HabitThat

I recently pitched a learning prompt to my online students in the educational leadership program at Louisiana State University-Shreveport (LSUS).  The query related to organizational habits that contribute to the health and wellbeing of their schools as organizations.  

Here was that "HabitThat" prompt:  
"Share with us an experience when you have observed a school leader influence the culture of the place by instigating or promoting the adoption of a powerful 'habit' that contributed to the health and wellbeing of the organization."

Some powerful takeaways and reminders from reading the responses of my students:

• Habits "manage" our days so it is critically important that we deliberately choose our habits.
• Health and wellbeing are just as important and applicable to organizations/communities as they are to us as individuals.
• Habits and organizational culture are implicitly intertwined and interdependent.
• The health and wellbeing of organizations are NOT defined by employee handbooks, but rather by the collective "habits" of the membership.
• Habits that impact health and wellbeing (whether organizationally or individually) are enacted by each of us everyday - for better or worse.
• Thoughtful school leaders from all contexts are successfully meeting the challenge of making better futures for children through purposeful and positive acts of social habituation in their schools (my LSUS students hail from every corner of the U.S., Columbia, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, Thailand, and the Virgin Islands). 

Personal and organizational betterness?  Yes, we can.  And many are.