Basic Information

Marching Band Leadership Training: Week One

Parkwood Band Leaders Know Their Roles in the Big Picture

Welcome to our leadership training for this year. We are going to focus our efforts this year on learning how to be Highly Effective Leaders. I'm going to be drawing my inspiration from a book called The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. This book has been reworked into many different formats including great resources for students to use, but instead of just presenting the material that is found in the book, I'm going to try and put the seven habits in the context of our leadership team. My goal is that we will begin to view our leadership roles in a different light, making our group stronger in the long run.

This week, we will look at one habit a day and will consider how it will impact our leadership philosophy.

Habit One: Be Proactive

Habit One asks us to consider our surroundings and our place in them. Covey says that our lives can be described by two circles. The larger, outer circle is our circle of concern. In this circle lies all the things that we experience and all the things that we care about. The second circle is our circle of influence. This circle contains all of the things that we may influence. Proactive individuals choose to focus on expanding their circle of influence. Reactive individuals focus on concerns outside of their circle of influence, which leads to a decrease in the amount of influence they can have. By focusing on what we cannot control, we lose our ability to leverage our influence to make an impact on our surroundings. Watch the video below to see an example of this concept.

Let's bring this concept back to our band program. The image above is a description of how we are going to run our leadership team this year. Let me give you a breakdown of how this works.

At the top of our leadership team are our band parents, band directors, and instructors. As your band directors, its is our job to take feedback from our band parents and our instructors to make our band the best that is possible. We then take these decisions and pass them along to you all: our leadership team. The Leadership Team this year will be headed by our Band Captain. In years past, we (your band directors and audition judges) have decided who the band captain will be as part of our leadership auditions. This was a separate position that was assigned. This year, we are going to change this slightly. We will not choose your Band Captain this year. Instead, this year we will name all of our leadership team members, and then you as a leadership team will choose a Band Captain. This can be any individual who is a part of our leadership team. Their job, in addition to the duties of their assigned position, will be to make sure to organize our leadership team and facilitate communication between us all. When a leadership team member is not completing the tasks assigned to him or her, the Band Captain will be charged with stepping in to intervene before the Band Directors get involved. Being given this role will allow one individual to expand their circle of influence.

Inside of our Leadership Team, we have three smaller teams: the Instructional Team, Equipment Team, and Logistics Team. Each of these teams hold a different role. No one team is more important than another. We each work together to make sure that our band is successful. Members of the instructional team will be asked to teach their section or caption both visual and musical technique. These individuals must be masters of their instruments and must be good marching examples. The Drum Major(s) will be the leaders of this team and will be expected to lead full ensemble rehearsals when necessary while still using members of the team to help lead the rehearsals.

The Equipment Team will be responsible for maintaining, organizing, and utilizing all of the band's equipment and facilities. This team will do more than just load and unload at competitions and football games. They will make sure that our practice field and band room are properly maintained and organized. They will make sure that our equipment works. They will make sure that equipment is transported. This team works exceptionally hard and is vital to our band's success. A chief will be assigned to this team to coordinate and organize the team's efforts.

The Logistics Team does the "everything else" that is required in our band program. They organize our library, help communicate our schedule, help maintain our uniforms, and make sure that we have a wide variety of social interactions inside of our band program. This team has to be the most anticipatory of any team. When they see a new need arising in the band, they have to recognize the need and come up with a unique solution. A chief will be assigned to this team to coordinate and organize the team's efforts.

Each leadership position has its own circle of influence. What you have to decide is which position will allow you to maximize your own potential. To do this, you first need to examine yourself. Ask yourself, what skills do I possess that will allow me to maximize the circle of influence that a leadership position will provide. Are you very hard working, organized and willing to get your hands dirty doing "hard work"? Consider joining the equipment team. Are you organized and good at seeing a problem before it becomes a concern? Consider joining the logistics team. Are you good at inspiring other people to be better and have great abilities at playing and marching? Consider joining the Instructional Team.

In the past, I have felt that our band views section leaders, captains, and drum majors as more important than other leadership team members. Being a member of the equipment or logistics teams has been viewed negatively or as a "less than" position. I want to change that perspective this year by demolishing the hierarchy and encouraging you all to take positions that will allow you to maximize your skills. This could take bravery on your part. We are slightly redefining our leadership structure this year, which means putting yourself in a position that is new and uncomfortable. However, if we are all in this together, I believe that it is going to make this the best leadership team that we have ever had.

Below, I have placed a video that I have made on this topic, and a link to a short google form that I want you to complete. Make sure that you keep your answers from this form because you will be using them on your leadership team application in the upcoming weeks.

END OF DAY ONE FORM

Habit Two: Begin with the End in Mind

If habit one helps us to realize that we are the creators of our future, habit two helps us to shape this future. This is probably my favorite habit because it is so applicable in every situation. Beginning with the end in mind requires you to look into your future, determine where you want to be, and make a plan on how to arrive at that point. Covey likens this habit to making a building. If you do not have a clear vision of what the building will look like when complete, you end up wasting valuable time and resources. This is an imaginative discipline. It is a mental discipline that becomes a physical discipline. To put the idea simply, Dream It then Do it! Be prepared when you begin on this journey because it might always be easy. There may be systems in place to keep you from accomplishing your dream. You may have mental habits that have to change (Covey calls this a paradigm shift). Simply dreaming a dream will not get you there, but it is the perfect place to start.

How can we use this habit. Let's approach it from two angles: the personal (for yourself) and the corporate (for our organization). To begin with I want you to pick a point in the future where you know something that you want to achieve. This could be one year in the future, five years in the future, one month in the future, who cares! As long as you have a clear vision of what the end looks like, you are beginning with the end in mind. What I want you to do is to clearly state what this end looks like. For example, when I entered high school in 2004, I had two goals in mind: I wanted to graduate as the Valedictorian of my graduating class and I wanted to pay for myself to go to college. Both of these goals were very specific. They were measurable results, and they were anchored in time. I came up ever so short of the first goal (due to circumstances I could not control that included a classmate transferring to community college for a year and then returning with a year of college credits to bolster his GPA.....no.....I'm not still bitter about it), but I did accomplish my second goal as I received a major scholarship that paid for me to go to college. I completed a similar process entering college, entering my first job, and upon taking over the band program here at the High School. I've found that beginning with the end in mind helps me accomplish my goals, and it helps me accomplish my goals faster than I expect.

The video below is produced specifically for teenagers. I know that listening to me describe this idea to you may seem preachy, but watch the video. Listen to what this creator has to say, and then think about how you might apply this same process to your own life.

Okay, now for the part that relates to our band program. If you have been in Marching Band Training before, you will notice that I have taught this same lesson before. In fact, I have taught the concept every year, and every year we complete the same exercise that I want you to complete. It always looks slightly different, but it is helping you to take ownership of the end goal of our marching band.

I want you to look one year into the future. In May of 2021, what would you like our Marching Band to have Achieved? This may look different to you than it does to me or to anyone else, and that is completely okay. Be Specific and make sure that you can tangibly measure what this success will look like. Now that you have an end in mind, bring yourself back to today. Consider where our band program is right now. Consider the uncertainty that we are currently facing with regard to next years marching band season. Ask yourself these two questions and create one appropriate response. What do we need to change about our band program to make this goal a reality? What can we do that has been done in the past to reach the end you have in mind?

Fill out the form below to tell me the answers to your questions. Additionally, be prepared to discuss your answers as a group in our first round table discussion on Friday. I will post information about this meeting on this page on Thursday evening.

End of Day Two Reflection Form

Leadership Training Meeting #1