Inculcating Leadership Quality in Students in the Classroom

Leaders are those who help others and themselves do the right things in the right way. They set direction, for innovation. Leadership is an art of mapping out the path to “win” as a team rather than with individual interests.

In today’s competitive world, to get placed in a reputed organisation, freshers need to have an overall combination of knowledge and skills. It is very important that students enter their career with leadership and interpersonal skills that help them collaborate, communicate and work well in a team/organisation.

It is important to inculcate leadership qualities in students in the classroom, keeping the following techniques in mind:

Teaching integrity and honesty in regular classrooms sessions

Honesty and integrity can be taught in core subject classes such as mathematics and science, with morals like ‘cheating is bad’, ‘plagiarism is unacceptable’, ‘being truthful’, etc. Morality, justice and ethics are needed to be a true leader!

Building trust between teachers and students

One of the best qualities of a leader is to build and maintain trust with the followers. It is the trust that allows them to be approachable in case of clarification of doubts and emergencies. Teachers must demonstrate this kind of trust in the classroom in order to help students inculcate leadership qualities.

Social, cognitive and teaching presence of teachers

The attitude of wanting to learn continuously is important for a leader. This can be inculcated in the students with the teachers being available to them socially – outside the classroom, cognitively – the psychological trust (the belief that the person you are trusting is available, approachable and will be able to fulfill the expectation) and comfort the students feel with the teachers, and in teaching – during the classroom session. This availability of teachers to the students can help them learn being helpful.

Visible Vs hidden curriculum

Students learn more when they observe than what they are taught. Visible curriculum is the curriculum that is listed in the syllabus/ module planned to teach the students. Hidden curriculum is the qualities, skills and behavior that the teachers portray in class that the students observe and learn.

Risk taking

Give space to the students to express why they answered a question asked in an interactive session rather than telling them if they were right or wrong. Most students fail to make creative leaders because of the fear of failure or ridicule injected in them through student days. Making students aware that mistakes are a stepping stone to learning is very important to make leaders.

This leads to openness and readiness in students towards creativity and innovative learning. This innovative learning will lead to open mindedness which is required for an effective leader.

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Inspiring Learners

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