The pandemic has tested many things over the last year. Our resilience, self-confidence, and sanity just to name a few. I have lost count of the number of articles, webinars, and virtual seminars I have either read or attended on resilience this year. I myself have delivered a few webinars on the topic.
After seeing a segment on the news today about how 70 U.S. Military Academy West Point cadets were caught cheating on a math exam and then reading how cheating has become an unexpected COVID-19 side effect for universities, it made me stop and question, what are we teaching our kids about resiliency, and are these lessons actually sinking in?
Being resilient is more than bouncing back from a challenge or a failure. It is about having the ability to exert self-control in challenging or high stress situations. It includes being able to manage disturbing emotions and impulses, referred to as “triggers”, in order to achieve personal objectives.
People who are resilient usually have high emotional intelligence, also known as emotional quotient (EQ). Being emotionally intelligent is the ability to understand, identify, and manage emotions in an effective way that will result in a desired outcome. Individuals who have high EQ have the ability to develop trusting relationships with others and move their lives forward with intentional purpose and value.
Emotionally intelligent (EI) people have self-control and discipline. They are honest and transparent in their intentions and failures, which makes them trustworthy individuals. They also have the ability to take on new challenges, tasks, and responsibilities. Being resilient is one of the four domains of EI (self-management), which includes being curious and possessing the imagination to discover new possibilities and innovative approaches. It is having the capacity for a growth mindset, which is the belief that your ability can be developed through dedication and commitment to yourself. Being resilient and having a growth mindset typically doesn’t include cheating on your school exams.
In a nutshell, resiliency or self-management, is the ability to cope with change, adjust to new circumstances, have hope for the future and recover from difficulties. It is about knowing what your values are and standing up and speaking up when you see injustice. And this is exactly what leadership is! As Susan Mazza said, “Leadership is speaking up, stepping up, and standing up for something that matters to you and makes a difference for others”.
West Point’s honour code isn’t, “cheat, lie, and do whatever it takes to succeed”. It’s, “a cadet will not lie, cheat or steal, nor tolerate those who do.” Its purpose is to create a sense of commitment and an ethical standard that inspires and develops our leaders of tomorrow.
So, what pray tell has happened to our kids? It is more than the old adage; kids will be kids. Cheating has increased nearly 10 times at MacEwan University (Edmonton, Alberta) during the 2019-2020 academic year, compared to the year before.
We didn’t learn about emotional intelligence when I was in school. We learned about history, science and math; we most certainly were not taught how to identify our emotions or how to cope with the good and the bad. Sitting with our emotions, even the unpleasant ones, can help us develop into healthier and happier individuals. We must learn how to embrace the darkness that comes with a really sucky year! These coping skills are valuable, but we never learn them in a classroom. Instead, we are bombarded with images from social media that constantly feed our egos. Our egos are focused on attaining superficial status and desires.
Let’s start teaching our kids how to embrace and feed their soul more than their ego. Our soul works towards higher levels of consciousness, is more concerned with learning and being a better person, feels alive when we connect with others, and can demonstrate empathy and self-compassion. Feeding the soul will teach our kids to not only be better humans, but better leaders for today and tomorrow. While leaders may have different styles and approaches, they do share some essential traits and characteristics. They all have a high degree of emotional intelligence. It’s about time we invest in developing our own EQ and role-modelling it to our children.
About the Author
Dr. Johanna Pagonis is the owner of the leadership consulting firm, Sinogap Solutions. She has 20 years’ experience in leadership, training and development, and organizational design that she has gained throughout her professional and academic career. If you are interested in learning more about developing your emotional intelligence, resiliency, and agility, her company offers online self-paced courses and virtual-led workshops that will allow you to engage in deep self-reflection and an opportunity to receive feedback on your areas of strength, improvement, and active experimentation of your newly acquired skills. Check it out @ https://learn.sinogapsolutions.com/
Dr. Pagonis is the author of, Choose to Be a Leader Others Would Want to Follow, which grew out of her desire to support managers in learning how to become emotionally intelligent leaders that can achieve organizational success while inspiring and motivating others. Choose to Be a Leader Others Would Want to Follow is now available on Amazon.
3 thoughts on “Are We Raising a Generation of Cheaters or Leaders?”
Randy Roberts
Interesting read. I tend to relate to your position and feel that you make valid points. However I have other thoughts as well.
One of the statements made in your blog says, “Being resilient is more than bouncing back from a challenge or a failure”. It goes without saying that this would mean that failure has to happen.
Would you agree that leadership is about overcoming the obstacles and finding solutions to get through tough and trying times? Sure, and I quote, “In a nutshell, resiliency or self-management, is the ability to cope with change, adjust to new circumstances, have hope for the future and recover from difficulties”
There is a statement made, “Cheating has increased nearly 10 times at MacEwan University (Edmonton, Alberta) during the 2019-2020 academic year, compared to the year before” – is this because the majority of the students have not had to live through a pandemic, had not had to suddenly change the learning process and program and found a way to cope? The statistic of “10x” may be misleading because this may mean only 10 students in all of the campus have altered the “moral compass ” to cope and get through. At what level of change are we considering cheating? Did they buy their grade from someone else, or was it a matter of having a real difficult formula written out (open book testing). I question this because there is a spectrum to ethics and beliefs that a North American culture often permits and turns a blind eye to. Cheating. My example to this is, exceeding the speed limit by 3 or 4 kilometers per hour. Everybody know it is wrong – but has or still does it.
In regards to the extreme circumstances of cheating – the culprits need to learn and that is what leadership and resiliency is about. So I ask, what is the outcome and are these students born leaders or just vagrants that dont deserve to learn from it. After all, did life not cheat them out of the classroom environment that they yearn for, signed up to and require?
Hi Randy,
Thanks for you insights to the article. One thing I didn’t write in the article, but I agree with you on is that when someone makes a mistake, an error in judgment, what do we do? Do we write them off or is it an opportunity to learn from it. No one is perfect, so we have to be willing to forgive ourselves and forgive others so that we can move forward.
Iman
It’s great to see a focus on ensuring our learning is reflected in the generations to-come! We rarely look at our self-growth beyond exactly that, SELF growth! We often think of our interactions with other adults at work or our personal lives, but often miss that we teach our children everything we know including resiliency! Great post, Johanna!
Interesting read. I tend to relate to your position and feel that you make valid points. However I have other thoughts as well.
One of the statements made in your blog says, “Being resilient is more than bouncing back from a challenge or a failure”. It goes without saying that this would mean that failure has to happen.
Would you agree that leadership is about overcoming the obstacles and finding solutions to get through tough and trying times? Sure, and I quote, “In a nutshell, resiliency or self-management, is the ability to cope with change, adjust to new circumstances, have hope for the future and recover from difficulties”
There is a statement made, “Cheating has increased nearly 10 times at MacEwan University (Edmonton, Alberta) during the 2019-2020 academic year, compared to the year before” – is this because the majority of the students have not had to live through a pandemic, had not had to suddenly change the learning process and program and found a way to cope? The statistic of “10x” may be misleading because this may mean only 10 students in all of the campus have altered the “moral compass ” to cope and get through. At what level of change are we considering cheating? Did they buy their grade from someone else, or was it a matter of having a real difficult formula written out (open book testing). I question this because there is a spectrum to ethics and beliefs that a North American culture often permits and turns a blind eye to. Cheating. My example to this is, exceeding the speed limit by 3 or 4 kilometers per hour. Everybody know it is wrong – but has or still does it.
In regards to the extreme circumstances of cheating – the culprits need to learn and that is what leadership and resiliency is about. So I ask, what is the outcome and are these students born leaders or just vagrants that dont deserve to learn from it. After all, did life not cheat them out of the classroom environment that they yearn for, signed up to and require?
Hi Randy,
Thanks for you insights to the article. One thing I didn’t write in the article, but I agree with you on is that when someone makes a mistake, an error in judgment, what do we do? Do we write them off or is it an opportunity to learn from it. No one is perfect, so we have to be willing to forgive ourselves and forgive others so that we can move forward.
It’s great to see a focus on ensuring our learning is reflected in the generations to-come! We rarely look at our self-growth beyond exactly that, SELF growth! We often think of our interactions with other adults at work or our personal lives, but often miss that we teach our children everything we know including resiliency! Great post, Johanna!