{"id":4087,"date":"2016-08-05T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2016-08-05T04:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/aurora-institute.org\/blog\/cw_post\/engaging-others-a-short-reflection-on-leadership\/"},"modified":"2020-02-05T12:59:18","modified_gmt":"2020-02-05T17:59:18","slug":"engaging-others-a-short-reflection-on-leadership","status":"publish","type":"cw_post","link":"https:\/\/aurora-institute.org\/cw_post\/engaging-others-a-short-reflection-on-leadership\/","title":{"rendered":"Engaging Others: A Short Reflection on Leadership"},"content":{"rendered":"
I\u2019ve been thinking about leadership a lot recently. Just about every technical assistant provider and intermediary I speak with refers to two challenges they face working with districts: lack of capacity and lack of leadership. The former is a phrase so general it lacks meaning except to reinforce the existence for the TA provider. We know that implementing competency education puts everyone outside their comfort zone to some degree. We know that everyone is climbing steep learning trajectories to build out the skills to better meet student needs. The phrase lack of capacity echoes a fixed mindset \u2013 as if people do not have the capacity to learn rather than a need to build specific knowledge or skills.<\/p>\n
The latter issue is problematic as well. First, it is difficult to separate a leader from leadership skills. Obviously positional roles such as school board, superintendent, and principal means that there are leaders in districts in schools. So this must be referring to leadership skills. Second, it is not clear if it is inadequate leadership skills or the wrong type of skills.<\/p>\n
Given that leadership is so important, we need figure out some way to support leaders in building the right set of approaches and skills. Go into any bookstore, and there are rows and rows of books on the subject of leadership. There has been much written about leadership in education, as well. Certainly leadership is frequently raised in conversations with district leaders and principals who are converting to competency education. The challenge before us is to not only understand what leadership approaches might be best suited for the conversion and operation of personalized, competency-based education, but to also think about how we best support people in building these skills.<\/p>\n
The first step has to be identifying the values and assumptions that we want in personalized, competency-based districts and determining which leadership strategies are most aligned. District and school leaders who have three years of implementation under their belts can help provide case studies about how they have used these strategies and how to better define and communicate these leadership strategies. It\u2019s possible that we could begin to identify specific functions or challenges that leaders will need to address in implementing competency-based systems. It would be helpful to think about the organizational capacities and management strategies simultaneously, as they go hand-in-hand.<\/p>\n
Then the hard part \u2013 how do we help leaders build their mindsets and skills to implement these leadership strategies. I think Peter Senghe\u2019s work on personal mastery<\/a> might be a good starting point. Personal mastery is one way that a leader can embody a culture of learning and a commitment to accountability. It would be helpful to identify the set of qualities that leaders might strive for (no one is ever going to be 100 percent consistent in 100 percent of the qualities we set out for ourselves). I\u2019d start with the following:<\/p>\n This is just a beginning. I know the list would be longer. However, this very short list of characteristics of leadership is profound. Just think about the difference in schools if leaders focused on these as their primary leadership goals.<\/p>\n As always, we\u2019d be delighted to hear your thoughts about leadership.<\/p>\n See also:<\/p>\n\n
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