, I would just like there to be a little bit more clarity. When we say we're trying to develop leaders. This is generally what we need.
Scott Allen 5:15
You know, I couldn't I couldn't agree with you more, I could not agree with you more. What else? What else even think about? Well, before we move on, I mean, you and I have been talking a little bit about this, even something, you know, like constructive developmental theory, we've been going back and forth on just the very many ways that that is being communicated in the literature. And so everyone wants to put their little spin or their angle or their caveat to what's being built. And again, I think it just gets to be gnarly and confusing, right?
David Rosch 5:49
I agree. I agree. And the listeners of your podcast know that you've communicated in the past, you've talked to some really awesome people over the past few episodes about the general consensus that they're writing about is trying to help leaders and emerging leaders see things in new, more complex, more mature ways. But yet, they're all using different vocabulary to talk about not identical concepts, but overlapping concepts, it would be good to start talking about, well, what do we mean in a disciplined way? When we think about those concepts,
Scott Allen 6:20
Because even constructive developmental theory, you know, it's identity development, ego development, levels or orders of consciousness, meaning-making systems, perspective-taking capacity, intellectual functioning, wisdom, development, mental complexity, the complexity of mind, leader development levels, vertical development, developmental stage action logics, self-authorship, meaning structures...
David Rosch 6:44
So so far, I've counted six different independent breaths that you needed to take in reading that list,
Scott Allen 6:51
...meaning-making logic and orders of development!
David Rosch 6:57
Yeah, that's, that's a lot to digest, right? Like it and I would guess most listeners, if you're, you're just sitting here, taking a jog on the treadmill listening to phronesis Your eyes are starting to glaze over as well, it but I mean, it's a point well taken, right? Like when you think about those concepts stacked upon each other. It's a lot to think about, but there's a lot of overlap across those things. And I think it's it's daunting to address that literature in a comprehensive way. Without it being simplified into well, what are the overlaps? And how do those overlaps relate to helping students learn how to lead in more effective ways?
Scott Allen 7:37
Exactly. Exactly. What else? What else has been on your radar? Sir?
David Rosch 7:41
What else has been on my radar? Well, yeah, so like I was thinking about, so I'm an educator I bought most of the students that I teach are University of Illinois undergraduates. So they're mostly upper-class students in our minor and Leadership Studies, these are 20-year-olds, 21-year-old sometimes 22-year-olds on the cusp of graduating and it's difficult for them as they come in, like the classes that I teach are generally more advanced than the intro level classes. So we're now getting to some specific capacity building beyond just understanding the fun the like the foundational concepts of what it means to lead effectively, and they still come to our, to my classes, at least, they have their notebooks out, they have their pencils ready, actually, that's probably a 20th-century example. They have their laptops out, they have them, their earbuds in the ready to take notes, and it's difficult for them to see the complexity in what it means to lead. I know you and I have had some conversations around this. I talked to some other educators about picking any leadership concept that might be in an undergraduate leadership course. So like I teach a team dynamics course. So we probably spent a week on conflict management and ineffective conflict management techniques and the Thomas Killman model and, and how it relates to different models and methods of effective leading and students. They take their notes and they memorize the model and think about how they might be able to be applied in certain scenarios. But yet it's still really difficult to think about how would you do that when it's really just on you and you're not there's not an instructor looking over your shoulder ready to give you a great as I know, Ron Ron Heifetz was was recently on your podcast, and I taught in the past classes on helping students understand the adaptive leadership model and the concept of, of turning up the heat. Well, building a container where people are able to effectively have these these these conversations. I introduced this to students. This is there's a biological precursor to our understanding of adaptive leadership. In Heifetz. It's talked about this too, like thinking about how chimps grew into humans. They grew up in what at that point time was the rain forests of what is now Iraq, Iran, if you go to those places right now in the Middle East, those are semi-arid environments. There isn't a rainforest. There are no chimpanzees there anymore, and it's because they started to dry out and I tell this story to my students, imagine you're a chimpanzee with all your chimpanzee family members and friends living up in these trees. And you're seeing it dry out, and there aren't as many trees anymore, and there aren't any bananas and other areas for food, and it's not as safe for you anymore. Imagine being that chimp that said, you know, listen, family and friends, you know, what we need to do, we need to climb down from these trees. And I know, we don't know how to walk, and we're not built this way. But we need to go somewhere where I have no idea where to go or what it's going to look like, or how it's how we're going to live. But we can't live here we have to leave. Think about what it was like for that first ship to communicate that in the way all the other chips looked at them. Like yes, these are not skills that we cover right now in most of our undergraduate leadership classes to deal with the complexities and stresses of societal interrelationships where that happens like I know Robert Kegan, you and I talk about his constructive developmental theories a lot his book In Over Our Heads, right, Eigel and Kuhnert talks about this in the podcast that I was your guest on and over our heads were in over our heads when we just talked about the general mental demands of modern life. Yeah, we need to teach our students to manage those demands better, especially in a leadership context, where other people are going to be looking at them. Because that's what that's why leaders get paid the big bucks.
Scott Allen 11:18
Well, in using the classroom, what I loved about the conversation with Ron Heifetz, and the reason I respect his work so much is that he's really trying to use that classroom as a laboratory trying to use and also I had forgotten I had experienced the exercise that he does, where you kind of go over a failure, and you diagnose and you really pick apart this failure that you experienced as a leader. And that's a really powerful, powerful opportunity for people to make meaning of what happened and potential options they had that maybe they didn't realize they had at the time, I just have great respect for how he's thinking about pushing the mark. He's, he's at the margins on a couple of different fronts, whether it's theory building, but also his work, from a pedagogical standpoint of actually trying to train people to be more in tune be more aware of what's happening in front of them diagnosing or coming up with, with interpretations, at least, I think that's so cool.
David Rosch 12:19
I agree. And what sticking out about what you're talking about, Scott, to me is like the vocabulary words, "diagnosing," and "interpreting," and you're talking about making meaning out of things. And I keep going back and forth with the idea of, we're teaching these concepts, but we're not teaching students how to make more effective meaning of what's going on in front of them so that they can apply the concepts in their actual life on a minute to minute basis when their team is looking at them that to diagnose what's going on and help them have a conversation about how they might address that it's difficult when all they've thought about are the fact that they know that there are five approaches to conflict, according to the Thomas Killman model. That's not enough. That's not enough. And that's so like a year, what was this? No, 100 weeks ago, the fear that I had was that we're not making a difference. The way I would frame it now is that I feel like, it's not that we're not making a difference, I think we are making a difference for students, I don't think we're making a systemic enough difference across the diversity of populations that are coming to us. It's to our undergraduate students. And like I teach at the University of Illinois here in the United States. That's, that's a certain subset of the diversity of the human population. But if you think about that broad diversity, we need to be able to address all of these situations in a more systemic way to help them diagnose what's really going on and make decisions and that requires them to have an understanding of what effective leaders do and to make meaning of their per their unique circumstances, then to be able to make decisions, given what I know about what it means to lead.
Scott Allen 13:54
Well, and I know I sound like a little bit of a broken record here, I just keep coming back to it, you can put a surgeon in a classroom and teach them about the act of surgery, but that does not make them a surgeon. And that does not incorporate the emotions and the feelings that encapsulate someone that rush through someone when something's not going right in the heat of the moment. And that does not in any way, shape, or form touch on the kinesthetic needs of actually performing the surgery. There are just so many different orientations of learning that we have to be touching. To ensure that there's competence again, we could go to, you know, a cookie example. You can see I can watch a YouTube video on the elements of a great peanut butter and jelly sandwich.
David Rosch 14:39
And I'm sure you have
Scott Allen 14:43
but I think I think that's the opportunity. That's really fun to think about. And again, going back to Ron Heifetz, I respect the fact that he's using this space which is the classroom which is a certain container, but trying to push the boundaries on creating a bit of a practice field. This case in point methodology, so that there is a little bit of heat, there is some emotion, it is close more closely replicating some of what people will experience and feel in the real world. I mean, I just finished I finished class just now about a week ago, like literally a week ago today, where I had kind of introduced along with a colleague, a project for our students, that was a pretty gnarly experience. And there's a very stark difference between talking about the concepts and getting an A on the exam, and being able to in real-time under stress, with heightened emotions, employ the concepts we've been discussing, you know, you can go to Erickson, and getting into a place of automaticity, deliberate practice, but there's just it's a chasm. It's a chasm. And rightfully so, again, in any other context, if you taught me something in the classroom, and then put me in a real context to perform CPR, it's a different situation, it's a different scenario.
David Rosch 16:02
I agree. I totally agree. And to your point about surgeons, I think is well taken, right. Like, it's one thing to think it's one thing to learn about surgery, it's another thing to even practice it in a low-risk environment with lots of mentors and other folks around, it's, it's a whole other thing to be sitting in the emergency room. And it's all on you, right, and it's your CPR example. It's another great example of that, that might be a little bit more simple. And the thing that I think about is that like in our medical profession is pumping out. I don't know, I don't have a great citation. But let's, let's say a few 1000 medical doctors every year. And I would say that most people who think about leadership studies would probably say that we need to be teaching more than a few 1000 people a year, and how to be good leaders across all the various diverse contexts in which they need to be leaders. So I think about well, how do we scale that up? Yeah, how do we scale that up? And what are some tools that we could utilize in classrooms around the world where there are, let's say, 60, undergraduate or graduate students in a single experience? What can we systemically do across these classrooms of 60 people that would help provide them with the tools where they could then go in advance on their own, we're not going to be able to put them all 60 in all these different classrooms, in scenarios where they're performing CPR, with all of the risks and costs and benefits associated with that. But we can put them in environments where they could probably think through and struggle through some scenarios in some approximation of real-time, where we can systemically put them in that situation, make a diagnosis, and then get some feedback from folks about how they may have done where they then go back and reflect about what they may have done better, or what they did really well, and what they need to do more of or things like that. And that's, that's not perfect. That's not going to turn them into a leader in every scenario, but it will provide them a toolset to be able to expand their learning afterward. Yeah. So I think about what are those things, and I don't know what they are. But I think that that's where our field needs to go?
Scott Allen 18:09
Well, it's interesting, Dave, I mean, it's a fun thought experiment, because as I mentioned to you a couple of days ago, I'm reading Keegan and Leahy, and then there are some other associates with them. They're deliberately developmental organizations book. And they call it pan development. So you know, everybody is developing across the organization, from the CEO to the newest team member, everyone is placed into a culture of development consistently, ongoing for the entire time you are in our organization, you are kind of in the context of development. And they also it's interesting, they kind of say, look in pen development, we mean everyone across the organization, but then they also mean everyone at any stage of development in the organization that it can meet everybody's needs. So it's an interesting thought experiment because they're thinking about how to do this at scale. And there's a lot of examples in there where they're leveraging technology, where they are, they've created a culture that does the development. And I don't know that that we often have that culture, we have a class or we have so so how do we more intentionally design culture within an MBA or culture within an undergraduate major, where it's just how we do business, and you're going to learn a lot of the content, whatever that is marketing or agriculture, whatever it might be, but you also will be developing and growing in concert with that subject matter domain expertise, right that you're building.
David Rosch 19:46
Like if you read some of the cases that they're talking about. These are uncomfortable organizations. To live in a world of radical candor is not to sit in comfort with your feet up on the desk. No. And I think about some of the other things that Kegan and Kuhnert & Eigel have talked about is how uncomfortable it is to lose what you have always thought of as the way to be as you advance to different ways of thinking. So like, for example, in the world of Leadership Studies, the big cleavage mark for students is to recognize that leadership is not what I do in the group. But it's about what we do together to achieve our common consensual goals, right. And the leader identity model development model talks about those other models of student leadership that are founded on the idea that it's about the group that requires leaders to recognize it's all it's not all about me. Rarely do we talk in our field about how painful of a lesson that might be for a 20-year-old student, who has been very successful in a variety of paths has had a variety of positions, has gotten Pat patted on the back, have maybe won some awards and being able to put some things on their resume and in a signature line of their email about the cool things that they've done to learn that lesson. It's not all about you, Dave, is sometimes a painful lesson. And I think about that, as deliberately developmental organizations manage that well, right. And you're talking about the system. It's the culture that drives that not a single individual that drives that. And I think that they have managed to figure out how to do that. How we apply that to our decentralized culture of higher education, I think is going to be our next challenge.
Scott Allen 21:32
Well, I think it's interesting I was on a walk with my son the other day, and he said something to the effect of, well, I just like to do it alone, because then I don't have to worry about anyone else. I don't have to worry about them living up to my expectations, or not, or not doing their part. I'll just do it on my own. Again, what's really interesting based on what I thought of the monkey, when you first started, that monkey has to give up some safety, right? There are lions down there. Yeah, yo, yeah, and more. Right, for us to get somewhere new. There's, there are some things we're gonna have to navigate and give up the safety of the tree. But I think it was interesting because I said to my son, you're going to reach a point where you're going to have to get work done with and through others, where that's going to be the skill where that's going to be you being successful, is if you can be the person that sparks that sense of team, that sense of camaraderie, and getting the work done. And it may not be as perfect as you want it. But did you know that he has to give up? That perfection, he has to give up that control. That podcast episode between Bob Keegan and Keith IGL was just so I'll put it in the show notes. For listeners, it was so powerful, because Bob just so eloquently, you know, we talk about all of the upsides of growth and transformation. And, and isn't that a wonderful, awesome thing. But there's also some pain there. And there are some things that we have to give up. And that's hard. That's not easy.
David Rosch 23:02
I agree. I remember a couple of years ago, doing a study (the university will remain nameless), but it was about collaborative group projects and students' experiences with collaborative group projects, and their effect on motivations to lead. And we know so many stories, if if you've talked to an undergraduate student who has been in collaborative group projects in the past decade, you almost unequivocally will hear a story of pain, frustration, and annoyance. And managing the group dynamics of that
Scott Allen 23:31
The only they've learned is the "workaround." Right?
David Rosch 23:34
Right! Right! And that's, that's what the data suggests, right? Like, it's an oversimplification, but it's not a vast oversimplification. You could summarize my results in that we're teaching students to not be motivated to lead. Why would I stick my neck out? Because all that means is that I volunteer for more work. And we know that when people come into businesses, right, they have jobs, why would I ever raise my hand and share an idea in my office? If my boss is just gonna say, oh, yeah, you could let Why don't you do that? I went up. Why would I ever suggest another idea without thinking without intention without creating those types of cultures and without even recognizing what is required to be effective for teaching innovative, energetic, idealistic people who have good ideas, it's not worth it, just do it on your own. I'm just going to work on my own. Leave me alone. I'm just going to be successful on my own. I don't think we're ever going to create solutions to the complex problems that we are that all that we're facing in our society if those are the lessons that we're learning through our formal education processes.
Scott Allen 24:32
So what else give me a third Dave, what else?
Unknown Speaker 24:36
Give you a third? What were the other two?!
Scott Allen 24:41
They were very wise they were. I'm still in awe. So I just had to ask that third open-ended question.
David Rosch 24:48
No problem. No problem. That's what I got right now. Those are the big ones. I think I only got two in the sense of baseball I don't want to strike out with
Scott Allen 24:59
Let's talk about this for a second, maybe we can go here. You hosted a meeting on Friday about the Collegiate Leadership Competition, you've done some research for us in that space. And I mean, that's an organization that really is trying to create a bit of a practice field, can we put a group of people together, put them through a curriculum provide a coach. So we're adding in some of the (K. Anders) Ericsson deliberate practice are, you know, dipping our toes in that space? It's not actually deliberate practice. And we're also trying to hit on some different orientations of learning, what would be some of your observations on that experience? Kind of the good, bad, and the ugly? And I mean, by all means, mentioned, the ugly, as you look at the data, as you look at the research, what do you see?
Unknown Speaker 25:41
Sure, it's interesting, you bring up the CLC, the Collegiate Leadership Competition, for the listeners that that don't know it, these are students who are there, like on a varsity sports team for their university, they go, and then they compete against other universities in leadership competitions, where they're judged on how effectively they're utilizing leadership in real-time in environments that they're, they're thrust into without a whole lot of preparation. After going through a semester of practice curriculum development, they have a coach that helps support that development gives them feedback. It's a really interesting concept. And I'm super excited to be involved in it and in the help contribute some research efforts to that one of the things that I think over the past generation or so is relatively unequivocal, is that motive. Competition raises motivation and entry-level, when you put people in competitive environments, their energy level goes up. What is less of a glowing sticker? Gold star? Is that what they get motivated for and energized about is not necessarily the goals of what the competition was set up to do in the first place, but to win, and I think that what the CLC does a pretty good job of is helping students focus on the idea that the winning if what winning is in for I know, we're not on camera, but laser viewer, I put the air quotes on what winning is in the CLC is being effective as a leader because we have a formal and explicit set of rules that these students are going to be judged upon. And I think that what the data is showing around the CLC is that it is making a relatively lasting difference. And they're the two things that I think are different about the CLC than most other environments that I see around leadership education is the first is its long term. leadership courses look like this, these are, but there are a lot of students that go through leadership experiences that aren't 16 weeks long, like the leadership course, this is repeated exposure over time, with similar with a similar cohort to concepts. And I think that that makes a difference. The other thing that I think is different is that there are intentional behaviors, students need to actually do things, you know, rather than just a show that they've mastered some knowledge on an exam or a flexion paper or a case study, and then apply those behaviors in real-time with feedback from a coach. Yeah, so there's, there's the ability to, over time, develop some competencies that can accelerate may be some growth in their own behaviors, and they're forced to act. And I say that that might have a negative connotation in some people's ears being forced to act. But I also think that that's, that's similar to your example of CPR or the surgeon, where until you have to do something in real-time with other people looking at you, you're not going to have that feeling of what it's actually going to look like. Yeah, so I like that structure of the CLC. And the data is backing up the fact that when we assess students months later, their perceptions of their motivations, their perceptions of themselves as leaders are just as high as they were on the day of the competition after their 16 weeks of preparation. I think that there's I call it initial data, where we've only been doing this for a couple of years, the initial data is is pretty positive, where we might still need to grow. And the CLC is like many other areas, what we're not making a huge difference on is helping students recognize the nuanced differences in their skills. So this is one of the things that we talked about in this workshop that I lead with the coaches of CLC. Students, the anecdotal evidence is that students aren't able to five months after their experience, they're not able to top of mind be able to talk about some of the capacities that they have, they've now sunk down into their subconscious, which is not necessarily the end of the world. But what it means is that if they're put into an opportunity to practice those skills, they would have to take a breath, maybe a day, maybe longer, maybe review some of the things that they've already done to enact a good solution. And that's not the end of the world, but that I think we could do a little bit better.
Scott Allen 29:49
I couldn't agree with you more, but it makes perfect sense. I mean, Dave, I taught in person like teaching a course live and we've primarily been online But it was a course that I've taught for years. And there were six or seven things that I just forgot. I forgot. I forgot that we videotaped the final presentation because the whole final paper is about the video. And so, you know, it kind of been pruned, I was off my game I wasn't totally on. So, you know, I totally get it. If we're not interacting with really anything. I mean, again, we could go to a number of different domains of knowledge and learning. And if I haven't had to engage in an activity and some period of time, and that has there that repetition, it gets to another domain of kind of what we're trying to do, Dave, which I've been thinking about a lot, is this whole notion of time. And we really don't have enough time with individuals, that is over a period of years, to help really, truly grow and develop. So when you talk about scalability, I not only think about the 60 people sitting in a room. But I think how do we scale this across decades of an individual's life? How do we keep them in a space of mindfulness of critical reflection? How do we keep and train people to be in that space of kind of humble curiosity where they have an eye on the world, and they're really in tune with their own embodied learning where they're paying attention to there, to their emotions and their feelings and as an opportunity then to think more deeply, as Morgan would say, kind of go into the type two, thinking that Kahneman talks about, in Thinking Fast and Slow? How do we build some of those habits of mind so that people stay in this space of development over decades, but even then, is three as a three-month-long class or as a leadership minor, enough time to really build some of those skills of critical reflection and habits of mind and reflection that we need? I don't know. Right?
David Rosch 32:15
Yeah. And I think it's the simple answer. And it's oversimplified is no, it's not enough time, right? Like that. That goes back to the fact that most people if you ask them, who has a bachelor's degree in their five years or longer out of their out of bachelor's degree, and you ask them to talk about some of the concepts that they learned in your classes, they'd be hard-pressed to talk about any of those concepts, it top of mind. Right, yeah. Which then begs the question, well, what are the tools that we should be providing them? Right? Like, I don't think there's anyone that's going to be in a position to say, you know, we need to do over the lifespan, this is what we need to do for people over a lifespan. I don't think our lives are arranged that way. But I do think that there are lots of places where higher education can leverage the privileges that we have to help support those things. So like, for example, I think about high school, high school leadership development looks very different than university leadership development. But this the experiences that high school student leaders have, are different than university student leaders have. And anyone who has gone through both of those experiences might recognize when the high school you have a high school advisor who mostly tells you what to do most of the time. And then at the university there, the message that you get from university administrators is this is your show goes, I think that we could probably do a better job of integrating those two experiences. And you might say, well, how are we going to do that hire like high school teachers don't talk to collegian instructors. But you know, who trains the high school students or their trains, the high school teachers, right, your university professors. And I think that we can do a better job of doing that we do have some ability to do that. And, and then you know, who trains the people who are going to be their bosses after they graduate from college? University professors do that. So I think that we do have some spaces where we might be able to leverage some things if we can build some consensus around what we actually mean when we're talking about leadership development.
Scott Allen 34:04
Well, I was reflecting on some of that today, really, in anticipation of this call, in some ways. And as I was reflecting, in some ways on paper that we're working on right now, are we missing the mark in our first 101 courses, by jumping in with transformational leadership? And are there some core skills and ways of being in the world that we could be really building as a foundation for then how to do the work and how to how to stay in this continual space of growth as a human being? So that when you need some of that domain expertise, you can see it you know, it, you go find it, you access it. You know, this is getting into some of that learning how to learn space and some of the other concepts that I've already mentioned, like critical reflection and mindfulness, and Are there other core functions that at least should be more of the dialogue? In the beginning? If we're going to engage in leadership learning? Are we missing the mark by just jumping into, you know, the four quadrants of situational leadership?
David Rosch 35:15
Yeah, most introduction to leadership courses are really, it's really an introduction to the history of Leadership Studies. It's really what that course is. I mean, it's it starts out with these are the earliest scholars of leadership wrote about these things. And then it builds like it builds on to the skills approach after trait theory. And it by itself is not bad. But if you're going to ask most leadership educators, well, what do you think the least people need to know, to effectively lead in modern society? I don't think many of them would say they need to understand that trade theory is complex, debunked, and still alive. I don't think that that's what they would identify
Scott Allen 35:54
You don't want them to read the three meta-analyses, on contingency theory Dave?
David Rosch 35:58
Right? Right, right, super important in some context, but not probably the least you need to know to be effective. And that's what we need to teach. And I want to one class, those are the things that we need. And if so, for example, you're talking about mindfulness, I would say that most people, if you, most people who are studying what, what it means to make meaning as an adult, they would say it starts with being just knowledgeable about what's going on with them around you, which is and within you, right, like that's, that's a definition of mindfulness. That itself might be the kernel, of what it means to be an effective leader. But you won't find very many leadership textbooks talking about mindfulness as a context or a concept. And then how to practice that.
Scott Allen 36:38
Or productive discourse, in engaging in discourse with other people when or active listening, or just some other foundational skills that a leader needs, regardless of where they are over the course of their career. I don't know that there's ever a time when an individual in a position of authority wouldn't benefit from mindfulness, from critical reflection, active listening, yes, base-level things that if we could, if we could build, but even then, maybe three months is not long enough to build those habits of mind that would be required. But it's a fun thought experiment. Because, again, how do you set someone off on this journey? Because you're right, they're not going to remember, the aspects of trait theory are the aspects of contingency theory or situational leadership or transformation before eyes? I don't know, it would be an interesting experiment. And that gets into some of what we've been discussing around this vertical development, or constructive developmental theory. And it kind of goes along with that theory that if you have someone who's working at a higher order of consciousness or level, or I could go through the action logic, I could go, right, right, will they more likely be successful in serving in these complex roles? Because they are, it's just incredibly complex?
David Rosch 37:57
Yeah. And there are lots of different units of analysis for this, right? Like, we could talk about the unit of analysis of the individual student. What does that individual student need? There's even though analysis of the individual class, that's what we've been talking about a little bit in this discussion to like, what do I do as the faculty member of 60 students over the course of a semester, there's also the unit analysis of a program. If we say, we are going to build effective leaders of blank profession or environment or discipline, we should probably be having a conversation of where does mindfulness fits just using that as an example. And it's probably not just only introduced in the first class. It's a concept that then gets applied in later classes also. So over the course of years, the iteration of that provides them some ability to be able to do that, and in a way that it becomes muscle memory, right? Like they might not remember, mindfulness is something that's super important because they're already doing it. They don't need to think about that. And I think we just need to we need to think about what what what's that what is the toolbox need to look like? What needs to be in that toolbox? Because what we have right now is a history lesson.
Scott Allen 39:06
I think that might be the title of the episode - What we have now...is a history lesson.
David Rosch 39:14
Important, but maybe not the most important.
Scott Allen 39:18
One element, a small element of what we're trying to accomplish.
David Rosch 39:22
Right, right. So so many classes, so many programs, I think to look like ours does at the University of Illinois, where we have a few 100 Students take our intro class, we probably have 70 that stick with the program after that and take many more classes, we probably have 40 who take the variety of classes that would lead to a major or minor we're losing 130 People 230 People after this intro class. Let's not give them the history lesson. They don't need to know the history lesson but they do need to know social perspective-taking, etc. Right?
Scott Allen 39:55
Active listening,
David Rosch 39:56
Active listening...Exactly.
Scott Allen 40:00
Well, Dave, as we wind down for today, I was thinking, Should I ask a new question in these next 100 episodes because you're gonna guess number 201 I think I'm gonna stick with the old standby here. What have you been listening to? What's What have you been watching streaming? What's caught your eyes recently? That has your mind cooking and it could have to do something with leadership, but maybe it doesn't.
David Rosch 40:22
So I'm, a, I talked about a couple of different podcasts in episode one. I listen to podcasts early in the morning, as I'm doing my warm-ups before I go out for a morning run. I got away like I used to listen to news podcasts and politics podcasts. They stress me out now. Right. So I've started listening to more sports podcasts. And the interesting thing about getting the updates about what's going on in football, or basketball, or major league baseball right now is locking out the players. They're really lessons and team dynamics, organizational management, dealing with complexity, unexpected things happening, and be needing to make decisions about those things. I find the like, if you listen to the average sports podcast about what's going on in the sports world, most of these sports journalists are really smart people. And they're teaching people how to lead in ways that you may not recognize. If you're not thinking about if you're just thinking about it from the perspective of what's LeBron James doing in the Lakers, right? Like, take a step back. You're now doing a case study on team dynamics and how to integrate new teammates and deal with competing priorities and a future orientation versus a present orientation. And how do you make decisions in that? I would say in general, sports, podcast leadership, educators needed to listen to more sports podcasts.
Scott Allen 41:34
I love it. I never would have thought of that. I never would have thought that. Well, as you were speaking, maybe I wasn't active listening. Well, but as you were speaking, it made me think of the Beatles if you have not watched the most recent documentary about them. The Get Back documentary.
David Rosch 41:50
Yeah, Get Back.
Scott Allen 41:51
Oh my gosh, it is fascinating to watch their group dynamics. I was thinking I could have a whole course where they're watching this six hours of footage of the Beatles because I don't think I said this to you yet. But it's like watching a T-Group. It's just this leaderless kind of thing, you know (with Yoko sitting there).
David Rosch 42:14
That might be the graduate-level class, take a few others, then watch Get Back with Scott. That'll be a way to polish out your leadership experience.
Scott Allen 42:23
Just watch this. Well, I mean, it's fascinating. It really is really, really interesting to watch and it's kept my mind cooking. Well, that's awesome. So any sports podcast in particular that you put you enjoy?
David Rosch 42:36
Let's see, I would say my favorite...I'm an NBA fan. Zach Lowe is probably my favorite podcast. It's called The Lowe Post. And okay, if you're a basketball fan, you know what the low post is a basketball phrase. I won't go into what it means right now. But he does a deep dive into what's going on in today's NBA, you have to be a bit of an NBA nerd to really be interested in it. But if you are, it's fascinating the dynamics that go on between NBA players, NBA players, and coaches, coaches, and management, management in the players, fans, journalists, everything. It's great.
Scott Allen 43:11
I love it. Well, Dave, thank you so much for joining me for episode 101. I will see you again in Episode 201. Man I look forward to I'm sure
David Rosch 43:23
hopefully maybe in real person. Like, like actual together in the same room.
Scott Allen 43:29
Oh, okay, sir. Be Well, thanks for all you're doing Happy New Year.
David Rosch 43:33
Cool. Thank you for inviting me, Scott is a great conversation.
Scott Allen 43:35
Okay. All right. Bye-bye.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai