Being a student allows one to read books and articles not normally on the radar or at least not high on the priority scale. Such is the case for this semester. I am taking a leadership course in education and part of the syllabus is to read the autobiography of any leader. Now keep in mind that I have not started the course yet but that is really secondary to this post.

I started browsing around at Barnes and Noble (a real store not on line) to see what books were available and to see what caught my attention. in the middle of a table in the middle of the section was a book titled “iWoz” by Stephen Wozniak and Gina Smith. I quickly read the back cover and thought this would make a good study.

I highly recommend the book! The great Woz is down-to-Earth in his style of writing and what he has to say. Not being familiar with history books on Apple, he says he is trying to say some things for the record that have been incorrect in the histories. What comes across is someone who made and makes a great leader. He is not as sure as I am since he feels he makes a great engineer but a lousy manager. Woz knows how to treat people with respect and how to be an ethical business person when others around him are not.

Coupled with reading this book was Herman Hesse “Journey to the East” and “The Leadership Challenge“. I also have tried to keep up with my blog reading and was intrigued by a post from Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach about an interview she did on her work in K-12. In my opinion, Sheryl is an incredible leader when it comes to technology in education. She has desire, know-how and a solid educational philosophy from which to work.

What does all this reading have in common?

  1. A passion about their subject area
  2. Whatever you do, do your BEST!
  3. When something doesn’t work, learn from it!
  4. There is always room for improvement
  5. It can always be done a different way
  6. The leader is never better than anyone else (they are simply steering the process)
  7. They share their story with others

This is a simple list. Nothing great or earth shattering but it reminds us how we can all lead. For those who have the pleasure of knowing Sheryl, she is a very humble person. She doesn’t toot her own horn and tell you how great she is in her field. She also would tell you that anyone can lead. I will be thinking a lot about leadership this semester. I will have the opportunity to re-read iWoz and several other resources so I have not said my final thing about leadership. Just starting the dialogue.

If you were to write a list about what makes a leader great, what would it look like?

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