Are leaders made or born? And what makes an exceptional leader?
More than 100 eager high school students from the Anne and Max Community Hebrew Academy of Toronto hoped to find out by taking part in the second annual SOLE Student Leadership Conference, held Oct. 27 at the Schwartz/Reisman Centre.
SOLE stands for Self-Organized-Learning Environment, a personalized and collaborative student-driven education initiative where students listen to speakers who give them practical tools they can apply to their school clubs or committees.
“My goal with SOLE was to give students real tools to come up with a step-by-step plan and an easy-to-follow strategy, envisioning the ideas of branding and thinking differently,” said English teacher Jamie Cohen, the creator of SOLE and co-director of student activities at TanenbaumCHAT’s Kimel Campus in Vaughan.
The students received wide-ranging expert advice, leadership skills and community-building training from Jewish community mentors such as alumnus and university student David Kornhouser, and Meri Har-Gil, life coach and co-author of Rise of the New Professional.
Other mentors included Mark Bowden, a human behaviour and body language expert; Greg De Koker, a branding expert and author of the book Brand: It ain’t the logo*(*It’s what people think of you); magician Dan Trommater; and, via Skype from Los Angeles, Bart Baggett, a social media marketing expert.
They also heard from Tandie Maughn, a health and nutrition expert, and life coach Glendale Reyes, founder of Hip Hop Helps.
Each presenter had a particular lesson to share, such as how to create a compelling vision, develop innovative ideas in a collaborative setting, build a step-by-step plan to follow through on team goals, communicate a message as a professional presenter and raise people’s levels of confidence, energy, and resilience.
Trommater, the magician, used optical illusions to help students think about how to shift perspective, think differently and conjure up their own awe-inspiring ideas for a club, committee or community-building project.
“Through the tool of magic, we can challenge assumptions and inspire new ways of thinking. Your perspective is the No. 1 factor in your success,” he told them.
Bowden demonstrated how the students could use non-verbal communication skills to present their ideas or deliver a speech, citing the importance of hand-positioning, friendly eye contact and walking around a room with a smile.
“Smiling is universal. Everybody on the planet smiles in the same way. It doesn’t matter what culture you are from. It’s a signal meaning ‘I like you,’” he said.
The students had an opportunity to meet the mentors in groups and get immediate feedback on their plans for their clubs, committees, events and projects.
The afternoon session focused on inclusive leadership through community-building and was facilitated by TanenbaumCHAT teacher and former IDF soldier Shimon Weiss. Speakers included Rabbi Daniel Korobkin of Beth Avraham Yoseph of Toronto and Nick Maes, assistant head of history at the school.
Rabbi Korobkin shared several stories from the Torah about different models of Jewish leadership. He discussed the quality of being able to see the good within people, despite the fact there can also be ugliness.
“If you look for ugliness, you will find it. If you look for beauty, you will find it. A famous saying of our sages tells us that if you look out into the world and you see ugliness, you really are just seeing a reflection of that which is within yourself,” he said.
“If you see beauty, then you are looking at the beauty that is within yourself.”