Monarch Leadership: The Milkweed Principle

I’d never given much thought to the monarch butterfly, other than admiring them, until recently. I have friends who raise monarchs with their grandchildren. Their forays into nature always include searching for the increasingly rare milkweed plant. Milkweed is essential to monarchs for two reasons. First, monarch caterpillars only eat milkweed. Secondly, monarchs need milkweed to lay their eggs. In essence, the full life span of the monarch butterfly depends on this plant.

Leadership is not unlike the life cycle of the monarch butterfly in that leaders need a source of support throughout their stages of development. While some leaders seem to naturally have leadership characteristics, others gradually develop these traits. Regardless of how you identify as a leader, there is a developmental process that takes place. Like the monarch butterfly, your leadership needs the proper nourishment in order to grow.

Leadership is an ongoing process filled with stages of growth, challenge and celebration. After hatching from the egg, the monarch begins as a caterpillar who eats the milkweed. This is when the greatest growth takes place. Are you a new school counselor, eager to learn all you can about becoming a leader in your district? What feeds this quest for knowledge and provides the strong start that you need? Join your professional associations. Find mentors to support your enthusiasm and provide guidance during this phase. Just as the caterpillar molts its outgrown skin, you may outgrow your current setting, your life may expand to new stages and you realize that leadership can be hard work.

Are you as a seasoned school counselor who has made it through the initial phase of your career, confident that this works takes stamina? Does the idea of just building a comfy chrysalis around yourself sound appealing? Do you just need a space to rest and rejuvenate? Are you ready to let others lead while you reap the benefits of a silken enclosed cocoon?

The difference between the monarch and humans is we have a choice about how, or if, we emerge from our chrysalis of security. ASCA calls upon us to make leadership a core from which we work. We must find our way to exert this capacity in order to best serve our students. Students depend on us to identify areas of inequity and lead the charge for all students to develop to their full potential. This is not done from the comfort of a cocoon.

Adult monarchs migrate thousands of miles to warmer temperatures and begin the cycle over again. Talk about strength and resiliency. We must continually seek these within ourselves. Speak out in areas where the voice of school counseling has not been heard. Take on a new initiative for your school to support underrepresented students. Supervise a counseling graduate student as an intern. You have wings that are developed through time. Find ways to spread yours, and show future generations the way to nourish their own leadership skills. Celebrate your leadership metamorphosis, be it for students, systemic change, or future school counselors.

Contact Judy Williams, MSCA past president, at willijud@gvsu.edu.