A Cohort of Secondary school principals from Nairobi County are currently enrolled in a series of virtual mentorship and coaching sessions on Cultivating Virtues for Leadership (CViL). The CViL modules were designed to guide and support educators on a personal and professional journey of growth and development through the cultivation of servant leadership virtues. The
mentorship sessions are being hosted by the Centre Director for the Character Education Programme, Peter King’ori, in collaboration with stakeholders from the Center for Character and Citizenship (CCC), University of Missouri-St. Louis and Teachers Service Commission (TSC) Regional Director in Nairobi County. The mentorship sessions are being offered to the Principals in line with the TSC policy that stipulates on the need of providing mentorship to ‘institutional administrators by building and enhancing skills and competencies for proper management of learning institutions’ The participants include newly appointed school administrators.
The first mentorship session featured inspiring insights from Dr. Melinda Bier, a research scientist and developer of CViL model from CCC. Dr. Melinda’s message was centered on servant leadership—a philosophy that prioritizes on valuing and developing people, sharing power, promoting trust, and building a sense of community. Unlike traditional leadership models, servant leadership places the leader in the role of a servant first. A servant leader strives to model virtues such as noble purpose, humility, courage, forgiveness, gratitude,
integrity, empowerment, foresight and stewardship. Speaking about nurturing of noble purpose, she challenged each participant to know his/her ‘why’ citing that “Successful people stay grounded in their why.” She added that ‘noble purpose drives a person to make a positive difference in the world.’
The second mentorship session on “Creating a Culture Where Everyone Grows: Every Educator is a Chief Empathy Officer” was facilitated by Dr. Thomas Hoerr, Scholar in Residence, University of Missouri-St. Louis; Emeritus Head of the New City School, USA. Dr. Hoerr shared invaluable insights on the transformative power of empathy, appreciation, and trust in creating a thriving organizational culture. He urged school principals to ‘create spaces where every individual feels seen, valued and heard,” as he said that ‘culture happens when the leader inspires and gets everyone to buy in’. He added that creating such a positive environment begins with leaders encouraging open communication, and ensuring that everyone feels safe to
express their thoughts and concerns. Further, he urged educators to intentionally cultivate gratitude in order to create a culture of care in the school community.
In conclusion, participants have found the mentorship and coaching sessions being valuable in their individual life as they are able to gain skills and competencies which enable them to serve their school communities as servant leaders.