Jan Hansen is CEO of Educate Tanzania, Inc. She had previously been Associate Professor in the School of Education at the University of St. Thomas where she taught graduate level courses in Psychology and Science Education. Prior to that she was the Associate Director of the Gifted Education Resource Institute at Purdue University, where she also taught. While leading a group of engineering students on a trip to Tanzania, she heard a new calling: educating people and alleviating poverty in Tanzania. Her leadership, creativity, and tireless effort has grown into a major economic development initiative in that country. Learn more about this exceptional organization at https://www.educatetanzania.org/.
Early Influences
Ron Bennett mentioned five forces that influence leadership and values: Family, religion, education, friends and media. I can see how those five forces form our beliefs, but I have a very hard time untangling them. For example, I was raised in a church-going family where faith was important, but we were also academic and questioning, and so it was not a superstitious, “let’s accept everything that you’re told” family culture. It was a studious approach to faith and religion, and I differentiate between the two. Religion to me has more to do with institutions, and faith has more to do with who I am personally and who I acknowledge as a supreme being. And so, faith and critical questioning became a driver. It wasn’t OK in my family to not do what’s right, no matter how big, how small or who was involved. So academic study, religion and family were all intertwined. Then, my family conversations often involved religion, politics, civil rights, how people next door were treated and the role of formal and informal education in all of this. I had no idea when I was a child that this was not what every family did, so it felt normal.
On top of this my mother surrounded us with good media. She brought us to our small town’s library each week, subscribed to a variety of children’s magazines every year, and ensured that 18 different periodicals came into our farmhouse, including Harper’s Bazaar, Atlantic Monthly, Life, National Geographic, The New Yorker and the list goes on. My parents were involved in the civil rights movement, held leadership roles and modeled strict standards. We also traveled. And so, I can’t untangle informal education and “school” from a moral education from my faith from my family and frankly, from the readings gleaned from many sources. These were all teachers so if I had to say one now, I am driven by what my family instilled in me and that was to do what benefits the greatest good. Some people call that driver a “calling.” I feel I have a call on my life that gives me purpose. Some may disagree with this perspective, but it’s who I am. And it’s what I do.
There are other things in my life that helped set a leadership path for me. First is a culture that exemplified a strong work ethic and second is strength in crisis. On a farm that was 160 acres, the work ethic was something to behold. We were all working for something larger than ourselves, which was the farm. When you are 5 foot 3 as a fully grown teenager and you’re powering large machinery, operating augers for the grain bins, running large tractors, plows and other farm machinery, there is a large sense of responsibility. I knew that my parents believed in me. My parents allowed me and my three sisters to make decisions and make mistakes. If the results didn’t turn out the way we wanted, they were there for that too. They supported us through success and challenge. But I think that the work ethic of second generation immigrants who were managing a farm with four girls was both consuming and freeing. There was little room for sexism and that was huge. I sincerely believed I could do almost anything.
The second aspect of leadership is that my parents modeled how to show up in crisis. My family experienced a lot of death in the first years of my life. Grandpa and Grandma lived on our farm. Grandpa died when I was one. Grandma died when I was two. Unexpectedly my dad’s sister died when I was three, leaving a husband and four kids. Then almost unbelievably, another aunt, who was 24 and had four kids with my mom’s brother, died leaving my uncle and her sons. What I saw, and I didn’t realize as a kid—because “this is your life, this is normal,” was how my parents showed up in crisis. They were good at crisis. They showed up, they showed people they cared and they were problem-solvers. Maybe some of my sense of responsibility has to do with what was modeled by my parents and extended family in extreme circumstances. But I learned that you show up and you do what you can, even when you’re grieving yourself. Especially if it’s a heavy time. That’s big in my family, and I see its value in my leadership positions.
Education Opens Doors
Another influence on leadership was my education. Because of my upbringing, especially in the early days, I feel I had just gotten a golden ticket for education. First of all, my mom was an educator who turned everything into a teachable moment. My father dropped out of high school to run the family farm. However, he was well read, had traveled and was an excellent carpenter and mechanic who shared his tasks with his daughters in what he lovingly called “Unity Projects.” So I had this informal education all the time. At my school I felt respected and was close to my teachers, and when I look back, I think I was given special privileges. I had exhausted the curriculum during my senior year, was given extra activities in my program and got to spend time with the instructors like in mentor relationships. My writing teachers were unbelievably competent and caring. Again, I didn’t know it at the time, but I was taught to write hard-core research papers in 10th grade. I was involved in leadership roles, the music programs, athletics and theater. Title IX had been enacted during my high school years and doors opened for girls in sports. I was part of the first girls’ team (volleyball) to win a trophy for our school and was the first female MVP. I got to lead our track team as captain. One of my sisters is just two years older and was not given these opportunities. I earned credits in the College Level Examination Program (CLEP) during high school so was able to enter college with three quarters of generals under my belt. My undergraduate studies included attending college outside London for a year and my graduate programs at the University of Wisconsin and Purdue University involved assistantships that put me in positions of leadership and academic rigor both nationally and internationally. In several cases, my teachers and profs opened doors for me and escorted me right on through.
My high school teachers didn’t just see potential in me; it was my whole class. All through my school years, people remarked how unusual our class was. But there was some evidence that they saw something in me and were attentive to that. I was in advanced classes and allowed to lead student groups, athletics and music opportunities in this town of 5,000 people. As I look back on my school years, I think, “my goodness, that was unusual and extremely advanced!.” But I’m also familiar with research on what women of that time did for an occupation. My female teachers were stereotypically given the choice of secretary, nurse, or teacher. They were the ambitious, goal oriented, smart, competent people who went out and did something in the world of work and then shared so much with their students. And so, yes, my teachers and profs could have seen something in me; there’s some evidence of that. But I think it was a constellation of factors that included their own intellect and their own leadership tendencies that brought about high achievement and emotional stability in their students—including me.
Learning through Experience
It’s worth sharing that my first choice for advanced education was a failure. (Just so you know: My view is that failure is just a great stepping stone, a great teacher. I tend to hate failure when it’s happening, but I love failure for what it brings about.) I was going to be a veterinarian and go into medicine. My Biology and Human Physiology teacher in high offered to put me through med school. OK, so this sounded great, so I proceeded. But unfortunately, I kept passing out in blood lab. I would see red blood and I thought I could white knuckle it through the lab. The reaction was and is visceral, and to this day, if I see blood, I have a hard time. And so that didn’t work out so well. When I lived in England and attended college there at 18 and 19 years of age, I went into teacher training, in part because of the foci of the foreign exchange program I was in. And, while I was there, I got so enamored with art, that I immersed myself and wound up with a semi-unintended major in art. (I had Henry Moore’s niece and the Coen Brothers’ mom for instructors so had some excellent exposure.) I was just surrounded by art, so I eventually wound up with an art degree and a psych degree. So what came out of this, was walking through opening doors—in the Quaker-like sense. Intentionality was not the driver, but the door was open, and I walked through.
I fell in love with psychology. I realized I was good at it. And that’s what I did my graduate work in, all around educational psychology.
What interests me about psychology is learning what motivates people. It’s fascinating to me. I have been told that I am fairly discerning regarding people’s motivations and what makes them tick. I thought as a kid that everyone did! I didn’t realize it was me. So, when I learned of models and tenets and concepts and biographies in psychology it was like I wasn’t learning. It was like the field was unfolding. I was realizing things and putting words around things and learning about frameworks for things that I had previously wondered about. And it was just natural and made so much sense. Along with that, I think I naturally gravitate to teaching and teachable moments. So, my education was like a door that swung wide open. I am profoundly grateful for the leadership opportunities that were presented as part of my education.
Leaders are often profoundly affected by other leaders. I think I have to give credit to John Feldhusen, my major professor at Purdue. He had a global reputation in Educational Psychology. I wrote a dissertation at the University of Wisconsin using some of his materials, and he wrote me a letter inviting me to Purdue. I shared the invitation with my husband, Steve, who encouraged me to check it out. Up until that point I was a teacher running a program in a school system north of Green Bay. I was happy teaching students, but when John invited me to come to Purdue, I saw so much possibility. So I walked through another door and became a grad student. My way was paid and the doors just kept opening and opening. Like my husband Steve, John was a man who put women in leadership positions to be all they could be. Purdue is a large institution and John ushered us into meaningful positions. He signed off as I taught and helped design graduate courses, helped programs start up locally and globally and learned how to evaluate high level programs. He was a major influence who gave me teaching opportunities and editing leadership positions at Purdue and in other countries, all while under his wing. He demanded excellence in everything, and he and his wife became very good family friends.
My experience since then is that some colleagues in technical fields do not see the creation of programs or impacting another person’s understanding of self, others and the world (Psychology), as “engineering.” My experience has shown me that some think that dealing with humanity does not produce a tangible object and therefore is relegated to the backseat to leadership that creates objects or technical processes. But it could be argued that the development of human cognition, emotional stability and moral maturity requires engineered experiences and conversations that are finely tuned and demand the highest levels of leadership as opportunities and conditions present themselves.
Inexperience also Teaches
Leaders often go through extreme challenges that tend to accelerate growth. A major crucible experience for me was in the early ’90s. I was the Associate Director for Purdue’s Gifted Education Resource Institute, which ran the world’s largest teacher training program at the time and was a major force in gifted education. I had doctorate at a young age and had been invited by a growing private school to be part of their executive board as a person who would supposedly help them form their strategic plan and all that entails. What I didn’t realize, since I was too young or too naïve or both, was that I was being used as Purdue’s rubber stamp for procedures that were not sound practices and were not in the best interests of the students we served. I did not comply and assumed everyone respected that. I learned the hard way that some people will go to great lengths to preserve their power or protect something besides what is best for children in their charge. I also learned that some people are well-intentioned but unaware or too timid to address what is unfolding.
In spite of this crucible experience, I was surrounded by a supportive husband and a group of other executive board members and parents who knew the real story and the real me and saw the relevance of the ‘real’ strategic plan. I healed up from this crucible experience and am glad to share that the ‘real’ strategic plan was eventually implemented. What did I learn? This won’t happen to me twice. I am a better leader having learned the importance of acting on disingenuous or divisive tactics when I first notice them. People get to have their own agendas, and it’s my job to acknowledge when it’s not the same as mine. And if it’s not, I can handle that, but as a leader, I am going to authentically portray my own views and ensure that I am not a rubber stamp or a scapegoat. I am grateful for this crucible experience in that I believe it made me a more compassionate person, better manager and a much wiser organizational leader.
Another Calling
My leadership changed focus as I transitioned out of academia and administration at the university, and moved into the nonprofit world and work in Tanzania. I was a tenured professor at the University of St. Thomas and I loved my job. I enjoyed teaching, my students and colleagues and appreciated that I was expected to do ‘service’ as an important part of my employment there. I was allowed to be creative in collaborations between Education and Engineering and am grateful to have co-founded the Center for Engineering Education there. I appreciated and still appreciate my network and range of accomplishments. My time at the university came to a close as my husband Steve and I accepted an invitation from a group in Tanzania to be Ambassadors to help establish Karagwe College of Agriculture (KARUCO) on what was, at the time, a grassy hill surrounded by 1,000 acres of potential farmland. The group invited us to help them in their start-up efforts. My husband Steve and I enjoy helping start up entities and through a needs and strengths analysis in Tanzania, realized that the group there had all the aspects to succeed except resources. They had a high-powered management team, a strategic plan, were adept at vision-casting, had a strong commitment to empowering women, dedication to the common good, entrepreneurialism and sustainability and were tireless in their efforts. I felt called to help so resigned from my tenured position and co-founded Educate Tanzania, Inc (ETI) with my husband, Steve. In our view, our Tanzanian colleagues’ vision, values and procedures were in alignment with our own and we became partners. We have been partners since 2010.
Since that time, we have since established the second agricultural college in Tanzania, with a full campus, media center, area dorms and housing, a fully accredited hands-on curriculum, farm plots, livestock including cattle, chickens and goats and budding businesses in agriculture. Our goal is to increase incomes and the standard of living through KARUCO, this entrepreneurial hub that has graduated 216 students so far. From a grassy hill to an established institution, KARUCO has a national reputation that is growing and is committed to serving the 1.5 million people in Karagwe, Tanzania.
Our organization, Educate Tanzania, Inc (ETI) was the catalyst for KARUCO and then for the 25KW utility grade solar array and battery storage unit that powers it up. In addition, we surveyed the communities surrounding KARUCO and asked how they’d like to see us expand on KARUCO’s successes. We learned they wanted food processing so we are in the process of helping fund, design and build a food processing plant that will create value-added products from rural Tanzania’s tasty crops. The plant will be a hub that will reduce crop waste, increase nutritional health, increase incomes and ensure gender equity. We have come a long way in a little over a decade thanks to the leadership of many involved in this work.
Modesty Is an Obstacle
I was taught that it’s unbecoming to talk of your own qualities, so identifying the characteristics that helped me lead is hard. I will pretend for a moment, that I am not me and I’m looking at it from the outside. I transitioned from academia to co-founding a start-up nonprofit to build a university in Africa. This happened for a variety of reasons. Workable vision for the future comes easily for me. Steve and I both enjoy vision-casting and are decent at identifying steps to bring a vision about. People can see that something will succeed when you show them the steps. I have a high tolerance for ambiguity, a somewhat eidetic memory, sensitivity to others’ involved and a willingness to speak up when things get tough. I gave and continue to give Educate Tanzania, Inc. 110%. That work ethic I told you about earlier is helpful. I was on fire for this thing. And the resources started rolling in. Being a gatherer of good people, not afraid of other people’s competence, not afraid of their entrepreneurial spirit, not afraid of others wanting to do things a certain way even if it’s not my way. Be a good assessor of talent. Let them do their thing. Get out of people’s way. Mentor the ones who need help. This was how we took a grassy hill in Tanzania with 1,000 acres and partnered with strong leaders in Tanzania to established an entrepreneurial, accredited college of agriculture, built a campus and all that entails including water and solar power, provided seed funding for the graduates’ micro-enterprise loans, and are expanding to include food processing, farm implement rentals and training for the 1.5 million who live in the area.
I believe leaders are adept at vision-casting. Early on, we shared our vision with a nationally recognized web development team who caught the vision and donated their professional time by creating a website that still operates to this day. We cast vision with some leaders in our neighborhood who formed a board and funded all administrative costs so that we could launch the programs in Tanzania. We cast vision and built confidence in our partner – Rev. Dr. Benson Bagonza, the founder of the college. Bishop Bagonza is one of the most unusual people we’ve ever met. Very intelligent, very competent, a gatherer of good people. Like minded, get out of your team’s way, mobilize professionals and protect creativity and entrepreneurialism. Also, put women and other marginalized people, in places where they can thrive. Tanzania is changing but can be a patriarchal society. Believe in and support those who ensure a voice for the lowest of the low, who assess priorities, who are transparent and embrace accountability. We reject the notion that developed countries can parachute in and decide that some developed country’s idea is going to fix the problems they see. The Tanzanians know what’s going to fix their problems, so we act on their priorities. And I cannot overstate the importance of transparency. Fiscal transparency, for sure, but everything else: procedures, how we operate and open board meetings. Come take a look. Nothing to hide.
Working in the Seams
Leaders often mention “aha” moments and I have had a series of them that have developed my thinking. I think at some point it looks like a continuum of gradual events, but there were “aha” moments. For example, to me the thing I really gravitated toward as a younger employee was the institution itself. It must have good values and good people, be doing good things and have a decent reputation and solid outcomes. Then on and on and on. Very institutional. Very group oriented and often associated with other national or international groups. Now, I am in the seams of the institutions, and there is a distinct power in the seams. When you’re not part of an institution, but you’re working intimately with institutions, there is a freedom and a different kind of accountability. The focus changed for me when I realized that you could get an awful lot done if you allow others to get credit. Let the institutions involved take credit. I don’t care. It’s getting done. I don’t support fibbing about who did what or if anyone takes credit for another’s work, but I do support institutions needing to highlight themselves and their good points in order to grow or sometimes simply survive. There is a huge space for working in the seams.
The concept of working in the seams struck me first when we were working with a parachurch model as part of a great big church west of Minneapolis. I shared that my husband Steve and I enjoy start-ups and we started up a retreat program at the church we attended. The retreat was open to anybody so we had people from here, there and everywhere. People who were inspired by church and those who didn’t want anything to do with church. We said this retreat is for everyone, so just come on in. There’s such power in these different backgrounds all coming together. We were empowered to do things a little differently in order to meet the needs of the people who were smack dab in front of us. I find that true with Educate Tanzania.
It is important that leaders know which rules are to be followed. We are a nonprofit. We have to follow all the rules, with IRS and the State of Minnesota: With all of that. We follow other rules too. We try to be dignified and respectful of the institutions we work with. And we have freedom to work with a variety of organizations: Public and private universities, local and global businesses, faith-based institutions, groups in Tanzania and Europe, etc. We’re not bound by one set of rules that say ‘you can’t do that, Jan.’ So we’re in the seams and, as I used to say to my team when we were doing team formation, it’s like thinking that the main thing that goes on at a conference is in the conference room, but it’s really in the restroom or over lunch, or walking down the hall, or bumping into somebody. Both have value. I’m not discounting the one in favor of the other. But that there’s power in the seams.
Others Who Inspire
Who do I think are great leaders? I really thought about this. I do not understand why she isn’t elevated more, but I believe Mavis Staples is an incredible leader. She was born in 1939 and is an amazing singer and activist who rose to notoriety during the Civil Rights Movement. Her father was a close friend of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. which inspired the Staples family to become the musical voices of the Civil Rights Movement. By the mid-1960’s, Mavis and her family gave voice to the struggles of the times, and she hasn’t backed away since. As a young black woman, she did as Rosa Parks, as simply took her seat in the right place: Cafes, buses and public space and wouldn’t move. She is such a leader all through these years. I saw her sing in Louisiana in 2022 thinking she would disappoint due to her age. I was wrong. She is a fiery singer with full command of the stage. She is a wonderful civil rights leader and I gravitate to them. The cadre of other leaders that I appreciate include a Jewish woman named Ava Fogelman who wrote about the persons who stepped up and saved Jewish families during the Holocaust. (People often think that leadership is a charismatic person and tend to ignore the profound leadership in writing books and other influential media, but I believe differently.) In her book, Conscience and Courage, she has provided the world with an amazing look into what prompts people to truly help others, the common good. Another hero of mine is a man in Gretna, Virginia named Fred Miller who purchased Sharswood—a plantation mansion so his large extended family could meet and gather together. After purchase, Fred was stunned to learn that the worn building in back of the mansion was actually the slave quarters that housed his own ancestors who were enslaved at Sharswood! He was further stunned to learn that his ancestors were buried in unmarked graves near the property. What struck me about Fred was that he is fiercely dedicated to preserve and highlight the Slave Quarters and the Cemetery on his property in order to shed light on this aspect of American history and to do right by his ancestors. The Miller family’s story has been highlighted on 60 Minutes and I am humbled to know this man, his family and this story. We could all learn so much. One more leader I look up to is my father. He was on the frontlines in Korea, was a leader there, was a leader in our farm community and was a leader in our family. He had a penchant for underserved people and was talented at empowering them. His mantra was “you always have a choice”. You don’t get to say someone told you to do it. You always have a choice. You take responsibility for your choices. He ingrained that in me.
A Theory of Evolution
Leadership in work environments has evolved in my view. There’s always been a strong emphasis on independence, knowing oneself and one’s goals, taking responsibility and functioning well on one’s own and there’s nearly always been an aversion to inadvertently creating dependence and enabling weakness in others by doing things ‘for them’ that they can do on their own. Leadership foci have evolved to more of an interdependent model where it is recognized that systems are made up of multiple moving parts and many groups of people who need each other in order to function well as a whole. Leadership has become more relationship-oriented even in production focused entities that are trying to attract employees for the long-term. In my current work in Tanzania, the interdependent model is alive and well. There is a natural reflex of community that drives many of the initiatives and priorities there. Leaders think as reflex, how the programs they implement will affect the constituents they serve. Success is defined by community standards, not money and growing larger. Interdependence is a way of life.
If I had one message for others who want to be the best leader they can, I’ll say this: Leadership is sharing vision for a common good, tolerating ambiguity, empowering others to contribute, holding yourself accountable and celebrating success while learning from failure. To me, leadership is a function of character, competence and caring. Trust your gut. Just do the right thing every single time. No shortcuts. No selling out to pressure, position or promotion, power or greed. Do what is best for the common good. Don’t get too caught up about who gets credit. Just do the right thing every single time. The benefits may surprise you.