I conducted interviews with leaders in the local community to deepen my depth of knowledge of leadership.   I reflected on each of these interviews in my leadership blog.  Explore my blog by clicking on the blog icon below. 

One thing that stood out most from my time talking to leaders was how much preparation is needed for personal life leading.   For example, it's important to organize yourself before leading others or giving them feedback in the organization process.

Many of my interviewees spoke about failure and how it's a part of the process and not the outcome itself.  Rough drafts are an example of this iterative process.   For example, Mrs. Hubbard, a teacher and theater director, spoke about the process of creating material through multiple drafts.

One piece of advice I found most helpful was to build others up instead of just yourself.   I try to do this on a daily basis with my peers, family, and anyone I meet.  It was encouraging to hear the importance of something I find so natural from these leaders.

Throughout the year I maintained awareness of how teamwork impacted the overall cultures of the organization/group/school.  I believe vulnerability helped build a culture of trust at SA.

Initially, I found the idea of shaping a new school's culture to be daunting because of the students' different learning strategies.  But Daniel Coyle's The Culture Code provided strong insight into the importance of constructive criticism for building culture. I learned that the more you pay attention to the small things the more you will succeed in value making. 

At the beginning of the year, I studied William Deresiewicz's 2009 lecture at the US Military Academy at West Point entitled Solitude and Leadership.

Initially, I found the piece difficult because I didn't connect with the cultural setting. But later, I realized that almost everything can be connected through morals. 

After the inaugural school year, I return to the text and find several new connections to my learning from leading, creating, and cultivating culture.

Solitude 

The lecture gives importance to independent personal study to prepare leadership skills. I personally, and independently, represented this idea by interviewing local leaders, reading leadership books, and writing my own text. Furthermore, I gathered my thoughts and opinions in the form of blogs. Afterward, I compiled all the independent studies and edited them into a website to exhibit my work. 

Culture

The lecture explains that once you realize your moral compass and organize your thoughts, as a leader you can shape culture. I did such in the form of applying my morals to a creative contract made for the school's values of a student.