{"id":443,"date":"2022-03-25T13:10:47","date_gmt":"2022-03-25T20:10:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0202\/?p=443"},"modified":"2022-03-25T13:10:47","modified_gmt":"2022-03-25T20:10:47","slug":"the-challenge-of-leadership","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0202\/the-challenge-of-leadership\/","title":{"rendered":"The Challenge of Leadership"},"content":{"rendered":"

As LRNT 525 winds down and each day’s breaking news is increasingly mind-boggling and chaotic, I find myself reflecting on effective leadership, especially in turbulent times. Looking back at <\/span>my first thoughts about leadership<\/span><\/a> and pondering the insights I have gained throughout this course led me to some final thoughts on leaders and the challenges of leadership.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

First, leaders are responsive to changes occurring in the larger, outside world. Sheninger (2019) argued that school leadership must adapt to the increasing ubiquitousness of technology, and \u201charness the power of digital technologies in order to create school cultures that are transparent, relevant, meaningful, engaging, and inspiring\u201d (para. 1). Workman and Cleveland-Innes (2012) emphasized the importance of visionary leaders; people who see a vision for the future and create new pathways to get there. Leading in a positive, meaningful, and visionary way has the power to prepare people and organizations to thrive in a changing world.<\/span><\/p>\n

Second, leaders inspire personal growth in others, and \u201cschools with strong positive culture have people who root for others’ success. They view themselves as a team not competitors. An individual success is the team’s success\u201d (Johnson, 2022<\/a>). Admired leaders influence others by promoting trust, building confidence, and respecting diversity (Castelli, 2016). Inspiring growth in others causes a ripple effect; confident and competent people influence others in the same way and thus the actions of a leader drive increased capacity of the entire organization.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Third, leaders are active participants in their organizations. They employ an empathetic mindset in order to \u201cimagine the world from multiple perspectives\u201d (Ben Mahmoud-Jouini et al., 2016, p. 149) and learn alongside the people they lead. These leaders value keeping their boots on the ground and recognize the importance of collaborating to co-create solutions:\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I have worked with some brilliant school leaders during my career… and some not-so-brilliant ones. The members of the latter group had one thing in common: they all thought themselves above the need to undertake the same professional development as their teachers. (Such, 2022<\/a>)<\/span><\/p>\n

Leaders who know and learn with the people they lead also understand the challenges faced and can offer meaningful and relevant support in a timely fashion.<\/span><\/p>\n

I am in the middle phase of my teaching career and I hope I have many years of learning, teaching, and leading to look forward to. As I continue this journey, further pursuing best practices in leadership and change and applying insights learned will support my future leadership endeavors.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

References<\/b><\/p>\n

Ben Mahmoud-Jouini, S., Midler, C., & Silberzahn, P. (2016). Contributions of design thinking to project management in an innovation context. <\/span>Project Management Journal, 47<\/span><\/i>(2), 144\u2013156. <\/span>https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1002\/pmj.21577<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

Castelli, P. A. (2016). Reflective leadership review: A framework for improving organisational performance. <\/span>The Journal of Management Development<\/span><\/i>, <\/span>35<\/span><\/i>(2), 217\u2013236. <\/span>https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1108\/JMD-08-2015-0112<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

Johnson, B. [@DrBradJohnson]. (2022, March 20). <\/span>Schools with strong positive culture have people who root for others’ success.\u00a0 They view themselves as a team not competitors<\/span><\/i> [Tweet]. Twitter. <\/span>https:\/\/twitter.com\/DrBradJohnson\/status\/1505515870436700160<\/span><\/a>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Sheninger, E. (2019, December 19). Pillars of Digital Leadership. <\/span>International Center for Leadership in Education<\/span><\/i>. <\/span>http:\/\/leadered.com\/pillars-of-digital-leadership\/<\/span><\/a>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Such, C. [<\/span>@Suchmo83<\/span>]. (2022, March 17). <\/span>I have worked with some brilliant school leaders during my career… and some not-so-brilliant ones. The members of<\/span><\/i> [Tweet]. Twitter. <\/span>https:\/\/twitter.com\/Suchmo83\/status\/1504556913614282761<\/span><\/a>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Workman, T., & Cleveland-Innes, M. (2012). Leadership, personal transformation, and management. <\/span>The International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning, 13<\/span><\/i>(4), 313-323. <\/span>https:\/\/doi.org\/10.19173\/irrodl.v13i4.1383<\/span><\/a> \u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As LRNT 525 winds down and each day’s breaking news is increasingly mind-boggling and chaotic, I find myself reflecting on effective leadership, especially in turbulent times. Looking back at my first thoughts about leadership and pondering the insights I have gained throughout this course led me to some final thoughts on leaders and the challenges […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":201,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-443","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-lrnt525"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0202\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/443","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0202\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0202\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0202\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/201"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0202\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=443"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0202\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/443\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":448,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0202\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/443\/revisions\/448"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0202\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=443"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0202\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=443"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0202\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=443"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}