Leaders also doubt themselves

“I think that we are often afraid to follow our dreams even as we get older. We look at others and think they have achieved their goals because they weren't afraid. But that's not true. Leaders also doubt themselves – but they keep going anyway.”

This is how Inga Minelgaitė, Professor of Project Management at the UI School of Business, describes the inspiration for her latest project, a children's book that deals with courage, fear, and self-leadership skills. It is a remarkable turn for a scientist focused on educating business and institutional managers and students at universities worldwide.

The book has already enjoyed great success in Lithuania, where Inga was born. According to Inga, it has been adopted by child psychologists, teachers, and business leaders as educational material for children and adults.

Teaching self-leadership from childhood

After more than ten years of teaching leadership, including focusing on self-leadership, Inga felt it was time to bring the philosophy closer to children. Self-leadership is the ability to influence one's own mindset, behaviour, and emotions to achieve one's goals, without counting fully on external control. This way of thinking is based on the premise that leadership begins internally. Before we can lead others, we must know how to lead ourselves. Before we demand responsibility from others, we must take responsibility for our thoughts, attitudes, and decisions.
“I concluded that this philosophy should be taught much earlier, right from the first years of primary school,” says Inga. “That is why, for several years, I nurtured the idea of writing a children's book about fear and about achieving your goals despite of it.”

She says the book was initially intended to inspire children, but as the writing progressed, the work grew and became an interdisciplinary book for children, which is also being enjoyed by adults alike.

“Today, the book can be found in many libraries in Lithuania. Numerous child psychologists, teachers, and special education teachers own it. After reading the book, leaders in companies have purchased it and donated it to educational institutions of their choice to emphasise the importance of developing self-leadership skills in children,” says Inga This book is also available at Kringlan City Library for Lithuanians living in Iceland.

Academic Knowledge in a New Form

Transferring academic concepts into a children's book was a significant challenge, according to Inga, who is not at all used to dealing with work of this nature, being a scientist and lecturer at the University of Iceland.

“I feel very comfortable discussing leadership and self-leadership skills with adults; I regularly teach and train managers, but this was a new world,” she says. “It was a challenge to explain the core principles of self-leadership in a fun way that would appeal to children. To incorporate it into the story of a main character, who is dealing with certain kind of fears and actual hindrances in her life”.

Inga worked on the book in collaboration with an Associate Professor of Pedagogy at Vytautas Magnus University in Lithuania, Vilma Makauskienė, who has a background in child psychology. “This collaboration required many academic discussions about leadership theories, teaching methods, etc. Although it is a children's book, it is written in a way that makes reading enjoyable for adults, too,” says Inga.

“One CEO said after reading it that he had read many management books, but that in this book, he was asked questions he had never asked himself before, but which he felt truly mattered. “I expected an easy read and was caught unprepared to answer these big questions” – he expressed his experience with the book”.

Interdisciplinarity that requires courage

Inga is convinced that the future of university work lies in connecting academic disciplines and different sectors of society.

“I believe we need to collaborate more across disciplines. Ideas, products, and services created this way may be more difficult to market. However, they still bring diverse groups in society together and create new dialogue and a different kind of progress.”

She adds that universities have a special duty to think outside the institution's walls. “After teaching at the Master's level for more than ten years, I am convinced that if we want to raise socially responsible and progressive leaders, we must work with the institutions that shape children's learning environments at the younger school levels.”

A conversation with the child - and oneself

Writing material of this nature for children is highly complex and challenging, but Inga describes the book as "a way to have a conversation with the child that you have never had before.”

“Thanks to this book, I have had dialogues with children, and also with business people, about empathy, resilience-driven leadership, and leadership thinking at a young age, conversations I had never had before,” says the Professor.

“These leaders found new ways to give back to the community. When my knowledge of leadership serves society on a broad basis, not just businesses, I, as an academic, find more purpose in what I do.”

When asked what Inga herself learned from the project, she says: “Learning from other disciplines gave me valuable experience. And perhaps most importantly, that courage is not freedom from fear, but a decision to keep going despite it.”