This blog was guest-authored by Jeff Thomas, Principal at White River Valley HS in Vermont. He was a teacher around the world for more than 20 years!
Jeff is AWESOME! He did a Leadership Sparks video with me offering the leadership concept 8 before 8, and was a guest on the podcast click here to watch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=psnqJFlvgPw&t=2477s .
Jeff is authentic, kind, and a terrific leader. Check out this great story on leadership! Thanks Jeff!
Sometimes good leaders need to listen to camels.
I was teaching at the American Cooperative School of Tunisia and went on a desert track with our middle school class. It was a week-long trip and we had three Bedouins who walked along with our group to help out. The second day and we were traveling along when all of a sudden a huge windstorm picked up, visibility was very low. I could barely see the end of my camel, the sound I could remember was a sandblaster hitting against my glasses and face.
Suddenly my camel stopped, and I didn’t understand why. The camel doesn’t have a bit like a horse. It’s more like a nose ring so I tugged on the nose ring a few times to try to get it to move and kicked it slightly. Pretty stubborn camel I assumed. There were 60 middle school students following me that day and I didn’t want to let them down so I continued to push and cluck so that maybe the camel would move, but to no avail.
The wind then stopped momentarily and I was able to see what the camel was apparently looking at, because we stood on a 200 foot ledge. If the camel had gone another step, we would’ve gone over and I’m not sure if all the other camels would’ve followed, and all of us would have gone off the cliff. The camel slowly turned left and we went safely along like nothing had just happened.
Nelson Mandela said it best when he said, sometimes it’s good to lead like a sheep herder from behind. I have to agree and even sometimes it’s good to have a camel lead you.
