By Stephen Smoot
“Every child can be a leader,” says East Hardy Elementary School principal Emily Morris.
And she has implemented a program at her school that is based around that ideal.
That program, known as the Leader In Me, comes originally from the book “Seven Habits of Highly Effective People.” Morris explained that “a principal about 20 years ago wondered if these habits could be taught to elementary school children.”
Starting with this one school in North Carolina, a whole program took shape rooted in the basic tenets of the book. Those habits are to be proactive, keep the goal in mind from start to finish, put first things first, value the win-win scenario, “seek first to understand, then to be understood,” learn to work as a team, and “sharpen the saw.” The final habit refers to those who make a priority of maintaining physical, intellectual, emotional, social, and spiritual effectiveness.
Through engaging and absorbing these ideals, elementary school students can learn early on the value of leadership and its role in everyday life.
Morris explains that while every child can be a leader, this does not mean that every child will, or can, grow up to win election to the office of Governor or the presidency, or run a Fortune 500 corporation. Instead, she states that the program encourages a child to think that “I can be a leader in my own life. I can do things to help myself. I can help others to be better.”
And leaders do not only run nations. They can also run a shift at a fast food establishment, run a committee of volunteers performing good works, or set an example for others through values and virtues such as hard work and honest dealing.
“The whole idea is that every child has greatness within them,” shared Morris.
A Leader In Me curriculum focuses on a three-tiered framework centering on academics, leadership, and culture. “Everything we do,” explained Morris “is in one of these three areas.”
She added that “we have definitely seen measurable results in those three areas.”
“The meat of the program,” as she says, is that “every child in the school has a leadership lesson every single day about leadership.” Morris shared an example in that the younger children have received instruction on how to communicate and articulate what they are feeling and why.
Recently, she stated, two children had a conflict. When brought together to discuss the problem, the students admitted that they were not trying to understand the point of view of each other, which led to the conflict. Students said they were not seeking first to understand the other and that they had failed to think of the issue in “win-win” terms.
Morris explained that she was very proud of the fact that the students had absorbed not only the ideals, but also the language of the techniques taught to them.
The organization that administers the Leader In Me program, Franklin Covey, awards schools a “Lighthouse” designation after completing three years of the program and showing demonstrable effort and success. Schools must meet a rigorous set of criteria grounded in efforts, practices, and also results.
Two reviewers, one flying in all the way from Missouri, spent the day at East Hardy Elementary to conduct a review of the application. Morris said “they saw all of the inner workings of how we do things.” Quickly, “we were notified that we met the criteria.”
East Hardy’s accession to Lighthouse status in the first year of eligibility is by no means typical. Many schools do not attain the status on the first try. “I am so proud of everybody,” said Morris, who emphasized “how much work it has been” for everyone in the school. Success came in part from students, faculty, and staff buying in and believing in the program from the start.
To celebrate the achievement, East Hardy Elementary held a ceremony to mark the occasion. In two years, they will go through an other evaluation to recertify their status.
“It’s so nice for someone else to come in and see the things we are doing that have become second nature to us,” said Morris.
