Welcome to the Little Champions edition of Choosing Leadership!
With the help of our family and friends, we have embarked on a mission to change the conversation around leadership for young children.
The idea for the book came from my students. They liked my “Choosing Leadership” workbook and wanted to include their young children in thinking about leadership. So, I selected one of the activities from the book, juxtaposing leadership and management, and illustrated it for this new use.
Download Mutli-lingual pdfs.
Check back for additional languages available soon!
How to use this book
This book is an opportunity for you to have discussions about leadership with your child, who I consider a Little Champion. I think of managing as getting things done in the present, and of leading as providing future-oriented guidance in an uncharted domain. Using a map might be more like managing because the path is shown, but leading might require a compass to guide us in new terrain. This picture book challenges Little Champions by urging them to think about what it means to both lead and manage. Knowing when to use our hearts and when to use our heads can guide us through future challenges. In some moments, when in the thick of it and seemingly surrounded by trees, we may be tigers. Other times, we will be lions, seeing all the way out into the horizon.
Let children tell you why the moon is leading and the sun is managing. You will be surprised by how interesting and creative they are. Or just let them talk about the moon and the sun, and an insight about leading and managing might arrive later. Mainly, just have fun learning what a young mind dreams up about the contrasting pictures. Let them lead the way, you can just try and manage the situation.
My goal is to help the next generation employ their own definitions of leadership and counter globally-held stereotypes about leadership.