[IKE]

Back to the original posting:

It wouldn't be a leadership thread without me plugging a really good book that one of my students gave me:
Tribal Leadership

This book talks about various stages of development that you go through, and gives a lot of good hints on how to guide the student/person into higher levels of leadership. While not directly covering the Do/Show/Ask principle, it does cover items that should help you gauge the students leadership level, and what kind of challenges you should throw at them.

Some general guidelines on Do/Show/Ask might be:

Do when they have absolutely no clue.
Show when they simply don't know.
Ask when they are up for the task.
After they succeed, let them lead.

This little Rhyme covers 4 levels. If I have no clue how a computer works, I need you to do some stuff in order for me to be inspired, and thus gain the drive to learn.
If I just don't know how, but have a basic interest and some awareness, then showing me how to do something is appropriate.
The asking strategy really only works when there is enough understanding that some guided questions will get me there. This tends to work best when a student has already worked on this type of thing before, and either forgets or the task really only requires some additional structured thought. If you try the "ask" whne they have no clue, they will be very frustrated.

The last item is often the toughest for mentors to do. This is when you drop the reins and let them lead something. Not every student will get to where they are ready to lead, but the ones that do need that challenge. This can also be difficult as you are now asking a student that is very good at something to "not Do", but to "show" and allow the other student to Do. Frequnetly this is also a hick-up that College mentors that do not take time off from FIRST have trouble with. They themsleves have often been the do-ers. Often they were great doers. If their mentors did not ask them to "Show" and thus start them on leading, then they have difficulty in skipping the steps required to have other students become leaders.
In tribal leadership, this is the jump from Level 3 to Level 4.

Besides Tribal Leadership, there are a lot of other leadership books out there that talk about different levels of leadership, and they all tend to follow the samekind of pattern:
1. Be in a starting position with a desire to learn.
2. Learn, learn, learn.
3. Practice what you learn and begin to excel at it.
4. Teach others what you learned.
5. Teach others that are good at stuff to teach others.