I don’t think potential leaders realize how much of leadership is problem-solving. We watch our idols make problems and their PR agents solve them, but our idols aren’t necessarily leaders. Most are entertainers.  Our leaders, on the other hand, are those to whom we look to solve our problems. 

   I have a dual role at my school: I’m a teacher and a principal. I am good at “principal-ing,” but I prefer the problem-solving involved with scheduling events and activities or building a new program as opposed to the problem-solving of disputes and behavior issues. I heard a teacher once say, “Don’t come to me with your problem; come to me with your idea for what you’re going to do about it.” Brilliant! I have borrowed that phrase many times.

    Often as the leader I do have to get involved, though, in the problem-solving process of two disputing youth because I have one thing neither of them possess: authority. Somebody has to be able to enforce the solution.

   Your gifted child might find himself accused of speaking “with an authority he doesn’t have.” This is likely true for two reasons: gifted children truly are problem-solvers, and because they’re gifted, they’re always pretty sure they’re the smartest in the room. It’s tricky teaching a gifted kid to problem-solve without getting above his raising! Oftentimes, gifted kids will be shut down before they even get the idea out because of the way they are saying it. This causes the gifted child to feel that he must push his ideas on people to be heard, thereby making people even less receptive to his ideas. No wonder so many gifted become cynical that anything can truly be fixed!

   Here’s how you help your budding problem-solver: teach him the correct time and way to present his ideas. Show him how people are more likely to listen to people complimenting them than to someone insulting their intelligence because they won’t accept whatever he says as gospel truth. 

    “You’re on the right track. I like how you’re thinking. What if we added (insert idea here)?”

   Show your gifted teen how to make suggestions without suggesting that the one listening is an idiot. Teach him how to let it go when someone does not accept his opinion. Then show him how to be gracious if his idea was right when inside he is really doing the “I told you so” dance!

    Finally, have him record the times people have followed his advice and emerged victorious. This will strengthen his belief in himself, but it will also remind him that problems are solved one situation at a time. The problem may be tough, but the people having the problem are just needing some help from someone with authority. By asking your offspring to help, that person is giving him authority. Authority is a powerful tool in the right hands. Do all you can to make sure your child doesn’t let that authority go to his head, and you will be creating a leader worthy of a following.

-       Michelle