At each Leadership Institute a part of the curriculum focuses on the fifth practice of effective leadership from Kouzes & Posner’s The Leadership Challenge – Encouraging the Heart.
During this session, attendees take part in what’s called the leadership tap. The leadership tap asks all participants to sit in a circle with their eyes closed while members of the group are asked questions such as “You have shown me how to Model the Way” (another practice in the Leadership Challenge… The people standing tap people in the group on the shoulder who have done what the statement says, thus allowing them to feel the difference they’ve made on members of the group.
Encouraging the Heart is usually one of the lowest ranked areas for men when completing the Leadership Practice Index, an index meant to determine people’s usual leadership styles. However, when put into such a simple piece like the Leadership Tap, the attendees of the Leadership Institute can see how easy it is to actually show brothers how to incorporate this practice within their own groups that they lead.
