Aaron W. Voyles looks at the lens through which we view our work with men.
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This week’s article is different than most of my previous ones. Rather than discuss tangible methods or issues with men, I want to look at our attitude as we work or interact with men. It’s opening season on college campuses, which means we are coming back to school, starting classes, and getting back into the academic year routine. As a professional working with college students, I know how easy it is to get lost in wanting to control what our students do.
Each school year brings monumental challenges for students, for their family and friends, and for professionals working with those students. Because of those challenges, we often want to manage our situation by predicting what our students will do and then attempting to setup parameters so that we can control those circumstances. But things don’t always happen in sequence.
One of the great leadership scholars, Margaret Wheatley (2006), discussed that the difference between management and leadership was that managers attempted to control and leaders realized that couldn’t be done. With college men, I have found this to be undoubtedly true. Whenever I predict what will happen one year, the challenges will be different than I expect.
Our role in working with young men is not to say how “we know better,” though we often might. Instead, it’s for us to work with those young men to see what new possibilities we can accomplish. This is where mentorship comes in. This is where we have to watch our men navigate mistakes for themselves at times.
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Yes, there will be mistakes men make that we do need to have parameters to guard against. Violence and sexual harassment are unacceptable on any college campus anywhere in the world, and no matter the developmental state of a perpetrator, action needs to be swift, just, and comprehensive where there is a physical, mental, or emotional safety concern.
But as we see our men facing challenges in who they are and whether they will succeed in school, we have to also acknowledge that we cannot always manage those situations. We can lead, with role modeling, by offering tools to those men, but we cannot mitigate a man’s development just by wanting to or solely by setting boundaries.
We will have men who will not be able to get along with any roommate. We will have men who, despite our outreach, do not succeed in learning how to study appropriately in college. We will have men who choose not to become connect or who are not at the right place in their lives to become connected while at school.
I have discussed with many parents and co-workers that my least favorite part of my job is the fact that I cannot make decisions for others. Nothing is more difficult than watching a student continually make choices that will lead to him leaving school. I can fully admit that I do not have all the answers to the issues going on with college men. If anyone does have all the answers, I hope they step forward soon.
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I do not mean to suggest that we should sit back and let men fail—far from it. But if leadership with our young men is about acknowledging that we don’t have control, what do we do? How do we actually help? We must go into this school year and challenge our assumptions. We must recognize those things that can be controlled and those that cannot, those things which we must manage and those which we must let happen. We must learn to hold our assumptions more lightly rather than have our assumptions hold us.
It seems I have many articles on this site now, and each day I read other great writers on The Good Men Project who are examining the collective socialization of men, the societal issues men face and those that are created by men, and where we need to go to progress.
During this school year, I will view these articles through a new lens that acknowledges the difference between control and adaptability, management and leadership. Through this decision in attitude, I hope to be able to better help all of my students and not just the collegiate men that I write about in this column. I hope you too have a “back to school” attitude resolution that will guide you in your life and work.
Wheatley, M. (2006). Leadership and the new science: Discovering order in a chaotic world. (3rd ed.). San Francisco, CA: Berrett-Koehler.
Ditching the Dunce Cap is a weekly Friday column from Aaron W. Voyles on the University of Texas-Austin. He welcomes your comments. This column is not affiliated with the university.
—Photo Procsilas Moscas/Flickr
Also in Ditching the Dunce Cap:
“Have at it, Boys” and College Men
The Challenge of Male Mentorship
Becoming a Beard Mentor
College Made Me Think I Hated Beer
An Ode to My College Roommate
Vomit. Sorry.
Examining the Axe Effect
When Will You Grab Your Saw?
Do You Know the Mega-Dump?
If the Shoe Fits, Cheat
The post Can You Manage the College Man? appeared first on The Good Men Project.