Empowering All Gifted Leaders

Do All Students Have the Potential to be Gifted Leaders?

Samantha Toole

As an educator, I see many gifted leaders even as young as preschool students with the characteristics to encourage others to works towards and achieve a goal. Leadership comes in many different packages. Our school, like many others in our area and surrounding states have adopted the Leader In Me program where we guide students to become in charge of their own learning, goals, data, and celebrations/ reflections! We are now a student-led school where students lead morning meeting for the school and also have leadership roles (classroom jobs) that they have to apply for as if they were adults applying for a real job. This is also teaching students responsibility for their school, classroom, and themselves. As a result, students are more aware of what they are working towards and understand what it means to set a goal, work hard, and be successful! I believe all students have the potential to be gifted leaders if guided to be along with a positive and

I think all schools should be empowering all students to be the leader and take charge of their learning and life in a positive way. As far as gifted leaders, I believe that there are various types of leaders that are needed for a group or team to be successful!

Per author, Linda Addison there are two types of leaders that are both important but also different in Leadership Skills Among the Gifted and Talented. 1985 Digest. "Leaders can be influential as task-oriented leaders or relationship-oriented leaders. The task-oriented leader excels at establishing well-defined patterns of organization, channels of communication, and ways of getting tasks accomplished. The relationship-oriented leader, on the other hand, leads by maintaining personal relationships between members of the group by opening up communication, providing emotional support and using facilitating behaviors" (1985).

Are Gifted & Talented Programs Ultimately Discouraging the Undiscovered Gifted Leaders?

So are we as educators everywhere are not giving all the students the various opportunities to become gifted leaders. We all know the couple students in our class who are normally gifted leaders that come from good home that have parents that help them work on homework or other cognitive skills such as reading to them and introducing a broader range of vocabulary. However, what about the students who don't come good homes, who don't have anyone to work with them or teach them educational values. What about those students who don't know when they will receive their next meal or bath. Those students have the potential, we must believe in them and create a positive relationship with them to know who they are as a person and student. Then, educators can use their interests, personalities, and learning styles to figure out what kind of leader can they be. We all need others to encourage us, support us, and use each other for our strengths and weaknesses in this life.

Who Are We to Put a False Label On A Genius?

Isn't it the ones who are the most rejected, not labeled students turn out to grow up to be famous for something extraordinary in their life all because they didn't give up or allow any label or rejection to stop them from overcoming! That is exactly the type of growth mindset I want to instill in my students, so that when people try to discourage them or reject them from their dreams, they will keep fighting and persevere until they make their dreams happen. For example, the top two people on a list of 27 people who were considered crazy, but turned out to be leaders in our world history books: Winston Churchill and Thomas Edison. Author, Viva Zworski described these two men as what happened when they were younger and thought of a "stupid", "1. Winston Churchill failed the sixth grade. He was defeated in every public office role he ran for. Then he became the British prime minister at the age of 62. 2. Thomas Edison’s teachers told him he was 'too stupid to learn anything.' Edison also famously invented 1,000 light bulbs before creating one that worked" (2016).

All in all, gifted leaders are in us all. We just must believe as educators that we have a significant role in shining the light on that talent on all our students. Even though some students' gifted leadership may already shine, we need to make sure we teach our students to encourage one another so we can all brighter when we all shine together!