Servant Leadership
A Pilot Program at Ramona Middle School in the Bonita Unified School District
Kingdom Causes San Dimas has launched “Servant Leadership”, a pilot program at Ramona Middle School in the Bonita Unified School District.
What is a servant leader? “Servant Leaders measure their impact by asking themselves, ‘Do those served grow as persons? Do they, while being served, become healthier, wiser, freer, more autonomous, more likely themselves to become a servant?’” – Robert Greenleaf on Servant Leadership
The goal of the Servant Leadership program is to develop Servant Leadership in students by raising their Emotional Intelligence(EI) through modeling and implementing the “7 Habits of Highly Effective People”, by Stephen Covey.
In developing servant leaders, they begin by assessing the student’s Emotional Intelligence by engaging them in conversation through open-ended questions. EI is one’s personal competence (self-awareness, self-regulation, and self-motivation) and one’s social competence (social awareness, relational ability). These conversations will center around questions which highlight the “7 Habits of Highly Effective People”. The student’s answers and absence of answers will reveal their natural ability to lead.
Emotional Intelligence is important because it is quickly replacing IQ as the most sought after individual quality in the marketplace. Therefore, developing EI in adolescents will prepare for future success. By raising the EI of a student population, they believe that students will be self-motivated to do well in school, have healthy relationships, and engage in extra curricular activities.
A long-term goal of the Servant Leadership program is to give students opportunities to serve their community surrounding the school in which they live. Showing students that serving others is a reward is a key factor in developing servant leadership.
The 7 Habits are:
- Be Proactive®
- Begin with the End in Mind®
- Put First Things First®
- Think Win-Win®
- Seek First to Understand and then to be Understood®
- Synergize®
- Sharpen the Saw®
Visit the Kingdom Causes: San Dimas website here.