On going self-reflection is a key component of being a life-long learner. In Dr. Fong’s lecture (2022), she touched on several key aspects that leaders need to be aware of. As the instructional leader, the principal sets the tone for the rest of the school to follow. Being aware of my own strengths and weaknesses puts me in a better position to develop strong relationships with the staff, the students, and the community. I’m not perfect, but I can always improve. By practicing self-assessment, I implicitly give others the approval to do the same. It does not have to be overly explicit. Simply showing others that I am aware of my current state of being and willing to grow goes a long way.
Self-reflection is something I do currently as a teacher and with my students in class. I’ve found that it helps me to better understand my students and their unique situations when I allow myself to look for, admit, and work on correcting mistakes. When I do that, the problems we have encountered are not nearly as bad as they could be. Along the way, we have all been able to show empathy and grace for each other. In that spirit, we have helped each other to grow and learned something new about each other along with ourselves. As an instructional leader, I know that I will be nowhere near perfect. To make things even harder, when dealing with people, things are almost never black in white. It seems to always be some shade of gray. Going back to Dr. Fong’s lesson (2022), I can see where being aware of my ethical and moral positions, along with my own biases is crucial. Each decision is a challenge and that challenge is happening on a stage with a lot of eyes watching. Through on-going self-assessment and self-reflection, I have a better chance to make the best decisions I can today and then make even better decisions tomorrow. References: Fong, D. (2022, January 24). _Fundamentals of Leadership: Modular 2 Lecture [web-conference, PowerPoint slides]. https://luonline.blackboard.com/ultra/courses/_183930_1/cl/outline
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Not long after graduation from college, I found myself in restaurant management. I had an economics degree but didn’t want to go into that field any longer. I kept waiting tables until I moved up to management. I worked for several different general managers and alongside even more assistant managers. Each had their own styles and approaches. I was fortunate to spend a lot of time under one GM, Larry. He had a more “human” approach to management. It resonated with me and still impacts my work today. Larry was always willing to give people a chance. When setting goals for the restaurant we included servers and cooks, so they knew what we were trying to do. Instead of assigning servers to their stations each day, the front-of-house leaders set it up. They knew the staff and flows better than we did. Most importantly, no matter how bad someone might be at their job, if they tried, they always got another chance.
We had a cook trainee that just didn’t get the hang of it. His training week was supposed to be over, but he still couldn’t run the station alone. We kept him on because he was always on time, tried his best, never complained, and never gave up. The manager on duty always had to be working alongside him during busy times because he could not handle it alone. This went on for four weeks. One day, things clicked, and he could work on his own. Two weeks later, he had learned the other four stations. This was something that might take a couple of months normally. Two weeks later, he was able to run all four stations by himself during the slower periods. In one month, he went from our worst cook ever to one of our best. Never giving up on people plays large in my values, beliefs, and attitude today. My first job was as a long-term substitute for math. The teacher had a policy of giving a completion grade for homework to encourage them to try. In class, she would go over the work and concepts until all the students understood. Only then, would they be given a test. Learning was not calendar dependent in her room. I took this experience along with my restaurant experience into my own classroom. It did not matter if I was dealing with students, parents, or co-workers. If they didn’t understand, I would keep working it in different ways until we were successful. I took it on myself to look for new methods to approach others. If they were willing to try, I would keep at it. It wasn’t until the SDE conference (Brown, 2017) that I really understood the neurological foundations behind why my students and parents responded so well to my methods. After that conference, I was able to be more intentional about my adaptability and resilience in working with others. Desravines et al. (2016) explains the five levers of leadership. Over the years, I have found that I employ these day-to-day in my school. I didn’t start out teaching this way. It has been a result of me always being reflective in my practice and looking for areas of improvement. When I go into an evaluation, I am usually aware of my strengths. The areas I am most interested in are my weaknesses. I want to find them and improve there. Lever 1 is about being belief and goal driven. I have always believed that people can achieve and grow. At the same time, equity is just as prevalent and important. When I learned about Universal Design for Learning (UDL), it resonated with me right away (Novak, 2016). I find that these same UDL principles that work so well with students also work with my parents and other teachers. I have incorporated them into everything I do when I can. My parents get newsletters with information in both graphical and written formats. When I do teacher workshops, I employ a variety of methods for participants to access the material. Our student population is very diverse with a wide range of ethnicities and backgrounds. I want them all to feel welcome and safe in my classroom and my school. This is something that we do overtly in my class, my club, and our booster club. Equity is very important. Each of our leaners, parents, and community members is unique. I cannot treat them all the same. To be effective in working with them all, I must be open and have a good working relationship with them. Their voice and ideas make my class stronger. It also makes my relationships with others stronger because I can take what I learn from one person and use it elsewhere. Early on, I created a booster club for my classroom and program. I wanted a good way to stay in contact with the parents and the community. I routinely meet with them to look at everything we are doing in and out of the classroom. These open lines of communication help me to be more responsive to the needs of my students, changes in the community, and opportunities throughout. It is not easy to ask students, parents, and community members to give their opinion of my classroom and their suggestions for what should be done. I have found that it is invaluable. Everyone is more engaged and responsive. My work with the booster club and its role as an advisory board is an example of both Interpersonal, Adaptive, and Resilient Leadership (Desravines et al., 2016). A huge influence in my approach to working with my fellow teachers, students, and parents has been the administrators on campus. One principal has had an outsized influence. It is mostly because everything she does is focused on brining everyone forward together. Her care and concern for others is only matched by her high standards for everyone. She has shown that being supportive and gracious to others does not mean you have to lower your standards and expectations. As I progress in my career, my belief in people and my push for community will be at the center of my work. References: Brown, T. (2017, July 14). Cracking the Code on the Teen Brain-Exciting new discoveries from neuroscience. [Conference session]. SDE Discipline I Conference, Las Vegas, Nevada. Desravines, J., Aquino, J., & Fenton, B. (2016, March 22). Breakthrough Principals: A Step-by-Step Guide to Building Stronger Schools. Jossey-Bass. Fong, D. (n.d.). Introduction to Leadership: Week 1: Lecture 3 [video]. Blackboard. https://luonline.blackboard.com/ultra/courses/_183930_1/cl/outline Novak, K., & Rose, D. H. (2016, September 1). UDL Now!: A Teacher’s Guide to Applying Universal Design for Learning in Today’s Classrooms. CAST Professional Publishing. “As long as there have been leaders, there have been those who tried to determine how and why they were successful. Leadership itself has not evolved, but our understanding of it has” (Leaders Excellence, 2019). Dr. Fong’s first Introduction to Leadership lecture (n.d. a) gave an overview of the shifts in leadership approaches over the last 120 years. At the turn of the twentieth century, leadership was viewed in a very controlled, top-down approach. Authority came from the position and those subordinate to that position were expected to follow accordingly. As the century progressed, the views on leadership and the relationship between leader and follower changed. Throughout the first decades of the twenty-first century, leadership approaches have become more collaborative and more open.
Dr. Fong continued in the second video lecture (n.d. b) with the discussion of contemporary leadership approaches by providing much more detail about three distinct approaches: Transactional, Servant, and Transformational. It is easy to see these three approaches to leadership develop as the leadership eras evolved (Fong, n.d. a). While the three views on leadership have been growing over time through the same periods, they have many differences that make them distinct. Understanding the similarities and differences can be done by looking at four components of leadership as explained in Dr. Fong’s lesson: process, influence, groups, and goals. The process by which the leadership approaches work shows differences between all three of them. The transactional approach is done through a system of pay for work, the servant approach is accomplished through the leader working to help and provide for their subordinates, and the transformational approach is a collaborative effort where leaders and subordinates come to a consensus on both goals and means. The differences in process are highlighted in the differences in the ways that leaders influence the rest of the organization. Transactional leaders are very direct and exert influence by providing and restricting rewards. Servant leaders seek to influence through their efforts and sacrifices. Zig Ziglar is attributed with the statement, “You will get all you want in life if you help enough other people get what they want” (Eha, 2012). This statement sums up way a servant leader influences the organization. The transformational approach to influence focuses on the individual and getting buy-in to the organizational goals and methods. While a lot of differences are seen in the process and influence actions of these three contemporary approaches, Dr. Fong’s lesson (n.d. b) show several similarities in the groupings and the goals. The group dynamics of a servant and transformational leader are not as clear cut and separated as previous approaches. The leader focuses more on the individual and does more work alongside those in subordinate roles. The goals of all three approaches focus more on the individual than previous approaches. Contemporary leadership approaches place a great deal of emphasis on the individual impact of each member of the organization to the overall success of goal attainment. The focus on the individual is a collectively defining characterization of all three approaches to leadership. The shift to open, collective relationships in leadership can also be seen in the classroom. Understanding By Design (Novak & Rose, 2016) provide explanations and resources for teachers to design lessons that take all learners abilities, needs, and preferences into account during the lesson design stage. Understanding by Design is a more collaborative approach to learning design that provides more input and choices for learners. This method of design seems to mirror the transformational approach to leadership. Mark Perna (2018) explains how the goals and motivations of youth today are different than those of previous generations. These differences are shown to need a different teaching approach more in line with the transformational leadership style. The evolution in leadership approaches has changed significantly over the last 120 years. Over that time, the approaches have become more focused on the individual and more open in communication of goals and methods. A similar shift in teaching styles has been seen in the classroom. Teachers and students collaborate more on the outcomes and methods for learning. The new and updated understandings in leadership will likely continue to evolve and grow as new understanding of people and organizations comes to light. References: Eha, B. P. (2012, November 30). Zig Ziglar and the Importance of Helping Others. Entrepreneur. https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/225131. Retrieved January 23, 2022 Fong, D. (n.d.). Introduction to Leadership: Week 1: Lecture 1 [video]. Blackboard. https://luonline.blackboard.com/ultra/courses/_183930_1/cl/outline Fong, D. (n.d.). Introduction to Leadership: Week 1: Lecture 2 [video]. Blackboard. https://luonline.blackboard.com/ultra/courses/_183930_1/cl/outline Leaders Excellence. (2019, September). The Evolution of Leadership. Leaders Excellence. https://leadersexcellence.com/the-evolution-of-leadership/. Retrieved January 22, 2022 Novak, K., & Rose, D. H. (2016, September 1). UDL Now!: A Teacher’s Guide to Applying Universal Design for Learning in Today’s Classrooms. CAST Professional Publishing. Perna, M.C. (2018, September 18). Answering Why: Unleashing Passion, Purpose, and Performance in Younger Generations. Greenleaf Book Group Press. For me, I define leadership as the human aspect to the navigation of an organization or community. My view of what leadership is has evolved out of many years of working with my students and parents in a variety of projects and activities related to the engineering program at my school. We have a lot of people who hold an office or committee chair position but are not leaders while at the same time we have others who hold no official position, but are leaders in their own right. What I have witnessed, and in turn nurtured, is that our leaders set the direction and focus for our program. Their leadership may help or hurt, but it is undeniable. It is important to take this further than anecdotal evidence from my classroom. In this weeks lectures, a similar theme emerges. We learned in Dr. Fong’s first lecture (n.d.), that over the last 120 years or so, we have seen the way people and organizations look at and define leadership change. It would take a lot longer than we have in this short discussion board to clarify, but it does seem that the changes in leadership style and understanding have shifted with shifts in the culture and economy. For example, I cannot help but notice that the first era listed in the lesson ends around the same time as the start of the Great Depression. This correlation is not definitive, but it is interesting and might be worth looking into. In Dr. Fong’s second lecture (n.d.), we were introduced to more recent styles of leadership that are commonly in practice. The transactional style is very much in line with how I had conducted class when I started teaching. I would give students grades in return for their performance. I believed that the incentive of good grades would motivate students to perform better. In my experience, that expectation only went so far. Over time, I had adjusted my personal leadership style and how I worked with those in my educational community of parents and students. I didn’t realize it until this lesson that over time, I had moved to a more transformational style and was building that within the class. I use the term “more” deliberately. In the lessons, the eras and styles were clearly defined and delineated. What I witness when putting the academic theory alongside the practical application in the classroom is that the boundaries seem much fuzzier. To conclude this discussion, the lessons this week coincide with my current definition. I say current, because I am sure that over time, as I grow and learn more, my understanding and implementation of leadership will change. For now, leadership has less to do with position and duties and more with connecting with people to motivate and encourage action. References: Fong, D. (n.d.). Introduction to Leadership: Week 1: Lecture 2 [video]. Blackboard. https://luonline.blackboard.com/ultra/courses/_183930_1/cl/outline |
About 5311This is my first course in my principal certification program. The course focus on leadership. ArchivesCategories
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