#18: Todd Dufault Part 2 - Selecting and Building a Team of Student Leaders

The Band Director's Lounge Podcast

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Part 2 of 2 (Part 1 can be found here!)

Welcome back to the second part of my conversation with leadership expert Todd Dufault. Today we get into the details about how to select students for leadership roles and how to develop and maintain a leadership team that is effective throughout the school year. At the core of our conversation is a discussion about culture. Culture Drives Results. Leaders Promote The Culture.Culture can make or break an organization. The foundation of any organization is Servant Leadership. The push needs to come from within the organization. Leadership is about influence, serving others, self sacrifice and trust. It's not about a title, it's about action and making the people around you, BETTER. It starts with the students and their ability to be a positive influence on their peers. Todd's Leadership training is based around 7 Pillars of Success.

1. Culture Development
2. Servant Leadership
3. Growth Mindset
4. Trust
5. Relationships
6. Ownership
7. Communication

Episode Overview

• How to select students for leadership? (01:24)
• I built a team - so now what? (07:44)
• How to maximize student leaders (19:13)
• Directors as leaders (27:19)
• Todd Dufault Leadership (34:38)
• What makes a great band program? (38:07)
• Special thanks to directors (40:15)

That was the second part of my conversation with Todd Dufault. This was only the tip of the iceberg with regards to the importance of student leadership within our band programs. Hopefully it gave you a few ideas about furthering your own student leaders or sparked your interest for learning more about this topic.

I’ve included Todd’s website in the show notes, be sure to head out to his webpage and contact him if you have any specific questions for him. Having heard him present in person, I can say that it is well worth it if you are looking for someone to bring out to your school. His background in sports and fine arts makes him a great person to consider talking with your athletic/activities director about bringing him out to benefit your whole district.

“Student leadership” is a topic that will definitely be revisited in future episodes. I believe it is an under discussed part of our profession and one that many directors do not develop in their programs beyond the student leaders that sort of naturally happen. Hopefully these past two episodes with Todd have illuminated that the best leaders are made and that it is up to us as directors to find a way to foster and develop leadership within our programs.

If you haven’t been out to the newly launched thebanddirectorslounge.com, be sure to check it out! You can find all of the episodes along with show notes and links to books and other resources mentioned on previous episodes. If you are interested in purchasing any of the books listed on the website, if you click the links it will take you to the amazon listing. A small portion of your amazon purchase will trickle back to the Band Director’s Lounge and it will help cover production and hosting costs so thanks in advance for supporting us! As we go forward there will be other ways to support the podcast so stay tuned but consider checking out the list of recommended books already on the website.Alright - that wraps up another episode. I will see you back next time in The Band Director’s Lounge.

Other Resources

• Todd Dufault Leadership Consulting (Guest)
• #17: Todd Dufault Part 1 – The Importance of Student Leadership
• http://thebanddirectorslounge.com (Podcast Website)
• https://www.facebook.com/TheBandDirectorsLounge/ (FB Website)
• Nominate someone to be interviewed

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