CAIS Student Leadership Conference 2019 – Opening Address

Posted 4/1/2019

It is a great privilege to welcome all our student and staff delegates to the 2019 CAIS Student Leadership Conference, hosted here at Shawnigan Lake School.

I would like to begin by acknowledging that the land on which we gather is the traditional, ancestral, and unceded territory of the Coast Salish Peoples.

We have here today more than 130 students and 40 staff representing 31 schools across Canada.

In spring last year, I received an email in Norway from a group of Shawnigan students - and was delighted to read about their experiences at Lakefield last year and their initiative in putting forward a proposal and theme for this year’s conference:

‘Thinking Outside of the Box.’

You will find a stag, the emblem of Shawnigan, fittingly springing out of a box on your T-shirts as the logo for this event.

My main task this morning - as commissioned by our student organizers - is both to welcome you to the wonderful world of Shawnigan and, at the same time, to challenge you on the theme of leadership.

From airport bestsellers to on-line articles and training, much has been written about the concept of leadership. I have been quite struck, since moving to Canada, as to the focus (dare I say it, to the point of obsession) with leadership that I have encountered at every turn - from conferences to journals, from advertising to campus life. I attended one dinner before Christmas where some Canadian colleagues played a game to see how many times a series of school heads at the microphone used the word ‘leadership’ in their speeches between courses!

I wonder if it is a Canadian phenomenon.

I enjoyed looking at some eye-catching titles for books on self-help and leadership in an airport on a recent trip to Asia: From Zero to Hero; Ferocious Dialogue; and Lunch is for Wimps.’ My exploring of Amazon’s website for student development led me to the dated Alone in the Woods with a Scoutmaster’ and - my favourite - 'Am I Ready for Chest Hair?’ I read yesterday that a self-help book has just been published called: Win or Die: Lessons for Life from Game of Thrones’…

I want to draw upon two incidents at my last school in Norway which has helped to shape my thinking on this subject and to illustrate the dangers of focus on traditional leadership models.

We used to run a Student Leadership Day at the school. One day, a Russian student approached me in the dining room and asked if it was acceptable to me as the Head if she simply wanted to be a team player and develop her teamwork skills at this stage in her life. I reflected on this exchange - teamwork is a vital component of training to be a leader but we seemed to be propelling students towards leadership without considering the skills, engagement, values and attitudes associated with teamwork. With her encouragement, the student organizers changed the training to ‘Teamwork and Leadership Day’ the following year - with students finding it less intimidating and more inclusive.

In the days ahead, please let us not lose sight of the importance of teamwork.

As part of the training programme in Norway, I was asked to deliver a session on ‘teamwork and leadership.’ I used to draw upon a memorable old advertisement for recruitment to the British Armed Forces with the alliterative strap line ‘Be the Best.’

The advertisement places the viewer into the position of a British soldier at a water well in an undisclosed foreign country with a seemingly hostile response to his or her presence. It challenges the viewer to consider what would their response be in such threatening circumstances.

I have found an old version of it in the depths of YouTube:

My training session - entitled ‘For Your Eyes Only’ - used to focus on the importance of eye contact in developing partnerships, building trust, establishing a team dynamic and, to some extent, honing leadership skills.

Our eyes (and body language) are an essential part of communication. One top tip (if you remember nothing else from this session) is automatically to take off your dark glasses when you first meet someone - this allows them to look into your eyes, into your soul even and to engage the warmth that you radiate. Dark glasses provide a layer of inscrutability - a defence to you and an unnecessary barrier to a newcomer.

My workshop became redundant overnight when we accepted a super bright student from Spain who was completely blind. She came a month early with her older sister and learnt the campus - its undulations, its intricacies, its feel - and her daily routines.

She navigated the campus including the icy conditions of the Norwegian winter and perilous fjord’s edge alongside the challenges of Grades 11 and 12 both bravely and inspiringly.

She challenged us to teach in the classroom in a new way and her fellow students to think differently about students with disabilities. She was one of the finest and most inspiring students I have had the privilege to work with - sparky, academically successful, independent, courageous, selfless and much more.

She entered ski races, summited mountains, and lives her life to the full.

By living and learning alongside us, she taught all our school about the resourcefulness of each individual around us. She unknowingly taught us a great deal about community-building, teamwork, and leadership (as she led her life by example).

She was an inspiration and continues to be one at university. All our hearts leapt when she - alongside some other students in her year group with disabilities incurred when growing up in conflict and post-conflict zones - came forward to receive their high school graduation diplomas.

They taught me more about teamwork and leadership than any self-help book has ever done and she condemned most of my training on eye contact to the scrap heap of good, but ultimately outdated, ideas.

We need to think outside of the box in the coming days and beyond.

The Shawnigan students have put together an exciting programme of challenges for you - from pirate adventures to campus exploration.

We have a wonderful set of guests who have kindly agreed to present - from a refugee from the Democratic Republic of Congo and now UBC graduate to a high performance sports professional.

Controversially, I would like to challenge us to toy with and perhaps reject traditional notions of leadership, ranging from the nebulous development of ‘character’ to patriarchal leadership centred on force of personality.

As Shawnigan looks forward, I shall challenge it as an institution to consider the environment we wish to be, the values we wish to cherish and instil, and the types of students we wish to produce.

I hope that, as part of our strategic planning and future-proofing, we seek to develop the ethical community builders of tomorrow … note that I haven’t used the word ‘leaders.’

In today’s digitally and globally interconnected world, we need to pause to consider what it is to be human.

At Shawnigan, we are committed to developing the ‘human skills’ of emotional intelligence, empathy, resilience, and creativity – and seek to ground our students in our values and to encourage them to be the best version of themselves while bringing out the best in others.

To use a Norwegian expression, I ‘meet myself in the door’ when it comes to the notion of leadership. The world undoubtedly needs more leaders but, by saying this, I mean individuals developing social intelligence and responsibility, contributing to team environments, taking initiative, and leading by example, leading from behind.

We have an annual student-selected word shirt which captures the spirit of Shawnigan through the choice of a word and its definition. Words such as: ‘trust,’ ‘connect,’ and ‘compassion.’ I hope that one day, Shawnigan students will be drawn to choosing ‘humility’ as a defining characteristic of our community.

Half South African, I hold Nelson Mandela in the highest of regard - one of the finest - if not the finest - statesmen of the last century.

Part of his legacy is the example he set in terms of integrity and values, his ability to forgive (and inspire others to do the same), his commitment to community building and his understanding of the role education plays in bringing positive change.

The following quotation lives in the front of the Shawnigan students’ school diary for this academic year:

‘What counts in life is not the mere fact that we have lived. It is what difference we have made to the lives of others that will determine the significance of the life we lead.’

This is a hugely important message to all of us - as we launch this conference.

The difference we have made to the lives of others – to our families, to our friends, to members of our community, to strangers we have met – define who we are.

This address is designed to provoke, to be a little heretical - and even perhaps to challenge the CAIS team to think about wordsmithing the conference title in order to consider engagement and teamwork alongside leadership.

We can’t all be leaders in the old sense of the word but we can be team players in the communities that we find ourselves contributing towards - and leaders by example.

I have found in my experience that humility, servant-leadership, balanced judgement and a sound temperament have served me well along the road - and continue to be my holy grail. My challenge in the years ahead is not to be drawn to the dark side of leadership.

Good luck with navigating the days ahead - and, most importantly, I hope you learn something about yourself whilst here and take your learning back to your own school and home communities.

Last night, you all tackled the pirate challenge in your Pod groups. It was designed to encourage you to explore different options, to consult, to fail in the face of complexity and to discover different routes to the solution. The Japanese call this ‘eating bitterness’ and it teaches deeper learning, collaboration, and strategic thinking.

I would also like to take this opportunity to thank Executive Director Patti MacDonald and her CAIS team for their support in delivering this conference - and the Shawnigan student and staff team who have been working tirelessly on the logistics. I am sure you will each individually thank our wonderful host families.

Finally, I would like to finish with a compliment given by a fellow explorer to Thor Heyerdahl – the Norwegian archaeologist, author, and explorer. He earned international acclaim for his voyages of navigation in the Pacific, Atlantic and Indian Oceans as he advanced his theories of ancient seafaring migrations and he was perhaps best known for his leadership of the 1947 Kon-Tiki expedition - the first great post-war adventure story to catch the imagination of the world.

I like very much a fellow Swedish explorer’s description of his undoubtedly unorthodox skipper – "Thor builds his pyramids upside down." A reminder to us all to think differently, to think elastically, and sometimes to build our pyramids upside down.

Richard D A Lamont

Headmaster

30^th March 2019

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