Noble purpose and fraternity. These are two aged concepts, yet they are the time-tested bonds uniting a band of people committed to a cause and to each other that allows them to move the proverbial mountain while others around them shovel gravel. They are words that, if you must speak or define them to others, place the listener outside the circle of understanding of the power and force of esprit de corps.
Esprit de corps is real.
What is it that causes collaborative work to reach a recognized higher plane of excellence? As a French language term, esprit de corps is associated with both fictional and real-life manifestations. We conjure D’Artagnan and the three musketeers yelling “One for All and All for One” and charging the guards of Cardinal Richelieu in the Alexander Dumas novel. We hear the Marine Corps motto of Semper Fidelis (Always Faithful) and remember actual stories of courage in battle that are part of American lore. Beyond Musketeers and Marines, how does esprit de corps apply to the work of teachers in a public school? Or does it not? I believe it does.
Esprit de corps cannot be manufactured.
We too often believe that teamwork and team management are the same as esprit de corps. They are not. I do not dis the value of teamwork. Teaming adds the values of group membership, agreed upon group goals, concerted collegial work effort, and team recognition. We form teams readily for our recreational activities, sports, and non-sports. We team for organizational fund raising. We team for a great number of spontaneous reasons – almost like crowdfunding – that draw us together for a short-lived purpose.
Organizational gurus work the circuit of conferences and book signings touting their recipes for increasing TEAM. A common plan for increasing organization teamwork looks like this.
#1 – Know and communicate your clear WHY?
#2 – Create and communicate your value system
#3 – Live by your own values
#4 – Create a common aim
#5 – Hold a siege
#6 – Be aspirational
#7 – Celebrate
# 8 – Eat together
#9 – Communicate with passion
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/nine-secrets-creating-culture-esprit-de-corps-within-your-brown
If real esprit de corps can be artificially manufactured in this way, why then do we keep talking about low employee morale and trying to find the next magic bullet that will align employees to employment purposes? Why do we look for the next guru and keep attending the next conference? Because true esprit de corps is not manufactured, it is birthed and continuously nurtured.
Teaching as a calling.
When interviewing teacher candidates, I often ask “Is teaching your calling?” “Calling” is another of those seemingly antiquated concepts, yet it is a feeler question to discern those who understand what it is to be innately drawn to a purpose greater than employment. It exposes a teacher’s intrinsic motivations to teach. The “called” are passionate about teaching. A candidate who understands the question typically hesitates to ensure she heard the question correctly and then explains how her itch to teach cannot be satisfied with scratching – she needs to teach to fulfill her greater needs. This is not to say that all teachers must feel the calling to be successful teachers; they do not. There are many teachers who cause children to learn and consider teaching their job not their passion. An intrinsic passion to the noble purpose of teaching is a fire that burns brighter in the called and pushes them to do more than their job without questioning why.
Fraternity + passion = esprit de corps
Add fraternity to passion and the seed of esprit de corps is born. The fraternity may begin with two teachers with similar assignments seeing themselves not as individual teachers in separate classrooms but as partners in the same assignment. Collaboration and mutuality build fraternity. Sharing concerns, combined problem-solving, and the enjoyments of success based upon passionate commitment build fraternity. Fraternity often begins with the tangibles of friendship and grows to the intangibles of brother- or sisterhood.
Cadre building is a contributor to nurturing esprit de corps. Strong cadres form themselves when individuals identify their common cause. Cadres can be differentiated from spontaneous or assigned teams by the bonds of their fraternity. Perhaps, a cadre is a super team, a team that exceeds teaming because its members are bonded with esprit de corps. Building a cadre of impassioned teachers is easy – you just give the time and opportunity and this key question – “what should we do?” – then let them go.
Some argue that cadre building begets favoritism and the separation of faculty into factions. I argue that every organization that achieves significant purposes over time contains a cadre or cadres of impassioned persons at its core. Nurtured by institutional goals, cadres of impassioned persons are the heart of esprit de corps. Consider the school organizations that are recognized as high performing, elite, exemplary – you choose the word meaning extraordinary – and you will find esprit de corps, cadre strength, and impassioned work at its core.
Leadership nurtures esprit de corps then gets out of the way.
If esprit de corps can be a powerful force in schools, why doesn’t it exist everywhere? Simply stated, esprit de corps flourishes where school leadership also is driven by noble purpose and fraternity, understands its dynamics, and gives these time, resources, and opportunity to work. Although it seems that leadership sublimates the cadre, it does not – leadership nurtures cadre work, including giving earned and appropriate internal and external recognitions. Cadre work can outgrow the apparent work of leadership, and this is the pivot point at which leaders and cadre collegial extend their excellence or leadership extinguishes the cadre. It is a control issue. Nothing kills esprit de corps more than the artificial controls of leadership operating for other purposes.
Too often leadership and their cultural design cause teachers to become independent contractors working in isolation in closed-door classrooms. This is a real phenomenon in school historically and today. It is too easy when this condition exists to do nothing and allow education to sink into mediocrity.
Every period of excellent in student outcomes is associated with teacher esprit de corps.
In hindsight, we can identify many schools that enjoyed a “golden era” of student successes. Peel back the layers and you will find an esprit de corps that flourished with enlightened leadership and a band of teachers whose passion and fraternal instincts caused them to excel in the noble purpose of teaching.