The “3-Cs” of Leadership: Courage,
Caring, and Commitment
Tommy Boone, PhD, MPH, FASEP, EPC
Professor and Chair
Department of Exercise Physiology
The College of St. Scholastica
Duluth, MN 55811
“Once we confronted…the pain of
ignoring our own hypocrisy hurt us more than giving up the status quo…[We]
changed.” – Ronald A. Heifetz and Marty Linsky
Since the founding of the ASEP organization,
we have witnessed many great things. Hundreds of students and professionals
across the United States and around the globe have come together.
They seek one thing – a meaningful change in exercise physiology.
If we listen to them, if we try to understand the courage it takes, and
if we learn from them, we will all benefit.
They are our leaders, especially when they
tell others that it is time to stop sweeping our problems under the rug.
For the most part, they are our master-prepared exercise physiologists.
They have taken a stand on behalf of exercise physiology. As ASEP
members, they care about leadership, accountability, and professionalism.
The challenges of leading are great, but they have the courage to stay
the course.
It takes courage to lead.
No one wants to look like an idiot supporting a stupid idea. The
opportunities for doing just that are great! Even our best leaders
can be caught breaking their breathing cycle with the question: “Was
that the right thing to do?” Few of us have all the right answers.
Leading often requires making decisions based on our values and what our
mind is saying to us. Most of us understand this point. That
is also why we understand that leaders are defined by the moment and the
place. It comes from the heart.
No particular organization defines leadership
or who is a leader. These are mistaken ideas. In fact, there
is nothing about any other organization or group of individuals that confer
authority or leadership. In fact, the courage to lead generally means
taking on issues and challenging the groupthink mentality of yesterday’s
thinking. Leaders are courageous or otherwise why would they put
themselves in situations where the resistance isolates them or carries
out personal attacks on their name and reputation. It takes courage
to stay the course when political competitors are willing to do whatever
it takes to silence the new reality. Ronald A. Heifetz and Marty
Linsky [1] said it best:
“You may appear dangerous to people
when you question their values, beliefs, or habits of a lifetime.
You place yourself on the line when you tell people what they need to hear
rather than what they want to hear.” [1, p. 34]
It takes courage to speak positive about ASEP.
To identify your work or your institution with ASEP and its leadership
is a professional position that may threaten the academic work of a lifetime
for many exercise physiologists. They will resist change, and are
likely to do whatever it takes to avoid being changed. The solution
lies in adapting to the ASEP values and beliefs. For professors to
learn to think as ASEP exercise physiologists, they may have to accept
what is done is done and now is the time to adapt to the new norms of exercise
physiology.
While we are helping others to adapt to
the ASEP perspective, we must also come to understand what they are giving
up and how it will change their lives. No longer familiar with the
[new] way to think about exercise physiology, it will be a challenge
for some. It will be uncomfortable, disruptive, and even scary.
To tell someone that it’s inevitable is the truth, but so is the sense
of loss as well. We must reach out and help as many as we can.
Making the transition from sports medicine to exercise physiology will
not be easy. We must care for those who have ignored their own involvement
in failing their students.
Caring for the loss that academics
suffer when asked to stop supporting sports medicine is a significant part
of leadership. And, yet it is imperative that those who refuse to
make the transition will not be supported or recognized. They will
be political casualties who may fail to realize their academic objectives
(promotion, tenure). Harsh as it might sound, those unwilling to
adapt to change, to understand the importance of a professional organization,
and to make the effort to give up status quo will be left behind.
To be as helpful as possible, we should continue to extend our services
to others. Where possible, we should show why caring about our students,
their education, and accountability measures are important to professional
development. All three are inextricably intertwined.
The academic setting must be about students.
Their education must promote the best in them and the profession.
Credibility is important to exercise physiology. Defining it from
personal training is imperative. A high-quality, accredited program
based on academic excellent must prevail with one professional title.
Moreover, for a faculty to care for students, they should develop a shared
understanding of the ASEP initiatives, vision, and code of ethics.
They should be grounded in the criteria for professionalism to guide existing
leaders as well as new leaders who will navigate today’s outcomes of the
classroom and laboratory learning experiences.
To create communities of shared thinking,
caring, honesty, and respect should be the foundation from which faculty
and students come together to free themselves to think openly and creatively.
All students must have the opportunity to graduate from accredited programs,
with teachers who care about their careers, and with flexibility and opportunity
to learn how to think. The ASEP leadership believes that every student
has the right to an excellent education, especially one that is not “color-blind”
by the “feel-goods” that come from research and presentations.
“When those who exist to do research
act contrary to good common sense, we must act contrary to researchers.”
-- William T. Boone
Here, the ASEP position is that research and
presentation are both critical to the professional development of exercise
physiology and exercise physiologists. But, to engage students in
their own learning, to ensure that they have equal opportunities with students
from other healthcare professions, and remove any and all obstacles as
fast as possible, faculty should be held accountable to acknowledging the
differences between sports medicine and exercise physiology. The
ASEP leadership believes that its expectation is no different from the
leadership’s view by physical therapy and nursing. The leadership
acknowledges that although many exercise physiologists know and understand
this point, many others do not.
Translating the importance of what exercise
physiology was to what it is today is a major first step in caring and
safeguarding students. Wherever the opportunity arises, ASEP exercise
physiologists should without fear or embarrassment share with students,
parents, administrators, and other professionals the steps taken to ensure
that the exercise physiology curriculum is more congruent with other healthcare
programs of study. Once again, here, the ASEP accreditation guidelines
provide the 21st century view of an education that is consistent with opportunities
to learn of the knowledge exercise physiologists have acquired over the
past 40 to 50 decades.
ASEP is not interested in shrugging its
shoulders to research or information resulting from research that has permitted
everyone, including athletes on one hand and heart patients on the other,
to better understand the power of exercise. However, all educators
should remember that research without a genuine application in the public
sector via dedicated professionals is essentially useless. This is
an obvious problem for much of the exercise physiology literature.
Educators have not provided others an understanding of the value and/or
implications of their work. In other words, it’s the age-old struggle
-- those who rise to the roar of the researchers on one side and the voice
of reason on the other.
When they start the process of caring about
their students, they will uncover what is meaningful about education.
This process is a lifetime of caring about the individual. Decisions
are made based on ensuring as best as possible the values of students.
Their perception of disciplines, professions, academics, and all those
things that make a difference in career options and professional development
become shared values between students and their teachers. This cannot
be denied, although it must be taught and defined as essential to one’s
education before a person understands the competition of values.
There comes a time when it is necessary
to question what has been taught, even to argue, and especially to challenge.
This freedom is 100% about caring even if it means going against traditional
practices. In this sense, it is time to stop the decades of believing
the college teachers’ job is all about what is good for the teacher!
It may take a considerable rethinking of college teaching to get across
my point. This is exactly what must be done, however.
Teaching entails responsibility beyond
oneself. It is about facilitating others through education.
Teachers impart knowledge not to make themselves look good, but to nurse
their students, to keep them abreast of new thinking, and to help them
rebut crooked thinking. It is an amazing challenge with huge ethical
decisions and, most importantly, teachers must avoid hurting others.
This is why the changing roles on what is exercise physiology and what
is an exercise physiologist need clarification and analysis by caring exercise
physiologists.
To be an ASEP exercise physiologist with
leadership distinction requires the willingness to preserve in every way
possible. Commitment is vital to change. Commitment
is the key to responsible partnership with new ideas and shared expectations.
Commitment is the willingness to give it every thing that you have.
This willingness to enter the new exercise physiology with new assumptions
is an expression of moral commitment and quality of effort that defines
only the best intentions. It is unclear how anyone could not understand
this point, its sense of mission, and its attention to correcting the decades
of the lack of a clear delineation of exercise science and exercise physiology.
These remarks force me to define the ASEP
exercise physiologist. So, here it is, the 2004 Principles of
Exercise Physiology based on the ASEP perspective of commitment to
students, clients, and the public sector:
“The exercise physiology profession
should safeguard the public and itself against academic exercise physiologists
deficit in professional commitment to students, clients, and members of
society. Exercise physiologists should demonstrate without reservation
the courage, caring, and commitment that honor students, faculty, and the
profession. This self-imposed mission and belief justifies the new
21st century exercise physiology with new legal and ethical standards of
practice and conduct.”
The entire idea of commitment is based on
the unquestioning obedience required of the professional exercise physiologist
to the public sector. This new subservient role that encourages commitment
to society, students, and the profession is unique to the ethical distinction
and explanation of the principles of the exercise physiologist as a healthcare
practitioner. It is a role defined by a set of propositions and ethical
thinking that benefits society. Equally important, these principles
fly in face of the inevitable criticism from non-ASEP members. But,
here again, it is important to remember a quote I read some years ago:
“The way to avoid criticism is to say nothing, to do nothing, and to be
nothing.” [Source unknown]
To be somebody, to do the obvious, and
to speak out where necessary is more than a dialogue. It is a commitment;
a way of life that celebrates the new exercise physiology, the new thinking,
and the difference required to establish a relationship between academic
programs and career opportunities. Commitment to avoiding inequities
and injustices among healthcare practitioners is therefore imperative to
get beyond the marginalized “exercise science” education that puts students
to a disadvantage and/or exclusion to certain public sector jobs.
Unfortunately, still, questions remain about the lack of quality throughout
much of our students’ education. Instead of continuing as we always
have, our core mission should be framed for one purpose and that is to
proudly proclaim that academic exercise physiologists’ first concern is
and always will be their students.
After all, shouldn’t the dignity of exercise
physiology students be about the quality of exercise physiology?
Shouldn’t the exercise physiologist’s badge be his professional title?
Shouldn’t the academic exercise physiologists learn something about professionalism
and the students they serve? Of course they should and, when we demonstrate
courage, caring, and commitment to finding answers to these questions,
the corner will be turned from yesterday’s thinking to embracing the ASEP’s
notion of self-governance, accountability, and a Code to abide by.
“Let us not be content to wait
and see what will happen, but give us the determination to make the right
things happen.” – Horace Mann
References
1. Heifetz, R.A. and Linsky, M. (2004).
When Leadership Spells Danger. Educational Leadership. Vol 61, No. 7. pp.
33-37.
