14
Felicia D. Golden
“Leadership is about empathy. It is about having the ability to relate to and connect with people for the purpose of inspiring and empowering their lives.” – Oprah Winfrey
Eating healthy foods to keep your overall wellness is imperative for leaders. As good leaders it is our goal to ensure that family members, students, and staff maintain the physical, social and mental sides of the health triangle, keeping things evenly balanced. Let’s discuss how leaders can preserve their three health triangle sides.
The physical side involves making healthy food choices and exercising.
As a leader, you may want to keep your staff members healthy because it will reduce the frequency of absences due to illness. Here are a few tips you can do to assist your faculty in maintaining their own health:
- Put a vending machine supplied with water only in a convenient area for students and employees to obtain bottled water. Soda should not be offered
- Put another vending machine supplied with a variety of low-cost healthy snacks, as well as, high fiber snacks. You can also provide a few slightly more expensive moderately healthy snacks. Candy should not be offered
- Make sure the cafeteria offers employees low-cost nutritious vegan, vegetarian and non-vegetarian meals daily. Coffee and a variety of herbal teas should be sold or provided in the employee’s cafeteria. Nutritional education posters should be displayed on the cafeteria walls. Educational brochures about diabetes, how stress can lead to making bad food choices, and the benefits of exercising for all age groups should be available in the cafeteria for employees to read at their leisure
- During faculty/staff meetings offer water and healthy snacks
- At least one of the professional developments should be focused on the benefits of making healthy food choices and physical fitness
- Create a staff fitness group to walk or jog on campus for 20 minutes at least three times a week during lunch
Teachers should model exercising for the students so that they see the importance of participating in physical activities.
The social side of the triangle involves communication with others and help them to reach their potential.
It is essential that leaders provide training and awareness of social needs. These needs included the need for safety, love, self-esteem, and self-actualization. Employees need to have a clear understanding of social etiquette and expectations. In an effort to keep everyone safe training is vital. One area of educational, training and reporting is sexual violence. President Obama pressured colleges and university campuses to adopt a sexual assault policy. As leaders, we need to ensure that student and employee safety is maintained on campus. Consequently, to keep students safe, Section 67386 was added to the California Education Code.
Section 67386 read as follows:
(a) In order to receive state funds for student financial assistance, the governing board of each community college district, the Trustees of the California State University, the Regents of the University of California, and the governing boards of independent postsecondary institutions shall adopt a policy concerning sexual assault, domestic violence, dating violence, and stalking, as defined in the federal Higher Education Act of 1965 (20 U.S.C. Sec. 1092(f)) involving a student, both on and off-campus. The policy shall include all of the following:
(1) An affirmative consent standard in the determination of whether consent was given by both parties to sexual activity. “Affirmative consent” means affirmative, conscious, and voluntary agreement to engage in sexual activity. It is the responsibility of each person involved in the sexual activity to ensure that he or she has the affirmative consent of the other or others to engage in sexual activity. Lack of protest or resistance does not mean consent, nor does silence mean consent. Affirmative consent must be ongoing throughout a sexual activity and can be revoked at any time. The existence of a dating relationship between the persons involved, or the fact of past sexual relations between them, should never by itself be assumed to be an indicator of consent. Section 67386 continues to explain in detail how to enforce “Affirmative consent” also known as “Yes means Yes”.
The mental/emotional side of the triangle involves coping with stress and being happy.
A significant cause of stress in our working environment is caused by harassment in the workplace. For example, Tarana Burke, a civil rights activist and founder of the Me Too movement in 2006, initially focused on the pervasiveness of sexual abuse and assault in society. In 2017, hashtag #MeToo, went viral with people admitting they have experienced, as an adolescent or/and an adult, sexual harassment or assault in the workplace.
To reduce work-related stress, in 2018, California Governor Jerry Brown signed Senate Bill 1343 into law. This bill now requires leaders to provide harassment prevention training to all employees. It also requires all employees to participate and complete the necessary training.
We as leaders should assign professional development time for all employees to complete this training together. At the end of the training session, in which everyone must score 100%, please make it clear to your employees that you will fully enforce the law. Also, it is important to inform them that they now have the training and you will take the necessary steps to keep the school culture stress free and safe for all employees.
In conclusion, as leaders, you finally have the proper tools to help your staff and through prayer, God will guide you through the murky issues of harassment so that the workplace culture and climate will be able to move forward and be happy.
“Life is about balance. The good and the bad. The highs and the lows. The thing everyone should realize is that the key to happiness is being happy by yourself and for yourself. Happiness comes from within. You have the power to change your own mindset so that all the negative, horrible thoughts that try to invade your psyche are replaced with happy, positive, wonderful thoughts.” Ellen DeGeneres