Mary Ellen R. Fise, LL’17, Director, Leadership Institute, Maryvale Preparatory School (MD)
Project planning and management are great ways to engage young students when teaching leadership. Many of us have given our students scenarios that ask them to brainstorm, perform simple research, come up with a list of activities and a timeline, and then execute to the fullest. Think: class fundraising projects, themed days to celebrate an historic event or advocacy cause, or more academically, a class project that aims to fulfill one or more learning objectives.
These group efforts teach much about a variety of leadership skills. But how many planners start at the end? That is, with evaluation. And the great question to ask on Day One, Hour One is – how will we know we’re successful? When the project is over – and memories of the project-win or the project-flop are sliding away – is the perfect teachable moment when we need to stop and ask our young people: How did you do and how do you know? What advice do you have for a similar group of students doing a similar project? This is the essence of evaluation. Moving those first thoughts about evaluation to the front of the project timeline gives everyone involved an early glimpse of the end of the road.
As part of Maryvale’s Foundations of Leadership course (for 11th and 12th graders), we teach evaluation, over a few classes, prior to any of the other project development components (e.g. data collection, strategic planning). By being able to list some measures of success at the outset and how to evaluate them later, students can then easily identify some specific project goals.
Courtney M., a Foundations of Leadership student, explains: “I think evaluation is a sign of a good leader. By knowing exactly what you wish to accomplish, you help focus yourself throughout the task. By evaluating a specific task or job after it is completed, one can detect trends on where they excel and where they lack. This information is beneficial to growing and developing our skills.”
At first, the measures of success identified by students are fairly loose. At a recent kick-off meeting to plan a used book sale, our Leadership Scholars group identified the amount of money raised, number of books collected, number of books sold, project skills acquired, and level of interest expressed by various constituency groups in the sale as possible measures of success. After a discussion of these measures, they were able to set some initial goals and then dove into project planning, knowing what their ultimate aim was.
In leadership classes at Maryvale, we talk with students – in both middle and upper school – about quantitative and qualitative evaluation. We describe different types of each and let them experiment with gathering feedback. We study professional focus group services and examine the floor plan of a local facility so that students understand the setup with one-way mirrors and client viewing areas.
Leadership students also learn about mall intercepts and one-on-one interviews. After the Upper School leadership field trip, the students develop their own evaluation form with closed-and open-ended questions. We teach SWOT Analysis (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats) by reviewing our weekly community homeroom music selections. We make sure every brainstorm also includes a reverse brainstorm.
Students also learn that connecting with one’s followers or group partners builds buy-in. “By evaluating other organizations and people, like we did after our field trip and our group project, it made me feel like my input was being valued and that I had a say in the results of our next field trip or my grade for the project, said Ashlyn W., an 11th grader at Maryvale, “People in general like to assert their opinions about a product, company, or person. Getting feedback also lets leaders in the business world or in everyday life stay connected to the people they are leading, which in turn, makes them a better leader because of it.”
Additionally, students are taught to practice noticing – when you attend an event or a meeting, notice the details. How could it be better, what could you do to prevent the small hiccups or the intermediate roadblocks? Building muscle memory for noticing is a great leadership skill to learn when you are young and it will grease the wheels of evaluation at every turn forward. Noticing “along the way” and building in the use of tools to facilitate those observations really helps the process – the gcLi Leadership Lab alumni will remember the Daily Feedback Forms, the “parking lot,” and Jeremy LaCasse’s rules for receiving and giving feedback.
When projects are over, students return in earnest to the list they developed in response to the earlier discussed “how will we know we’re successful?” query and have a post-project debrief and review. And we remind students to pay it forward to the leaders of next year’s projects (and thereafter) by developing advice about what worked and what didn’t, enumerating successes achieved and recommendations on how to improve.
Finally, we talk about accountability and the important role that evaluation plays in proving that the funds and time invested are worth it. In the work world that our students will one day participate in and lead, assuring shareholders, venture partners, or donors that their company, project, or nonprofit is worth the investment of others is critical to survival. Identifying and keeping track of measures from the get go and being able to show their effective evaluation practices will give them an advantage in a competitive commercial or philanthropic arena.
Great leaders practice continuous improvement. Considering evaluation at the start, in the middle of, and at the end of a project helps them achieve those ongoing improvements and ultimate success. At Maryvale, we want our students to learn and understand the importance of evaluation as a foundational component among their many leadership skills.
Evaluation Resources:
Differences Between Qualitative and Quantitative Research Methods
How Focus Groups Work (Ted-Ed) (short video)
https://ed.ted.com/lessons/how-do-focus-groups-work-hector-lanz#review
Introduction to Evaluation (chapter 36) (this is part of Community Tool Box’s online toolkit on community-building)
https://ctb.ku.edu/en/table-of-contents/evaluate/evaluation
Mary Ellen R. Fise is the Director of the Leadership Institute at Maryvale Preparatory School, a private school for girls in grades 6-12, in Lutherville, Maryland. In this role she chairs the Leadership Department, oversees the Leadership Certificate program, coordinates school-wide leadership activities and guest speakers, as well leadership programs for alumnae, and currently teaches Foundations of Leadership and Innovations, Entrepreneurship and Creativity courses, both electives for 11th and 12th grade students. She has previously worked as an attorney for a non-profit consumer advocacy group in Washington, D.C., directed strategic planning initiatives for school and church organizations, and authored The Childwise Catalog: A Consumer Guide to Buying the Safest and Best Products for Your Children (HarperCollins).