Empowering Student Leaders – and the Faculty Advisor

The faculty advisor to the student government, Sue, wanted to offer this year’s group a workshop on leadership. Last year’s student leadership was weak, at best, and never received the kind of respect from the student body – or the faculty – that is generally desired. She was hoping to bring in someone from the outside to highlight the importance of the work at hand and to empower students to lead the school effectively. In addition, there has been a general lack of student leadership training at the school, and Sue, though she had no training in this area herself, was determined to provide a meaningful growth opportunity to the elected student leaders of the school.

After consultation about the big picture, eduINNOVATIONS was hired to accomplish two tasks:

Mentor Sue throughout the year as a leader of student leaders
Provide four workshops over the school year to the student leaders

Working toward two concurrent but related goals proved challenging, but a hierarchical plan was established wherein Sue worked with eduINNOVATIONS on clarifying her role as the leader of leaders. As a result of this work she began holding additional meetings with the officers of the student government, teaching them how to set agendas, run meetings, take minutes, and present a united front to the rest of the group. She talked with them about facets of their leadership in student government meetings and in all-school assemblies. The four officers worked on topics such as listening well, speaking publicly, facilitating discussion in meetings, and inspiring others.

At the same time, eduINNOVATIONS provided four workshops for the entire student government group - two in the fall term and two in the winter term. Each workshop focused on a different topic related to student leadership:

       October:       Looking at ourselves as a group: What do we have to offer as leaders?
       November:   A case study of student leadership and its challenges
       January:       Building an action plan in response to unanticipated challenges
       February:     Planning the transition: encouraging underclassmen to take the risk of running
                            for a school government position

By the end of the year, faculty lauded Sue’s successes in bringing a new culture of responsibility and vision to the student government. The outgoing seniors had provided strong modeling and encouragement to younger students, and the school saw the largest group of serious-minded candidates to be considered in the race for officers. The February workshop had positioned the seniors to give feedback on speeches and campaigns, and they had focus in offering support and encouragement to the younger students.

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