Servant Leadership, Sexuality Education, and Building Strong Teams

I believe that age-appropriate sexuality education helps create a nurturing and informed environment for our children. It helps them to grow up with a healthy, respectful, and empowering perspective about their bodies, sexuality, and boundaries.

This past Sunday, I had the privilege of providing lunch for the “Our Whole Lives (OWL) Sexuality Education” 5th grade class at All Souls Church Unitarian in Washington DC.

I provided salmon burgers, veggie burgers, and snacks!

The session topic was, “Changes in Puberty”. They discussed the products people start using in puberty such as sanitary pads, deodorant, acne medicine, etc.

This multi-session class is a unique program that empowers children to understand their bodies, respect others, and develop a healthy self-concept. These lessons lay a foundation that protect against harmful misinformation and trauma that could occur due to ignorance.

I believe that teaching children about their bodies, boundaries, and self-respect is a vital act of love and responsibility. Leaving children uninformed can leave them vulnerable to confusion and exploitation. When we equip them with honest, age-appropriate information, we help nurture their self-awareness and confidence.

I believe that children and youth who grow up with a healthy and positive understanding of sexuality grow up to be adults who have a healthy understanding of sexuality, relationships, and boundaries. Our physical, spiritual, and emotional health are beautiful and good and worthy of care and attention. Sexuality is natural, diverse, and beautiful.

To qualify to teach this class requires many hours of training. I am certified to teach the Adult OWL sexuality education classes, but not for the children and youth. I support and adore children but prefer to work directly with adults (young or elderly!) 😊

At the end of the day, this is about servant leadership.

This is about caring for and empowering those who are in your care. This is about being good stewards of those who you have been entrusted with; who depend on you for information and guidance.

A caretaker dedicated to being proactive about empowering the children in their life always ensure that those children have the resources and information they need to be successful and healthy.

Just like in the workplace, transparency and honesty matter.

Should we be disappointed a team member made a bad decisions when we were the ones who didn’t trust them with the truth? Or because we believed the truth was “above their pay grade”? Perhaps we withhold the truth because it makes us feel more powerful. Perhaps we like the way we feel when those we're "in charge of" have to depend on us. Does this make us a better leader or are we only feeding our ego?

In Our Whole Lives (OWL) Sexuality Education, the first class starts in Kindergarten. These classes extend throughout the lifespan into sexuality classes for senior citizens. At each level there is age-appropriate progression, details, and knowledge.

As leaders, there’s no excuse to withhold information and resources that your people need to be successful. There's no excuse to withhold information that could empower your people to make better decisions when you're not around. 

At each level of responsibility, you can share something that empowers your team members based on their perspective, expertise, and level. It’s up to leaders to share what is most helpful in a way that resonates and empowers.

When leaders focuses on this type of discernment around transparency and less on hoarding information for the sake of power -  trust and engagement naturally increase.

🌸If you have young people in your life that you’re responsible for, what might you do to foster open, honest conversations about bodies, sexuality, boundaries, and self-understanding?

🌸As an adult, is there something about your sexuality, body, or boundaries that you need to unlearn?

🌸As a leader, what is something your team may not “need to know”, but might help them feel more empowered, self-sufficient, and give them the impression that you trust them? How or in what ways might you start sharing this information with them?

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🪻As a clinical sociologist and educator, I am excited about opportunities to speak and teach!

With 20+ years in organization development and a combined 9+ years of teaching over twenty different courses as a part-time faculty member at four institutions, I welcome opportunities to lead undergraduate and graduate courses in-person or virtually.

DM me today to invite me to (1) give a keynote at your event, (2) serve as a guest lecturer, or (3) teach a course on any of the following topics: 💞 𝐸𝑡ℎ𝑖𝑐𝑎𝑙 𝐿𝑒𝑎𝑑𝑒𝑟𝑠ℎ𝑖𝑝 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑆𝑡𝑟𝑎𝑡𝑒𝑔𝑖𝑐 𝑀𝑎𝑛𝑎𝑔𝑒𝑚𝑒𝑛𝑡, 𝐿𝑒𝑎𝑑𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝐶ℎ𝑎𝑛𝑔𝑒, 𝑂𝑟𝑔𝑎𝑛𝑖𝑧𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛𝑎𝑙 𝐼𝑛𝑛𝑜𝑣𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛 + 𝐵𝑒ℎ𝑎𝑣𝑖𝑜𝑟, 𝑇𝑒𝑎𝑚 𝐵𝑢𝑖𝑙𝑑𝑖𝑛𝑔, 𝐿𝑒𝑎𝑑𝑒𝑟𝑠ℎ𝑖𝑝 𝐶𝑜𝑎𝑐ℎ𝑖𝑛𝑔, 𝐹𝑎𝑐𝑖𝑙𝑖𝑡𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝐶𝑜𝑙𝑙𝑎𝑏𝑜𝑟𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛, 𝑆𝑜𝑐𝑖𝑜𝑙𝑜𝑔𝑦, 𝐵𝑢𝑠𝑖𝑛𝑒𝑠𝑠 𝐶𝑜𝑚𝑚𝑢𝑛𝑖𝑐𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛, 𝐶𝑎𝑟𝑒𝑒𝑟 𝑀𝑎𝑛𝑎𝑔𝑒𝑚𝑒𝑛𝑡, 𝐼𝑛𝑡𝑒𝑟𝑐𝑢𝑙𝑡𝑢𝑟𝑎𝑙 𝑅𝑒𝑙𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛𝑠.