The effective leader is the master teacher

Teachers change the way we see the world, and they often change the way we understand ourselves. Researchers at Harvard and Columbia universities, recently documented empirical evidence that points out the economic difference a great teacher can make in the career of an individual.

Every great leader is a great teacher, and the greatest leaders seize every opportunity, to teach well. Ideas do drive the world, and beliefs determine people’s actions. The leader who wants a long-term effect, with a determinative lasting effect, has to be the lead teacher, changing minds, in order to transform the organisation. The knowledge economy is not a passing fad – it is the shape of the future, and the leader who makes the greatest impact, will be the master teacher who trains leaders at every level, to teach with faithfulness, enthusiasm and confidence.

David Garvin of Harvard business school, has defined a learning organisation as,

An organisation skilled at creating, acquiring and transferring knowledge, and at modifying its behaviour to reflect new knowledge and insights.

Change the way people think and you change the world. Leaders are the catalysts for making this happen. The best teachers are those, who simply can’t wait to teach something they love and are passionate about, and are people whose own lives, have been impacted upon, by those who led and taught them. The best teachers are infectious with their enthusiasm, and it should not surprise us that this enthusiasm is contagious.

Augustine defined the ultimate goal of teaching in such a way, that it should reshape every leader’s vision of what we do. He said, “every follower, should be instructed, delighted and moved.” Those we lead must be instructed, so they know what to do to be effective, and who stop at nothing less, than the delight in knowing the convictions that shape the organisation, and finding themselves in the narrative. They develop their own contagious passion, and infect others they interact with.

Leaders must move followers to action, and until conviction is translated into action, it will make no difference to the world. When the leader is most effective, teaching and leading become a force of energy, and when this happens, expect nothing less than acute transformation.