Lifespan Leadership

By Javier Ayala, PhD

Unlock the Leader Within You at Any Age!

Are you ready for a transformative journey that defies conventional wisdom about leadership? "Lifespan Leadership" is not just another book about leadership theories--it's a groundbreaking exploration that uncovers the hidden facets of leadership at every stage of life.

Childhood Bonds: Could the way you play as a baby influence your leadership style? Prepare to reflect!

Adolescence: Think your formative years were just a phase? Discover how they might have been laying the groundwork for your leadership journey.

Emerging Adulthood: Navigating the complexities of early adulthood? Learn how this crucial stage can be a launching pad for your leadership aspirations.

Adulthood & Reinvention: Ever felt like you've missed the leadership boat? Learn how adulthood offers a second act in your leadership story, ripe for reinvention and discovery.

The Dance of Synchrony: Find out why being in tune with those around you could be your secret weapon in leadership.

Break the Mold: Tired of cookie-cutter leaders? Learn how to break free from societal norms and lead in a way that's uniquely you!

From the early bonds formed in the cradle to the wisdom earned in mature years, "Lifespan Leadership" offers a fresh, holistic view of leadership that will challenge your perceptions and inspire you to unlock your hidden potential.

Are you ready to redefine leadership on your own terms? Pick up "Lifespan Leadership" and embark on a life-changing journey today!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Fulton Books, Inc.
• Release date: Mar 19, 2024
• ISBN: 9798889823865

Book preview

Table of Contents

Title

Copyright

Preface

Introduction: Personal Observations on Leadership

Foundations of Lifespan Leadership

Part 1: Leadership in Childhood

Part 2: Leadership in Emerging Adulthood

Part 3: Leadership in Adulthood

Index

Conclusion

About the Author

cover.jpg

Lifespan Leadership

Javier Ayala, PhD

Copyright © 2024 Javier Ayala, PhD

All rights reserved

First Edition

Fulton Books

Meadville, PA

Library of Congress Control Number: 2023912367

Published by Fulton Books 2024

ISBN 979-8-88982-385-8 (paperback)

ISBN 979-8-88982-606-4 (hardcover)

ISBN 979-8-88982-386-5 (digital)

Preface

Around six in the evening, an air of excitement prevailed. I eagerly awaited a presentation from community members. As a governing board member, I always anticipated hearing from the community members of our school district. This occasion, however, stood out uniquely and positively. Each presenter showcased leadership.

All had addressed challenges and inspired others, and while many hadn’t initially seen themselves as leaders, they had evolved into the role. One after another, they came up and presented about their experiences, how they helped others, and how they themselves grew. Many of the presenters cited different principles related to why they did what they did. It was moving.

Though it had always been apparent, at least in my eyes, that leadership could happen anywhere and that leaders could be developed anywhere, it had not dawned on me until this presentation that perhaps we were missing the boat on leadership development overall. Here I was, listening to presenters who were in elementary school discuss and share their leadership examples and their journeys.

Waiting for the right time or right age when it came to leadership development was probably the least effective way to go about creating and fostering leaders. The leaders who presented to me and my four other governing board member colleagues were in elementary school, ranging in ages from nine to eleven years. They were confident, impactful, and full of the energy that changed their worlds and, no doubt, would increase positive change even more as they grew in their leadership experience.

I was moved that night by the leadership presenters. What would happen if everyone led or was a leader and at what stages of their lives should that happen and how and with what experiences? After the presentation, I began looking not only at the schools where I was a governing board member but also across our county to see where leadership showed itself and was developed. Serving as a public service leader, I could not ignore what was very apparent before me—that we needed more leaders like those who presented.

So much time was spent on looking at leadership growth and development for adults. We needed that, but we also needed a change in perspective so we could develop more leaders. I looked at my current place and former places of work, higher education, and other industry sectors. As a former leadership development instructor during my graduate studies, I looked at my old books and notes as well, and I reflected on my own leadership development experience as dean and executive. I was not surprised by what I found.

It was one thing to go through the motions of leadership and another integrating both the concepts and ideas and looking back at leadership development after twenty-five years of experience as an executive, dean, and professor; completing a PhD and business education; and reading several hundred books on the topic. The assessment was, the leadership development industry was a multibillion-dollar ocean that promised a sea of change for each who subscribed to it but continued to be thirsty for more leaders.

Sectors organized to develop leaders—in higher education, schools, and businesses—are uneven in leadership development and leadership numbers, had inequitable disparities in who was considered a leader, and reinforced leadership glass ceilings. On occasion, those rare gems who cut across barriers that prohibited the exercise of leadership only did so for a time until they succumbed to brittleness. It was not enough to wait to thrust individuals to leadership roles in adulthood. That was a drop in the bucket.

In my research and reflection, I came to the conclusion that to alleviate, if not solve, some of these issues that required leadership, the one major solution was understanding that it was not that we did not have enough leaders or proper leadership development or that we had barriers to leadership development, though all were true in one sense or another, but that leadership was poorly cultivated, supported, and grown across the life span. Upon additional reflection, it was very apparent that many concepts when it came to leadership were only defined for target populations.

An example is the definition of vision if used for top executives or those roles that are highest in the hierarchy. But what does that mean at the level of adolescence? What about nonexecutive roles or later in life? Or more radically, how does one go about setting up an environment that allows vision to take hold during the early childhood years?

It has become apparent to me over the years that once a person understands the idea of vision, something remarkable happens—they start leading and challenging us to get there, to that vision, whatever it may be for an organization or institution or community or group. But vision does need to be presented in a way that is more inclusive and less esoteric.

The examples given when someone understands vision, for example, tend to be business related or something far removed from the experiences of most everyone. One then wonders why very few lead. Largely, that is due to not being introduced to a basic leadership concept as vision more deliberately or developmentally.

The question that started my reflection or journey down this path as it came to vision was then filled with more questions about how that person received the information, interpreted that information, and applied that information. In the experience of hearing from the elementary school leaders, they never mentioned vision; they mentioned caring for others and helping them with a better life in the future. That was vision from the perspective of younger leaders. In my reflection, there was little, if any, attention to that nuance and, consequently, less leadership output in terms of numbers of leaders and types of proactive, positive changes.

The life span perspective on leadership growth and development came to me during the time of reflection in my lifelong commitment to personal growth in leadership and teaching about leadership and upon realizing that we were sorely in need of more but more importantly better leaders. You know you are in the presence of titled leadership when you do not want to follow a person but are only complying due to their position.

The goal in writing this book is to assure that those leaders—or more appropriately called positional managers—are not taken as leaders because of position. But instead, we follow real leaders because we want to follow them. That is the crux of leadership. We must want to follow them—not comply but follow—and we do that across the life span. We follow our children, our teenagers, our siblings, our friends, our parents, and our elders.

Yet we are conditioned to generally think about leadership as being about title, job, rank, or our resources. When we take such a narrow perspective on leadership, we remain thirsty, and no ocean of the leadership development industry will quench our desire. It is simply not a void that can be filled, at least not in the fashion that has been attempted, which is more and more of the same.

Each stage of the life span deserves a different approach in developing leadership and cultivating it for the next level of the life span. That is radically different from teaching leadership or cultivating leadership as it traditionally has been done. Often, what tends to happen if leadership is not nurtured with the life span perspective is underdevelopment of leadership.

Since leadership is often associated and wrongfully perceived as a position, once a person has a position, that person is seen as a leader; and the minute they screw up their position, then they no longer are leaders. That is not leadership or leadership development but churn or management turnover or a political distraction for other issues that an institution or regime is dealing with at the moment.

You can see that underdevelopment in bosses who yell at their employees, lose their cool, blame others, take undeserved credit, and then see them go. You see that in employees who never lead up or lead down or who avoid leading themselves, yet alone those they are responsible for on a daily basis. That in an ocean of leadership only a few can swim is what we are led to believe. The fact of the matter is that everyone can learn to swim, and that is because they were taught to swim from an early age or picked up swimming later in life or during a part of our life span that called for leadership.

The student leaders who came to my meeting were part of a greater support structure that nurtured their growth. Behind the student presenters were parents. The parents were proud, and some were frankly surprised to see their children before adults, talking about things that in many cases were adult in nature. How often do you hear a child in fifth or sixth grade sharing with adults how they grew and became a better person in a public speech? As a matter of fact, when was the last time we said that to ourselves? If we have heard such a statement, it is likely a friend of adult age or a young adult experiencing newfound freedom.

But it does not have to be any of this, as the point is that we do not reflect on such a matter like the student presenters unless we are guided to do so or a situation allows us to do so or we yearn to do so. That guidance and structure comes from the parents, the teachers, and the school, who create the conditions for such an event and experience to transpire. From these systems sit another supportive structure of cultural values and sociopolitical and economic systems that make what seems as an incident of luck or chance a reality.

These student leaders were not a product of serendipity but a result of intentionality that was geared at their stage of development and life—life span leadership. Part of life span leadership development is assuring that depending on the age or other life span components, a person is set up for success.

In the case of the students, the principal and assistants knew what the students knew and could do and supported their growth and abilities in a way that grew them. This means that the student leaders receive what they are able to receive and also the person providing the instruction or teaching is themselves in sync in a way that is developmental and situationally appropriate for both of them, and that reinforces the needs of their parents, in this case, and their school.

Teaching leadership and human development classes has definitely reinforced the idea that we tend to treat leadership development or training in a very narrow way. Have you been taught leadership across your life span? The answer is no. Similar to seeing who a leader is or not and at what ages leadership can be expanded on or developed, our approaches miss out on a ton of potential that could be yielded through greater leadership development across the life span.

Is leadership the sole purview of business or education or other areas? Though it tends to be concentrated in these areas, unfortunately, due to the great detriment of society and the leaders themselves, leadership remains clustered in select areas. I know this because I taught it as such, in a compartmentalized manner, learned leadership in very select areas, such as business, and unevenly was instructed in leadership in targeted fashions—business or master’s education only and very often as an elective.

This is what needs to change, dislodging where leadership training and development occurs and where leaders show up to where it shows up everywhere and across the life span. It is so critical to spread leadership across the life span and not keep it narrowly offered.

Had I not pursued business education or a PhD or served as an administrator for close to two decades, the exposure would have been limited. And even though I have had the opportunities in my vocations to experience leadership training and development, it has primarily been in adulthood, not childhood or adolescence or emerging adulthood. So the idea that it could be brought forward during elementary school ages is, quite frankly, rare and bold, which requires much thought and intentional planning on how to bring it out.

Being a leader and teaching it has taught me that things are not what they always appear, and many leaders are often situational. This does not mean that positions are ephemeral but that they are not necessarily where leadership resides or what leadership really is.

I recall having lunch with a person who reached out to me wanting to be a college president or dean. I proceeded to ask the person why. They mentioned that they wanted to see changes and could do a better job and gave all kinds of examples for about an hour.

I asked, What about leadership?

What about it? they asked.

Then they proceeded to say, Well, as president, that makes me a leader.

I said, That makes you a person in a position. Leadership is not a position where you are willing to carry and move people across to the next step, whatever that may be. Is it a change in budget? Is it a new program, new policy? How do you get those groups of folks to support your idea? That is what it is about.

They proceeded to state they could direct them, and I said, You sure can, but will they be committed?

The answer is no. Anyone can give a directive, and good people will leave and go elsewhere, to where they are respected and treated like they have something between their ears. In any space where there are people, there is bound to be a group with titles who speaks to rank or hierarchy, but that is not leadership. Of course, the best combination is when leadership and rank and position are in alignment. Even better is when what matters is a transformational person who transcends all those human conventions.

Some of the leadership training and development that do get offered have their limitations when offered and how they are delivered. Imagine throwing a volume of responsibility to a person just because that person has a title. It is not some surreal reality where this happens but a very real one.

Think of politicians who all of a sudden get voted into office or those who move up the corporate and career ladder. These individuals, though provided an opportunity as managers, for example, secure the job only to find out that their technical expertise is only worth so much or that their soft skills can only get them out of a limited number of challenges.

Over the years, I’ve often heard individuals admit, I wasn’t ready, but I still secured the position. Soon after, many either leave or become discontented. Securing a position, maintaining it, and leading effectively are distinct challenges.

What individuals who rise fast or slowly in roles that require leadership should do is assess where they are developmentally and use that as a pivoting point to take on the next stage. Just like how one cannot all of a sudden start walking without scooting or crawling or talking without babbling, one cannot start leading without some basics laid out in terms of who that person is, where they are in their developmental life span journey, and understanding the situation.

One can surely do it, but many often fall short because of lack of preparation that is appropriate to where they are in their life span and understanding that they are, in fact, where they really are. There is a point where the baseline is met for that specific point of the life span, and then it really is up to that person to do what I often refer to as You do you. That is where their full personality and upbringing come to life with being equipped with leadership.

The way leadership is taught also tends to be solely about characteristics. Principles or behaviors such as being trustworthy or caring or showing interest are often the focus of many leadership books. I will say I have many of them, and they are fairly easy to read because of their brevity. Reading the eight blanks of something is very user-friendly; the challenge is, does it apply in the situation and to the person receiving the training or education about leadership? That is with a probability of close to zero, where development and unprincipled characteristics are the approach to teaching leadership.

There are some examples of survey data being collected to highlight leadership, but those are a back-end way of getting to the same thing: promotion of characteristics or principles, which are removed from reality. My favorite examples are personal ones, which I will cover in the introduction, where the principle or mantra being taught or communicated is to just lead.

That does not do a lot of good since it lacks any specificity or assumes the person has a basis of leadership or even the appropriate type of leadership. Ultimately, the problem ends up being that the way these characteristics come out or are shared is far removed from what is the case: the need to have developmentally appropriate leadership development.

Leadership exposure does seem to gather around adolescence. As I thought of my leadership courses at the university level, most, if not all, of the students were in their late-teenage years. In many cases, they had volunteered many hours in their early high school years, or a small portion of them had begun through formal organizations early on.

Although seen as leadership from my perspective, they often still did not see themselves quite as leaders. Students in my classes, for example, were easy to cite or discuss a business leader or becoming officially leaders once they left college or started a job. The younger students who had prior formal organization volunteer experience, such as Girl Scouts, did not quite see themselves as leaders as well but thought of it as something part of being an adult, not something they themselves at the time could be.

When students wrote papers or acted in their roles in the classrooms, they were clearly leaders—showing confidence, getting their peers to support their causes, demonstrating technical skills, and showing interest in growing. What did not surprise me as well was their commitment to continue learning more about leadership, either in their own self-journey or through future classes or professional development.

Many in their own classes shared how their parents had shared with them early on the importance of leadership or inculcated values related to leadership. Some had parents who were entrepreneurs, and they volunteered accordingly to carry their part in supporting the family. Or the family encouraged volunteering in soup kitchens or during holiday events early on in life, which led them to experience a feeling of satisfaction and a greater purpose in life.

Adolescence being what it was could at times be challenging. So many students shared that they were at times sad, but through volunteering and leading, they felt better and maintained that feeling as they continued helping others.

Leadership does not have to be only in more formalized, paid-as-you-participate organizations. There are many nonpaid areas. I recall where leadership was demonstrated when I volunteered for a campaign to increase living wages and rights for workers. The goal of the organization was to inform the public about what rights were being neglected for workers, specifically the rights of those who were even more marginalized due to social stratification or inequities in our societies. The organization leading this campaign was well-established and known for creating action to alleviate pain for working-class individuals.

During a meeting, we had a discussion about how to go about getting the public more informed and on what specific areas. Since I was a college student and at the time sweatshops were a focus of the public, I became aware of the awful situations that many workers found themselves in due to having no options. Many of the working conditions were exploitative, and even today, the issue remains.

The campaign organizers only wanted to focus on local issues due to vocal membership preferences. However, there was a small constituency who also felt that more global issues of oppression made sense. The well-known truism Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere was what was argued. Either way, we were at a standstill in determining direction. It took one of our most quiet members participating to marshal us forward.

She was quiet and in her seventies. Slowly, she raised her hand, only to be ignored a few times, and then she spoke. Her voice was calm but forceful in a way that demanded your attention. She shared a command of her subject—the organization’s history and how it had supported several campaigns in the past—and argued that to not address both issues would be perilous to justice for any of the groups they were discussing. She did not budge on her point and was convinced of its validity and convinced us all.

Our vote when it came to setting a direction was unanimous and collapsed around her values and perspective. What struck me and others was that prior to this campaign’s manifestation, there was no semblance of a position, but there it was, and confidently so from one of our elders. Had we been more monolithic in the group in terms of age, we would have missed out on the leadership wisdom being provided.

My own leadership experience began in less formal and unintentional experiences. Having fled a war-torn country and migrating to the United States and watching political leaders in El Salvador pay the ultimate price, I became aware at an early age of leadership. It was not until later in life, in my early twenties, that leadership became something that was more tangible. My experience primarily came from persistence in pursuing work and eventually being led by those with experience.

I recall going to my local bank after high school to find work, though I had no experience. Well, after going back for close to a year and asking for an opening, the person I pestered finally gave me a shot as a part-time, hourly worker. Despite having zero experience, that person gave me a shot. I was taught during the job how to count money, balance a register, read manuals for banking procedures, and deal with customers. I did not know that over a period of time, the person who hired me was thinking of retiring after twenty years as the operations manager.

She grew very confident in my abilities, and I