Critical Teaching Skill 5 of 5: Leadership
“The bad leader is he who the people dispise. The good leader is he who the people praise. The great leader is he who people say “we did it ourselves” paraphrased by Senge (1990). Love this!
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Jeez…You blog more than me now…I am still reading the things you write and really enjoy this blog. Lao Tse is a cool dude.
Ahh… You started it, Grasshopper!
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I like this quote, and I agree about the great leader. I am not sure about the good and bad leader, however, at least when it comes to children, especially children of certain ages. Good lessons are despised and spoiling is praised, simply because children don’t know what is best for them. Children will follow the leader with the candy, and call the other leaders “mean”.
Good point! Kids lack frontal lobe myelination, i.e., they lack judgement capacities, and would likely follow and praise a bad leader who gave them external rewards, like candy. But, I think they would quickly tire of the external motivator. Though I disagree with much of what Ayn Rand says, this quote by Lao-Tzu makes me think of “The Fountain Head”, where Ayn posits that some people only do charitable acts for selfish reasons. They want the glory, attention, respect, that is given to people who help others. To Lao-Tzu, An “Excellent” leader shows people they can do it themselves. If you give a man a fish….