Objectives:
Assess personal leadership traits/strengths/beliefs that impact and influence school effectiveness.
Demonstrate the professional responsibility to contribute to the effectiveness, innovation, vitality, and self-renewal of the teaching profession, as well as to their school and community.
Support in Change
While studying The Truth About Leadership (Posner and Kouzes), we reflected weekly in blog posts about our insights and applications to our lives. The book focused on the timeless qualities of effective leaders, foremost of which was the ability to build trust. This blog reflection links my constant need for help with the support network that kept showing up for me, and throughout the process, allowing me to form countless bonds of trust with my peers. The process of writing this post uncovered many of these insights for the first time to me.
Reflection
I feel most energized and alive as a teacher when I am tackling hard problems. Despite doing fairly well at school as a kid, I really don't like it. My hard problems are finding ways to make school interesting, challenging, and relevant for all students, especially the ones who have a lot of challenges going on in their lives. Like all teachers, this passionate pursuit is draining and burns you out. I believe that the mentors and peers in my working life have not only kept me in the profession, but made me so much better than I would have been. As a profession, I think that this kind of support needs to be systemic for all teachers to keep them from burnout and focused on what matters.
I chose this post above a few others that I found powerful and reflective because I think that the vulnerability that is required to take on hard problems and being open to support is the key to creating trust. This trust with students, peers, admin, and parents is the most important key to influence and leadership. Though I dove into my support network mostly as a survival mechanism, I believe that I found the key starting point to becoming an effective education leader.