Sandra Fink is a physical education teacher in Glendale, California, where she has taught for 36 years. For the past 10 years she has been the coordinator of a leadership program called WEB (Where Everyone Belongs) at Wilson Middle School.

The WEB leadership program is designed to help sixth graders transition to middle school with support from eighth graders. Sandra explains that leadership isn't just about authority; it’s also about kindness, mentoring, and creating an environment where everyone can develop their potential to lead.

Read the transcript and notes for this episode on our website.

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Where do leaders come from? You know, sometimes it seems like there's not enough of them. Sometimes there are too many cooks in the kitchen. But leadership is an interesting phenomenon. It's something we recognize when we see it. Maybe we are it, but how does it happen? Leaders aren't born, they're made. It's a phenomenon in language. It's a phenomenon of communication, and it's something that has always fascinated me. Abbie, I know it's interesting to you. What's on your mind?

Well, we're getting ready for kids to be going back to school, and I just started this really great program at Arizona State University called the Leadership Institute. And I've been thinking a lot about this concept of leadership. And like you said, where. Where do leaders come from? Are we naturally inclined to be a leader? Can we teach leadership skills? We probably all can point to someone in our lives that thought they were being a good leader and probably were not.

And, you know, over the years, I've taken various personality tests and things to help me understand. In theory, it was supposed to help me understand myself, which it does. But it also gives you a real interesting insight into the people you interact with and how to respond to them in the, you know, if you are going to be their leader, different ways that people understand things and how we have to change what we do in order to be a better leader has nothing to do with ourselves but the people that we're trying to lead.

Earlier in the week, I was having a conversation with my sister, Sandra. She is a elementary physical education teacher. You're not an ele... oh, she's a middle school physical education teacher. That's right. The sixth graders are in middle school now. She's shaking her head at me. And one of the things that she oversees is this leadership program for her students. And it just sort of came all together that even as young as sixth grade, we can be talking about the concept of leadership and being good followers and good listeners and how to engage.

And so I thought it would be fun to have her join us on the podcast. It's been about five years since she was on with us before, and so I thought we could spend a little bit of time talking about what leadership means in our school environment and how she works with the kids to get them engaged that way.

So, Sandy, thank you for coming on. First of all, share a little bit about this program that you oversee. You know, how long you've been doing it, and why it's become such an important part of the orientation part of the school year and why it's something that you're so excited to be involved with.

Well, thank you, Abbie, first of all, for letting me be here and talk about this amazing program. It is called Where Everyone Belongs. It's part of the Boomerang project. It's a national program that is set up to build a bridge between your incoming sixth graders and your eighth graders. It's a very scary experience going from elementary school to middle school. And it gives these 8th graders this wonderful opportunity to mentor.

So they go through a training for two days and then they do these activities and they build these relationships with the sixth graders and they get to hang out with them at snack and at lunch. And we do these activities throughout the school year.

So there's a constant check-in knowing that you have someone older than you who's had that experience at the school come back and check in with you. And for sixth graders, they think that's the greatest thing ever, that they have a friend that's an eighth grader. And it's a dynamic experience. It's something I've been doing. We brought it to our school. I believe it's... I think this was our 11th year doing it.

And so now the current 8th graders, when they were 6th graders, went through it and they couldn't wait to be an 8th grader so that they could be the web leader so that they can make that impact on the incoming sixth graders. So it's... what's the word? Circular. Where it circles back. So it's pretty cool.

How do you determine which one of the eighth graders? It's not a one-to-one, right? You don't have one eighth grader for every sixth grader. So how do you select those eighth graders that get to participate in the program? What sort of things are you looking for in that particular student?

We can see it in kids, right? You can see there's different leaderships, there's different things. We ask the staff to nominate students and so they get nominated or they can volunteer themselves and they have to apply. So it's an application process. Not everyone who wants to be a WEB leader gets to be one, which is probably the hardest thing we have to do as the coordinators because turning someone away who wants to take on a leadership role is very difficult. But they fill out an application. And what we're looking for, like every leadership group, you're looking for students that reflect your student population. So we have a variety of languages. We want to know if they speak a different language. We want to know what they're involved with inside and outside of school.

And when teachers recommend, what we ask them to look for is that kid that turns to the student next to them and just kind of helps them out quietly, but doesn't really make a big announcement and just does it. It's that that kid who may or may not be noticed as the big popular kid who already demonstrates the leadership, but the kid who's always willing to help you out when you need help with something. We had about 120 kids recommended. Of that, about 70 applied and we took 40. We reduced it down so that the group sizes are about 14 kids because they get to be partnered together when they are mentoring their group.

So these are kids that are actually demonstrating these characteristics... In seventh grade, is that when the teachers would start nominating for the upcoming school year?

Correct. But I could say to you that even when we see it in sixth grade, it's like ... that kid, definitely, I mean, he or she is doing this, he or she is doing that. So we all kind of keep an eye. And any teacher can recommend any kid. So you don't just have to be in that grade level in order to nominate. I try to stay out of it because I have to be neutral in the decision making, but I definitely have that chance to also nominate kids.

Now, Sandy, we opened with an interesting conundrum. Are leaders found or are they made? Are they born with it or can it be taught? And what's interesting is I hear a bit of a mix in what you're saying. You're identifying young people who are already demonstrating certain characteristics and then giving them an opportunity to step into that role more formally. Is that right? What about the kids who don't have those leadership characteristics? Can they become leaders? How do you think about that?

That's why we say a teacher can recommend or they can apply because sometimes, like everything, somebody could slip through the cracks. And a lot of times those kids who are super shy are the ones that might be overlooked. But that super shy kid is the one that is that kid who is sitting next to someone and helping them out quietly. I teach physical education, so they might come up and say, can I help you carry out the equipment? That to me shows leadership. It shows that you're willing to help someone else out who needs help. Because leadership to me means all of that. It's helping put papers away. Or it could be opening the door for someone, to me, anyone who makes a gesture in a positive way that makes it easier for someone else, I believe has leadership potential or leadership within them that they don't even recognize.

Okay, but we certainly see in our own country and many other countries around the world, people whose definition of leadership is not that quiet kindness that you're pointing to, but authority, even domination. Like, "you will do what I say because I'm in charge" kind of a thing. Is that leadership or is that something else?

Well, I certainly don't think it's leadership.

I don't think so either.

That's more dictatorship, right?

That's what I was gonna say as well. I think people respond better to kindness. A gesture that's done unconsciously, that's done within, because it's what you just do. And I think people respond better to it. They wanna be around that, and then they wanna be a better person because of that influence of whatever it might be.

And if we start... My idea is, we're starting with these sixth graders. And these eighth graders go through two full days of training to get an understanding of how scary it is to be a sixth grader coming in. If we can build that relationship at sixth grade with these eighth graders, we have seen over the years the behavior of our students is better. They're taking pride in their school because they've learned that, hey, that eighth grader would never do that. Maybe I shouldn't do it.

And it influences not only my sixth graders, but all of the students at the school because they're now seeing their equals. So an 8th grade WEB leader is doing what they're doing, making sure they throw their trash out and not shoot it like a basketball. Other 8th graders are trying to concede that and say, well, maybe I shouldn't do that either. So the hope is that if we can get this fixed in this young age, maybe we can create a better leadership world.

I know I'm a teacher. I see the positive and everything, but I really do think if we can get this done in the middle school, which is all in itself. Middle school, as you know, is hormonal. Things are crazy in middle school. If we can work on building those relationships across the grade levels and being a mentor, being a leader, being a positive person, maybe things could develop into the political world and other places in which we don't see that.

Well, one of the things that you said that resonated with me is the concept of influence, and that that was so even in an individual that is not rising to leadership level, meaning identified, selected, pushed forward, whatever it is. We all have that chance to be a leader within our own circle of influence, right?

It doesn't mean standing in front of the room and being in charge of something as much as it is we can be, within our friend group, an influencer, a leader, and a positive role model for others to mirror. And I think about it as that translates into the workforce. And you said you've been doing this for 11 years. Those initial kids are now out of college and are likely seeing and hopefully looking back at that experience. And I think we can all point to, you know, certain experiences either with adults that we interacted with or other, you know, students, colleagues and such that we said, you know, that was pretty powerful. That was pretty impactful. I want to pursue that or engage with that.

You know, my professional career is a result of, you know, I didn't know it at the time, but the influence of teachers that I had. I know certainly for you as well, that, you know, you were guided down a path to pursue what you did from a professional perspective based on some influential individuals in your. In your education environment. And I think there's. There's opportunity for that. And if we all kind of think about where we have influence and whether or not we are designated as a leader, you know, with the title that goes along with it, we all have an opportunity, you know, to be a leader. We just have to recognize it in ourselves and take advantage of that.

And I think that's what you're inspiring with the kids that you're working with and ultimately with those that are watching it happen, is they all have the potential to be a leader within their own environment.

And I look at leadership and mentorship, they're very similar to one another. And so we try to. We integrate, we interact, we change off on that word. We want to make sure that they know that they're mentors, but they're leaders of the school. But you are mentoring these sixth graders to be good role models for the school and so on. So I think I like what you said, Abbie. I think leaders can be found in anywhere doing anything, something as simple as just, like I said, opening a door.

One of the things I really like about what you're saying is it points to something I think a lot of people get confused about. In sort of a similar way as they get confused about communication skills, I think people get confused about leadership skills. And honestly, there may be a lot of overlap between the two, because good leaders are good communicators. But what I mean specifically is if somebody wants to become a better communicator, they usually assume that means they have to become a better talker or a better writer. They take a public speaking course, they go and get sales training, or they hire a coach to work on their presentation skills, or they get media training from a PR firm so that they can speak more effectively on television or the radio or being interviewed by a journalist. But the primary skill in communication is not speaking. It's listening. It's the foundation. And the primary skill in leadership, it sounds like, is very much the same.

You've talked about the kids who have the ability to empathize, who notice what's going on around them. They are tuned in to their environment. They see what's missing, and then they decide to either provide it or to inspire or influence others to provide it. And that's very different from the kind of authoritative, commanding, controlling presence that I think sometimes gets confused for true leadership. What are your thoughts?

Absolutely. And we actually spend some time on being active listeners and how we do that. It's one of the activities they do because the skill of listening is just as hard as the skill of speaking. And so we ask the kids to face each other, and almost they have to write something that they want to share. So one person has to put their little paper under their leg while the other person is speaking. And we talk about the importance of eye contact and how that brings somebody into the conversation.

And then we talk about when they're speaking to you. You need to not be thinking about what you're going to say. You need to be listening to the words that are coming out so that you can share back. Well, Adrian was talking about blah, blah, blah, blah, that makes that person feel important because you've now listened to what they had to say. And so this program does the other side, too. We teach those kids how to introduce themselves and how to speak out, but we also talk to them about is how important is to listen and actually hear what other people are saying to you.

Well, and actually, here is the toughest part, right? Because as you said so often, we're ready to say the next thing and we haven't heard or not heard appropriately what someone's been telling us. And, you know, all of this is, I keep thinking as we're talking about the, you know, the applications of these things in so many different dynamics, whether it's in a classroom, whether it's in your family dynamic, whether it's in your workplace, all of that active listening, empathetic listening, being a part of a conversation, acknowledging, recognizing, you know, the other individual that's in that conversation.

The if we go to the leaders born or made naturally born leaders, which we, you know, will sort of resonate with some of these things, maybe earlier on you'll see them demonstrating that. But I do think it's possible to teach or influence someone who would like to be. I mean, I think you have to decide you want to take the role of leadership and pursue that. We all, we need both sides. If we have leaders, we do need others that want to be led or to follow.

But I think the ability to understand, listen, be willing to accept the feedback, change in the dynamics that you're presented with are all those things that make us good leaders. And we become good leaders because others respect that and feel that we are acknowledging them in whatever the circumstances are. And when it comes right down to it, that really is the definition of a leader. And you started the conversation by saying that, right? Giving the sense of importance and giving them something that they feel proud of and helping others feel proud of themselves. And that's really, to me, the bottom line definition of what a good leader is and what a good leader can be.

Definitely.

Thanks for listening to this episode of Copper State of Mind. If you enjoyed the conversation, please share it with a colleague who might also find this podcast valuable. It's easy to do, just click the "Share" button in the app you're listening to now to pass it along. You can also follow Copper State of Mind in Apple Podcasts, Spotify or any other podcast app. We publish new episodes every other Friday.

Copper State of Mind is brought to you by HMA Public Relations, the oldest continuously operating PR firm in Arizona. The show is recorded and produced by the team at Speed of Story, a B2B communications firm in Phoenix, and distributed by PHX.fm, the leading independent B2B podcast network in Arizona.

For all of us here at Speed of Story and PHX.fm, I'm Adrian McIntyre. Thanks for listening and for sharing the show with others if you choose to do so. We hope you'll join us again for another episode of Copper State of Mind.