A School of Inspired Leadership! What does it entail? Can other management educators learn from SOIL? SOIL(School of Inspired Leadership in Gurgaon, India) aims to "build competent, compassionate, and inspiring leaders." I do not recall ever seeing "compassion" listed as a management program's goals. So, I wanted learn how SOIL develops students while delivering a quality academic program. I emailed a few questions to Snehal, a SOIL faculty member, and perused its website.
First, a few details. SOIL, started in 2009, offers three one-year postgraduate programs - business leadership, human resource leadership, and marketing leadership. Each programs has four components: business excellence, skill building, leadership development, and a social innovation project. Business excellence covers academic content. Skill building includes skills such as presentation, negotiation, and project management. Leadership development and the social innovation project develop leadership, including compassion. All students are full time.
Second, SOIL's philosophy justifies its holistic approach to leadership, based on mindfulness, compassion, sustainability, ethics, and diversity. "All people have an innate desire to do good and serve the well being of all. Faulty education and upbringing make people forget this.The role of education is to know who you are and discover your purpose and connect to the goodness within. All of us have been blessed with unique gifts to work towards our true purpose. When we work to leverage our gifts towards our purpose, we become inspired leaders. When we enable others to do so, we build inspired leaders and organizations of consequence.There is a leadership crisis today as most leaders, especially in the business world, do not identify with the purpose of creating well being of all"
First, a few details. SOIL, started in 2009, offers three one-year postgraduate programs - business leadership, human resource leadership, and marketing leadership. Each programs has four components: business excellence, skill building, leadership development, and a social innovation project. Business excellence covers academic content. Skill building includes skills such as presentation, negotiation, and project management. Leadership development and the social innovation project develop leadership, including compassion. All students are full time.
Second, SOIL's philosophy justifies its holistic approach to leadership, based on mindfulness, compassion, sustainability, ethics, and diversity. "All people have an innate desire to do good and serve the well being of all. Faulty education and upbringing make people forget this.The role of education is to know who you are and discover your purpose and connect to the goodness within. All of us have been blessed with unique gifts to work towards our true purpose. When we work to leverage our gifts towards our purpose, we become inspired leaders. When we enable others to do so, we build inspired leaders and organizations of consequence.There is a leadership crisis today as most leaders, especially in the business world, do not identify with the purpose of creating well being of all"
A student summary highlights six activities that develop students' leadership: creating a power point on "Who am I," writing and staging a performance, taking a yoga and meditation course, working with an NGO, attending lectures on non-hierarchical forms of leadership, and observing the examples set by faculty. The leadership components in each program include: self leadership (the power point slides), pillars of inspired leadership (mindfulness, compassion, sustainability, ethics, and diversity) through theater, wellness (yoga and meditation). Note. no picking and choosing activities; they are required of all students.
The social innovation project "build[s] awareness and an appreciation of community partnerships, develop[s] leadership capabilities, compassion and empathy, facilitation of teams and assuming responsibility without having authority."At the start of the year NGOs come to SOIL and present: what they do, what type of projects they can offer etc. A student team of 4-5 is is allocated to each project, For one year students go weekly to the NGO to work on the project.
SOIL's culture is captured with the morning meeting that starts each day. "The entire SOIL community; faculty, staff, and students gather in a large circle, join hands and chant a morning prayer from different beliefs and faith. After the prayer, we share stories - say about an NGO visit the previous day, an interesting article or a short clip on leaders, motivation, have a short dialogue of current events etc. The tone is almost always positive. That is, share the 'goodness' and celebrate what is working well with us, SOIL, India and the world. It is a 15 minute gathering...essentially connecting the energy of everyone." Truthfully, I enjoy visualizing colleagues, whom I have worked with, gathering together, holding hands, and chanting. I learned about the morning meeting when a staff member at a Navjyoti program reported that it had implemented the morning meeting.
Has SOIL made a difference in students' lives or the organizations that employ them? With three graduating classes it is soon to tell. Student postings enthusiastically endorse SOIL's leadership building activities. Nevertheless, recent graduates report that their energy and ideas are drained as the enter traditional, authoritarian, hierarchical organizations. Change takes time. A longitudinal study of SOIL graduates should be revealing.
No comments:
Post a Comment