Invitation # 1: Dynamic modeling
“Leaders are much more powerful role models when they learn than when they teach,” says Harvard Business School professor Rosabeth Moss Kanter. There is no more effective teaching technique than personal example. If you are inviting the protégé to take risks and you also engage in risk taking, you are communicating acceptance. Courage hidden will join courage displayed. Remember our analogy of courage being like a shy child at a party? A public request by the host of the party for all shy children to join in the fun is not likely to invoke participation. But, if another child makes a private, personal but determined invitation, the outcome will be completely different.
The modeling of courage needs to be dynamic, not subtle. Dynamic modeling means you act as an obvious prototype for the protégé. Courage building requires far more than cheerleading support from the sidelines. And this is no time to try to let nuance and nicety carry the day. Dynamic modeling requires “Follow me!” behavior that is obvious and noticeable. Why? A protégé’s reluctance to be bold is sometimes fueled by the absence of a “show how it’s done” example.
“I read this great article on …,” “I met with Sue because I knew she could teach me how to …,” and “The course I’m taking online has helped me to …”—all are examples of dynamic modeling that telegraph two things: an allegiance to continuous learning and an enthusiastic participation in the process. Your goal is not to model being a fan of learning. Your goal is to model being a learner—and a passionate one! Help your learning actions get up on a table and shout!
Take your protégé to a seminar, conference, or workshop—anywhere you can learn together. Take a webinar together. Ask your protégé to teach you something she or he knows that you’d like to learn. If you attend a conference or seminar, make time to share with your protégé the highlights of your learning and what you plan to do with your newfound knowledge. If your protégé attends a seminar, class, webinar, or conference, schedule time to pick his or her brain afterwards. Celebrate people who boldly pursue growth—the clerk who finishes a degree after several years’ inter-lude, the supervisor who tutors after hours, or the operator who writes an article for a local trade magazine.
End meetings by soliciting suggestions for improvement on how to make the next meeting better. Invite unique people to attend—people who offer a point of view or perspective that can challenge, provoke, and inspire. Keep a “sages on call” list—inventors, artists, writers, anyone who can provide new ways of seeing challenges, attacking problems, or inventing solutions.