Entitlement:Stewardship as Oil:Water

The main reason I chose the twitter account name “Greenmen Steward” is because I wanted to convey a sense of servant leadership in the title.  Being a steward is basically being a servant to others by taking care of something that is not yours.  In my opinion, public service and especially leadership should be looked at as a form of stewardship because it is not about “me” or “mine”, but rather “us” and “ours”.  This has been a focus of mine since reading Thomas Sergiovani’s “Moral Leadership: Getting to the Heart of School Improvement” over a decade ago.  

Another book that address servant leadership is Simon Sinek’s “ Leaders Eat Last”.  In this book he points out that administrators who utilize a shared leadership philosophy promote a culture which leads to leadership opportunities that are more dispositional in nature.  There is a biological connection to this idea that Sinek eloquently points out in his book, which is a great quick read, but if you want the shortened version you can check it out in his video Why Leaders Eat Last.  Similarly, this past fall, our administrative team read Urban Meyer’s  book titled “Above the Line” as a “fun” leadership read.  In the book, Meyer explained how sports psychologist  Tim Kight worked with the OSU players and coaches to stay “above the line” by utilizing the “R-factor”.  The “R-factor” is your  “Response” to a situation which is the only thing you can control after an “Event” takes place.  How you respond to an event will determine the “Outcome” and Kight demonstrates the relationship between these three in a simple graphic:  E + R = O.  He goes on to say that when an “event” takes place you should first determine what you want as the “outcome” and then “respond” to the event accordingly.  In short, making decisions that are “intentional” are responses categorized as “above the line” and making decisions that are “impulsive” are categorized as “below the line”.  It is a simple yet impactful way to view how you can respond to any event.  I bring this up because April/May seems to bring out a lot of “entitlement” in schools, which I would categorize as “below the line”.  

As an assistant principal, I used to joke that teenagers have a “false sense of entitlement” that negatively impacted their judgement, but I am finding we can all fall into a sense of entitlement if we are not careful and using Kight’s E +R = O can help us to stay above the line.  I recently came across an article title “16 Signs You Have a Sense of Entitlement Complex”.  The article is a look into human psychology, but does hit home on a few occasions that I see taking place in schools throughout the year and especially in April/May.  Here are the 16 symptoms of entitlement:
1.  You impose unrealistic demands onto your family, children, friends, acquaintances, lovers, employees, and/or employers.

2.  You tend to feel sorry for yourself if things don’t work out the way you wanted (self-pity), and openly advertise this in melodramatic, attention-seeking ways.

3.  People have called you a “bully”, “manipulative”, “ruthless”, “egotistical”, “vain”, or a “liar”.

4.  You believe that you deserve happiness and go to great, sometimes extreme lengths to ensure that happens, often at the expense of others.

5.  You punish people when they don’t do what you want either passively (e.g. silent treatment, gossiping, spreading rumors) or aggressively (e.g. shouting, verbally/physically abusing).

6.  In order to “succeed” in life, you believe in going to any lengths.

7.  You constantly see other people as competition or “threats”.

8.  You tend to exhibit many double-standards in the way you behave/interact with other people, e.g. I can be late and forget my duties and commitments, but YOU can’t; I can treat myself, but YOU can’t; I can abuse or disrespect you, but YOU can’t to ME.

9.  You tend to take more than give in friendships and relationships.

10.  You tend to look out for yourself, your needs and desires more than anyone else almost 100% of the time.

11.  You have a hard time negotiating or compromising.

12.  You have a deep-seated conviction that you have priority and should always come first, even at the expense of stepping on others.

13.  People always seem to be offended or upset by what you do or say.

14.  You generally think that you are better, or more important, than other people and other people should see this and unquestioningly respect you.

15.  You crave admiration and adoration.

16.  You like to assert your dominance or superiority over other people, finding it second nature.

    All in all, these are symptoms that are evidence of actions “below the line” and are results of a poor choice for the  “R-factor” in Kight’s E + R = O, because they more than often don’t lead to the “outcome” you want...especially if you are a steward of the schools.  In short entitlement and stewardship don’t go together, they are like oil and water.  As teachers and instructional leaders we are all stewards of the school.  If this is the case, then entitlement has no place in schools on any level and we have to do our best to be sure we are making “above the line” responses to the events taking place around us everyday...even in April and May.