Link to Achsahs Springs Post

First, in light of our studies in LDRS 500, is critical thinking a necessary leadership skill?  Is the ability to think critically a leadership trait, or is it a learned behaviour, or can it be both?  How critical is too critical?  For example, if I am critically reviewing someone’s work, at what point does it just becoming an exercise in finding fault and no longer has any value? (Achsah’s Springs, 2018)

I loved your question! You have obviously been reflecting quite a bit on it.

I thought you might find the following interesting as it connects to your question. As part of the new BC Education Curriculum for K-12, there are 6 core competencies that all students are expected to reflect upon and to self-assess where they are at throughout their learning journey.

The 6 core competencies are:

  1. Creative Thinking
  2. Personal & Social Awareness
  3. Social Responsibility
  4. Communication
  5. Personal & Cultural Identity
  6. Critical Thinking

As you noticed, one of the six is critical thinking.  Here is the student friendly language for which they reflect on where they are at.

Student friendly language Core Competencies reproduced with permission from DW Poppy Secondary School

I believe that critical thinking, like other skills is part of our life long learning journey. Some of us are also better at certain things than others. A lot of what is listed here, we do without even consciously realizing we are doing it in our jobs each day.

To answer your question of “how critical is too critical?”, I think the answer lies in what we have learned about Servant Leadership so far. The role of a leader is to help enable others to grow so that they can be their best selves. To do this, we need to focus on people’s strengths and to ask ourselves, “Is this helpful or hurtful?” before responding.  The role of the servant leader is to build people up, not tear them down.  Whenever I am providing feedback to a student, someone wise once told me that a quick way to know if something is acceptable, is to ask myself, “How would I be responding right now, if a TV camera was on me and this was going to be on the 6 o’clock news?”