As our graduate level coursework nears its end, it is very beneficial that we have a class that covers leadership qualities, allowing us to best utilize the information we have learned, sharing it with others. At the present, I have experienced leadership in a limited role, in a couple of different capacities. I currently lead my students every day, coach varsity baseball, and sit on a committee that works on improving the instruction/climate at our school (RTI).
The work that we did for this week was succinct, but taught me a great deal about leadership, along with what type of leader I am. First, the TED talk from Patrick Awuah was quite intriguing; as this man discussed the type of leadership that could ultimately turn around the fate of Africa. My biggest take away from this presentation is that a successful leader needs to be ethical, open-minded, and responsible. The next task we encountered this week was that of filling out a leadership profile. By filling out the profile, I found that I have a good content knowledge base, communicate well with my peers, but need to tend more attention curriculum development. We also took several surveys that helped me realize that I am an adaptive assertive leader, who lacks imagination. Finally, we were to read the first chapter of "How to Thrive as a Teacher Leader." I found this book to be very direct, explaining how leaders should be professional, anticipatory, and empathetic.
From a personal/professional standpoint, the work from this week has helped me realize that I have certain characteristics that are very beneficial for being a leader (knowledge, logical reasoning skills, and compassion, for example). However I do need to work on being more imaginative, along with devoting a little bit more time to curriculum development and monitoring. This was an exciting first week of class, and I'm looking forward to our future thought-provoking lessons/tasks.
Jared, I too felt the biggest take away from the video was the ethical characteristics of leaders. Often when you see a country or a group of people be unsuccessful, it is due to lack of leadership. Often that leadership is worried about just themselves and do not think about how what they do effects others. If more people lead with the well being of other people in mind, just maybe we would be living with a lot less headaches than we currently have.
ReplyDeleteAs someone who has sought out and embraced leadership roles my entire life, I still think it is valuable to evaluate your leadership characteristics from time to time. It sounds like you learned something about yourself through these assessments. I think we can all work on being more imaginative. I believe it was Einstein who said, "Imagination is more important than knowledge."
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