“I understand what my friends are good at and I encourage them to be leaders.”
– Fifth Grade Student
ENCOURAGING
“[Encouraging] means that when you are working in a group project, you ask people who are good at certain things (like putting together PowerPoint presentations) to lead that part of the work.”
– 10th Grade Student
Use the information in this section to help you introduce the “encouraging” attribute to students. You can use the question stem “How does this attribute make you a better leader?” to start a discussion with your students and to check for comprehension (see Additional Resources for more information to further your personal understanding).
Explaining “Encouraging” to Students
Social-emotional leaders understand that sharing leadership with others allows the group to accomplish greater things. These leaders realize that all group members have unique strengths to offer, and they need to feel empowered to contribute to the work of the group. How often do you recognize the strengths of others? How often do you invite others to share leadership? Encouraging means empowering others to take on leadership roles. Encouraging leaders promote collaboration and instill a sense of trust, emboldening others to contribute to important tasks. Encouraging leaders are able to understand the strengths of others and motivate them to use those strengths to help accomplish the goals of the group. When you are encouraging, you give others the authority to make decisions and take independent action. This will help ensure the groups’ success, because people will be more committed to the collective goal.
What “Encouraging” Looks Like
Encouraging leaders:
• make sure all those involved know their own and others’ roles
• explain the context of the task (challenges, resources, and prior history)
• involve the group in identifying the desired process for completing the task and determining its outcomes
• encourage others to make decisions and take independent action
• share responsibility with others
• provide guidance when needed
• give others the space to accomplish tasks in their own way (autonomy)
• are seen as supportive, trustworthy, empowering, engaging, and aware
• learn what interests or excites people and encourage that kind of work if possible
• support risk-taking and learning from mistakes
• size up strengths of individual group members and look for ways to leverage those strengths
What Gets in the Way?
When you are not encouraging, you may see the performance of the group decrease as one person tries to lead everything. Additionally, if you are the person who is trying to lead everything, you may find yourself exhausted and overwhelmed. Review the following list and note the items that might be keeping you from being encouraging.
• You have not figured out how the work should be done, and you are unwilling to ask others for their suggestions.
• You have been burned in the past by giving up too much control.
• You put too much responsibility and pressure on yourself.
• You underestimate the capabilities of others, giving them fewer responsibilities than they are able to take on.
• You hold onto work so you can receive the recognition.
• You believe that other people cannot do the work as well as you can.
• You do not want others to outshine you—to know more or to be seen as better than you.
• You order others to do things instead of sharing leadership.
Understanding the unique talents that others bring to the group, and encouraging them to use these talents through sharing leadership roles will help you all accomplish your group goals.
Suggestions for Improving “Encouraging”
Work with your students to discuss and establish some ways to build competency in this attribute. Below is a list to help support this exercise. Feel free to develop your own strategies or modify these suggestions.
You may also consider doing an activity with your students (see Activity Center for suggestions) or asking them to write about the attribute (see Journal Prompts for suggestions) to help build student understanding.
In conjunction with your students, figure out how you are going to support each other as a group or class to build competency in this leadership attribute.
• Get to know other people’s strengths and abilities. Take time to figure out what other people are good at. Spend time observing others. Ask your peers what type of work they enjoy doing.
• Compliment strengths. When you notice that someone else is good at something, show them you have noticed. Make sure to be genuine and authentic.
• Be vulnerable. Tell other people when you struggle with leading. Ask for support and encouragement.
• Encourage others to be leaders. Ask other people to take on responsibilities.
• Listen to all voices. Make sure to involve your entire group in identifying the desired process for completing the task and determining its outcomes.
Here are some suggestions for activities that may be modified to fit your context and the students with whom you are working.
• Book introduction. Find a book to read with students that has a character who demonstrates the attribute “encouraging” or who would have benefitted from being more encouraging, and have students discuss or journal about the character’s behavior (see the Suggested Books section of this chapter for books that could be used for this activity).
• Why share leadership? Have students work in groups to create role plays about scenarios where leadership is shared and where it is not. What is the difference in outcomes when leadership is shared?
• Human Knot. Divide students into groups of 12 to 15. Have students stand in a circle and raise one hand. Have them reach into the center of the circle and grab the hand of someone who is not standing next to them. Then have them repeat with the other hand. Instruct them to make sure that they are not holding both hands with the same person. The task is to unknot themselves without letting go of either hand. (They may rotate their hands in their partner’s hand, but not let go). Debrief by discussing what went well, what could have gone better, how different people took on leadership roles, and how students encouraged others to take on leadership roles.
• Service project. Have students work in groups to identify a service project. Ask them to define the goal of this project and the steps that need to be taken to achieve this goal. Have them discuss their strengths using the Strengths Questionnaire (p. 162) in order to decide who will be responsible for leading each step of the project.
• Shared leadership. Have students work in small groups of three to four students to find examples of shared leadership to present to the class.
Ask the following questions of everyone in the group. You may find that some people may be strong in multiple areas, while others are more proficient in just one. Note who feels particular excitement around a certain area. Add additional questions as desired.
How comfortable are you with technology? What areas are you strongest in?
How are you as an organizer? Do you like to keep track of all the different pieces of a project? Do you like creating timelines?
Are you able to identify what needs to be done and keep others accountable for meeting the goals?
How skilled are you as a researcher? Do you enjoy finding answers to questions?
How good are you as a writer? Can you write clearly and concisely to convey relevant information? Do you enjoy crafting a beautiful sentence?
How good are you at creating presentations? Do you like pulling ideas together in a way that is understandable to others?
How artistic are you? What are your preferred mediums? (e.g., music, theatre, etc.)
Do you prefer working with people or working more on tasks by yourself?
Do you enjoy tasks that are more creative or more structured?
Choose one or more of the journal prompts appropriate for the age level you work with. Feel free to modify or extend the prompt. Give students time to reflect on the questions in a personal journal. To extend the exercise, ask students to share their reflections with a peer or small group.
• Identify your own strengths using the Strengths Questionnaire (p. 162) as a guide. Add any strengths that you have that are not included in this questionnaire. Based on these strengths, what would be a good leadership role for you to have in a group?
• Identify three classmates who are not typically thought of as leaders. What are some of their strengths? How might you encourage them to take on leadership roles in group work?
• Think about a character in a book or movie that is an encouraging leader. What makes them encouraging? What are some outcomes of them being an encouraging leader?
• What is the benefit of shared leadership? What are some of the challenges with shared leadership?
• Do you encourage others to be leaders? What might you lose by encouraging others to be leaders? What might you gain?
Integrating the Attribute into Your Curriculum
Choose an activity from your planning guide or syllabus. After your students complete the activity, relate the activity back to the “encouraging” attribute with a debriefing conversation. Below are suggested questions. Choose or modify questions based on your students’ developmental level, your activity, and your context.
This debrief can take the form of a full-group discussion. You might consider giving students time to reflect on their answers with partners or in small groups before asking them to share responses with the larger group. Alternatively, you may decide to ask students to work in small groups to share their responses on flip charts, and then have a gallery walk where students walk around the room and read what other students have written, potentially adding their own comments or thoughts.
• How did the activity help you understand the attribute “encouraging”?
• How did you work on being encouraging during this activity?
• How did other students demonstrate being encouraging during the activity?
• What does it mean to be encouraging?
• Why is it important to be encouraging?
• How can being encouraging make you a better leader?
• How can a lack of being encouraging impact leadership?
• How can you work on becoming a more encouraging leader?
• What are some ways you could practice being encouraging moving forward?
• How will you demonstrate being encouraging in your interactions with others?
• What impact can increasing your ability to be encouraging have on you?
• Identify a person, past or present, who demonstrates being encouraging. What specific actions does this person do that demonstrate being encouraging?
• Identify a book character who demonstrates being encouraging. What specific actions does this character do that demonstrate being encouraging?
Questions to Assess Understanding
Consider giving the following questions to students to determine if you need to spend more time explaining this attribute.
• What does it mean to be an encouraging leader? Give an example of someone you know who is an encouraging leader. How does this person demonstrate being an encouraging leader?
• What are three things you are going to work on in order to become a more encouraging leader?
Suggested Books to Introduce “Encouraging”
The books listed below can be used to deepen younger students’ understanding of the “encouraging” attribute.
• The Kissing Hand by A. Penn
• Miss Brooks Loves Books! (and I don’t) by B. Bottner
• The Invisible Boy by T. Ludwig & P. Barton
• You Can Encourage Others: Tease or Inspire? by C.C. Miller & V. Assanelli
Additional Resources
This section provides additional places to look for help and advice to develop your personal knowledge, as an adult, about this attribute.
Genett, D. M. (2004). If you want it done right, you don’t have to do it yourself! The power of effective delegation. Fresno, CA: Quill Driver Books.
Krohe, J., Jr. (2010). If you love your people, set them free. Conference Board Review, 47(5), 28–37.
Kouzes, J. M., & Posner, B. Z. (1998). Encouraging the heart: A leader’s guide to rewarding and recognizing others. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
Ramsey, B., & Ramsey, D. (2018). The leadership push: How to motivate extraordinary performance from ordinary workers. Troy, IL: Morgan Laney Publishing.
Tracy, B. (2013). Delegation and supervision. New York, NY: American Management Association.
Turregano, C. (2013). Delegating effectively: A leader’s guide to getting things done. Greensboro, NC: Center for Creative Leadership.
Young, J. (2014). Encouragement in the Classroom. Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.