LEADERSHIP AND THE ACADEMY

“Leadership” is a word that may conjure up a number of definitions, if we think about it. Leadership can be a collective noun, as in the leadership of an organization, such as your Academy, or it can be a verb, used to describe an action taken by an individual or group. It can be good leadership or perhaps bad leadership, all depending on your point of view, of course. Regardless of how you define leadership or what you may think of it, one encounters leadership almost every hour of every day. Leadership is necessary if you are to be successful in your clinical practice or academic endeavors. Leadership is something we all need to learn about if we want to further our careers. There are those who think leadership is an innate skill, and that studying the science of leadership will have little effect if you aren’t a “born” leader. There are others who have studied and taught leadership and know from their own and others’ experience that leadership principles, processes, and abilities can be taught and learned, and that if a culture of leadership is developed in an organization, it will thrive. The Academy is fortunate to have a “thought leader” in leadership! I’m speaking of Dr. Mert Flom, a past president of the Academy, and founder of the Leadership InSight Program that has been offered for many years now at the Annual Meeting of the Academy. The Academy is proud to present these courses to you again when we meet in Orlando November 11-14. I invite you to sign up for this great learning opportunity. Drs. Linda Casser and Steven Eyler are putting together an outstanding leadership program that will be presented by many recognized leaders of the Academy, and I know that you will take away new skills to help you further enhance your concepts and abilities in leadership. I am pleased to announce that I have spoken recently with Dr. Flom and have asked him to provide us with some snippets of his knowledge on the subject of leadership in this and future issues of President’s Calling. Enjoy, and thank you Mert. The first installment follows. [To Top] LEADERSHIP SNIPPET #1: MEANINGS OF “LEADERSHIP” Merton C. Flom, O.D., Ph.D., F.A.A.O.   [President Eger is facilitating the development of a leadership “culture” in our Academy. I am pleased to work with him in this important endeavor — and grateful for the opportunity to share with my Academy colleagues some of what I learned these past 21 years as a student in the discipline of leadership studies.] _____ So, you’re on the way to your optometric office and you run into a friend who tells you about his boss who is “narrow minded and lacking in foresight — indeed, myopic.” You understand exactly what he is saying and offer kind words of understanding. Arriving at your office a few minutes later, your partner advises you that, “the highly myopic patient for whom you dispensed contact lenses yesterday called and will be coming back today.” In quick succession, you heard the word “myopic” used in two different ways — one in an everyday context, the other in the context of the discipline of optometry. You had no trouble coping with different meanings of the same word. The context made it clear. The word “leadership” similarly has a different meaning in common everyday usage and in the discipline of leadership studies. In one common usage, leadership means persons in high positions in a company or organization. Another common usage refers to the actions of a person who leads a group to accomplish a specific task. In the discipline of leadership studies, taught at many universities and colleges in the U.S., an additional meaning of “leadership” is used. In the discipline, “leadership” is studied as “a process that brings about change, without coercion, that is effective and adaptive, and improves the common good.” We are now reminded that the two common everyday uses of “leadership” connote two different ideas: position and leading. Further, we see that the discipline of leadership studies emphasizes a third idea: change. In our discourse with each other, the word “leadership” is frequently not understood, sometimes misunderstood. To help clarify what we mean, we might start by using helpful modifiers: “positional leadership,” “leading leadership,” and “change leadership.” [To Top]