This entry continues my argument that a radical shift from scarcity to abundance in Rwandan schools is highly necessary, and despite Rwanda's difficult past, it is also possible. In Part 2, I demonstrated that in spite of the current situation, there is already a subtle shift happening in Rwanda presently that may yet cause schools across the country to become beacons of light in their communities.

The shift is based on a transition among educational leaders from scarcity to abundance. I have previously defined Abundant Leadership as serving a community by helping them identify what they already have and connecting those community assets to accomplish a common vision. This entry discusses five practices of Abundant Leadership that can serve as a starting point for making a radical shift to abundance.

Practice #1: Abundant Leaders have a Heart for Community Service

Extensive feedback from Rwandan teachers shows many schools in Rwanda today are failing their students because they lack leaders and teachers with a profound sense of calling, motivation, and service, and they lack parent and guardian communities that are proactively engaged in their children's education (Mbabazi & Thomas, 2006). This Feedback is consistent with what The Wellspring Foundation has experienced through its School Development Program (SDP).

In contrast, a major characteristic of an Abundant Leader is that his or her primary leadership motivation is service, rather than power, prestige, or position. "The difference," says Greenleaf (1977), "[between leader first and servant first] manifests itself in the care taken by the servant first to make sure that other people's highest priority needs are being served. The best test, and difficult to administer, is: Do those served grow as persons? Do they, while being served, become healthier, wiser, freer, more autonomous, more likely themselves to become servants (p. 22)?"

The school leader has a limited ability to unite his or her school community in pursuit of lasting improvement if they do not have a track record of putting community needs first. A forceful leader may be able to impose change and enforce compliance for a short period of time, but they will not succeed in creating widespread ownership for positive change, and a long term willingness to sacrifice in order to achieve that change.

The Abundant Leader develops the credibility to lead because they have an intimate connection with the community. Their heart and motivation is clear. They recognize more gets done when they work together (Lutz, 60). Those they serve will follow because they know the Abundant Leader prioritizes them. The Kinyarwanda word for these types of leaders is Inyangamugayo, or "persons of integrity". During Gacaca, when each community carried the burden of deciding the cases of hundreds of perpetrators, the leadership of these respected community members was critical. They knew their community and the needs of their community well because they lived and served there.If they truly desire transformation, school leaders should strive to be Inyangamugayo in their school communities.

Practice #2: Abundant Leaders help Discover Shared Values

An essential role for the Abundant Leader is to bring his or her community back to fundamental questions about their shared beliefs and values. Rwandans share the same language, dances, stories, traditions, art, land, and communities. These are the cultural bedrock that shared values grow from, and yet, Rwandan schools have seldom contributed positively to social cohesion and the growth of unity and shared values. They more often have been used as tools of exclusion by those in power.

Thomas Sergiovanni (2000) provides a powerful case for putting shared purpose,values, and beliefs at the heart of school improvement efforts in his book, The Lifeworld of Leadership. He says that each member of the community needs to be able to ask and answer fundamental questions about why the school exists, what is important, why they function as they do, and what his or her role is. This process creates meaning (p. 2). "Meaningfulness," says Sergiovanni, "leads to an elevated level of commitment to the school, greater effort, tighter connections for everyone, and more intensive academic engagement for students—all of which are virtues in themselves but which have the added value of resulting in heightened levels of student development and increased academic performance (p. 4)."

Is it truly possible to rediscover shared values in a culture shattered by genocide? Is it not good enough to maintain order and encourage peaceful co-existence? Is Rwanda not destined to an endless struggle for power between its various groups? These are the all too familiar questions that permeate the political discourse even seventeen years after the1994 genocide. The Abundant Leader cannot allow the fatalistic outlook and negativity to stop his or her relentless pursuit to identify and promote shared values in the school community. The very future of the community may depend on it.

Practice #3: Abundant Leaders craft a Common Vision

Rwanda today is a country on the move. At every level, people are being encouraged to gain a vision for the future, a vision that connects with a bold national vision to forever change their society. Too often, educational reform focuses only on means, such as curriculum development, infrastructure improvement, and better pay for teachers. While important, these changes do not get to the heart of the issue: Most Rwandans schools completely lack a compelling vision for their future and the future of their children.

Compelling visions are what get us up in the morning and keep us working hard even when circumstances are not ideal. They are what fuel the continued story of successful Rwandan organizations like ACT Rwanda. They give us faith that tomorrow can be better than today. In building a common vision in his or her community, the Abundant Leader could be compared to an artist or craftsman forming a stain glass window. The artist skilfully brings the many pieces of coloured glass together to form one work of art. On their own the pieces signify very little. Together they form a beautiful and inspiring portrait that is designed to let the light shine through it. In the same way, the Abundant Leader helps bring the many different ideas and perspectives in their community together to form a common vision, a vision that becomes the road map to the destination of a Vibrant School Community.

Practice #4: Abundant Leaders Recognize and Connect Community Assets

This practice of Abundant Leadership draw significantly from Asset-Based Community Development (ABCD). This is partly because ABCD has a holistic perspective on poverty, and a strong methodology and tools for poverty alleviation, but primarily due to its emphasis on building healthy communities.

ABCD recognizes that individuals are either uplifted or pulled down by the community where they live. Development efforts are either negated or multiplied by the health of the community where they are applied. For ABCD, the goal goes beyond overcoming extreme poverty, and extends to the creation of abundant communities, full of possibilities (McKnight & Block).

According to John Kretzmann & Jody McKnight (1993), "all historic evidence indicates that significant community development takes place only when local people are committed to investing themselves and their resources in the effort (p. 5)." This is a radical shift for the school leader who desires to lead with abundance. As an Abundant Leader, they must start with what already works. They must see possibilities and seek to rebuild relationships and connections between individuals, associations, and institutions. An Abundant Leader only seeks outside resources when local ones cannot meet pressing needs (Corbett & Fikkert, 2009).

An approach focused on building local capacity asks some of the following questions:When the community gathers to celebrate accomplishment, will it be more vibrant? Will its members have greater dignity, more confidence in their abilities, and stronger connections to each other? Will they experience a trust equity that fuels future success?Will they have the strength to overcome inevitable future challenges and setbacks,without falling back to despondency, complacency, or despair? The answer will be yes only if the process is based on treating community members as citizens (rather than victims).

Practice #5: Abundant Leaders build a Culture of Accountability

There are few surer ways to dismantle the trust equity built by identifying shared values, creating common vision, and identifying and connecting community assets, than breaking commitments and failing to follow through on promises. An inherent danger in Abundant Leadership (and especially the ABCD process) is that change becomes lost inendless talk. Another danger is that in seeking not to offend, community members do not hold each other accountable for what they promised to do.

Stephen M.R. Covey (2006) believes "keeping commitments" is an essential behaviour in building trust. "When you make a commitment," says Covey, "you build hope; when you keep it you build trust (p. 214)." Covey cites a survey of global leaders at the World Economic Forum in which the number one trust breaker identified was "not doing what they say" (Voices of the People, 2002). In contrast, keeping commitments"increases momentum and lubricates the accomplishment of results (p. 218)."

Covey is writing specifically to business leaders in the North American context but this principle has a wider application. Accountability and transparency are increasingly being identified as key practices by Rwandan leadership at all levels.

How does the Abundant Leader build this culture of accountability in their school community? It starts with setting achievable and measurable goals. It is important not to set goals which are either too difficult to achieve or too difficult to measure. Momentum will be built as the community is able to achieve a series of small victories early on in the development process.

A culture of accountability develops over time as accountability is consistently modeled by community leadership and then embraced by the wider community. The Abundant Leader should be careful only to promise what they can deliver and they should be willing to make themselves accountable to the community for the results that have been achieved. A leader who truly serves their community will care less about who gets the credit than that the community is enhanced. They will take responsibility when promises go undelivered, even when they may feel it is someone else's fault, and give credit to others when victories are won.

These five practices of Abundant Leadership are a critical starting point in building Vibrant School Communities and what they all have in common is an abundance mentality. It is a priority for The Wellspring Foundation to help school leaders make that crucial transition. In my final entry, I will look closely at what a Vibrant School Community actually looks like in the Rwandan context, and why I believe Abundant Leadership is so crucial in achieving these type of schools.

All citations will be listed at the end of upcoming Part 4 of 4