Philosophy+of+Leadership

=Beginning of Program: =

I am a highly organized person. I believe in getting things done and do not procrastinate. I also am a good listener and am always open to the ideas of others even if I do not always agree with them. I believe that these are important leadership qualities. My philosophy of leadership in my role as a team leader is to be fair, encouraging and willing to make decisions and not to worry about making enemies. The ability to persuade others to be open to change is another quality that is essential in a good leader and this is probably what I struggle with the most.

Above all the number one goal of a leader in education has to be to do what is best for students!

=End of Program:= The Leadership in Educational Systems course had a huge impact on my understanding of leadership. Not only did I learn about the types of leaders and leadership theories, but I gained insight to issues and changes taking place in education today. Razik and Swanson state best what I feel is the base of my leadership philosophy: To be an effective leader in the 21st century, one must take a collegial rather than a hierarchical or authoritarian approach (2010).

Being a leader means bringing change with the goal of improvement. For change to be effective, goals for change must:


 * be necessary
 * have a clear purpose
 * have clear and consistent objectives
 * be practical and not too complex (Razik & Swanson, 2010)

The following realities of today's world are also in the forefront when I consider my leadership philosophy:
 * Success will depend on skills and attitudes – creativity and innovation are key.
 * Only 1/3 of all students are reaching proficiency in high school in math, science, reading and writing.
 * We must maintain worldwide leads in technology and research.
 * Schools have to do a better job in educating minorities or the education level of the future will be lower.
 * We need more math science technology engineering graduates. – The prediction is that 90% will come from Asia in the future.
 * Gaining support for public education will be more difficult as poverty (1/3 all kids live in poverty) and the number of people who do not have school-age children (2/3 households have no children) increases. (Razik & Swanson, 2010)

Having an official leadership role as team leader (similar to department head) has forced me to reevaluate my philosophy of leadership and what kind of leader I want to be. I need to have a strong, student-centered vision, collaborative style of leadership where all involved have the chance to provide input about any potential changes and finally the ability to make decisions based on best practice and impartiality.

<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">When I started the program, I had already accepted the position of team leader for the German and French departments and was in the position for 5 months. I was one of the youngest members of the team and became frustrated almost immediately as the other members, who were very experienced teachers, did not see any reason for change. I saw a major hole in our curriculum namely the speaking abilities of our students. Our program put an emphasis on writing and grammar. This resulted in producing students with great writing abilities but when they opened their mouths to speak, they could not participate in a conversation effectively. <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">The French group did not see this as a part of their vision for their group and ultimately they broke away to work on their own things. When I think about it now, it was the right decision. Each world language has a different vision and goals and it was wrong to group us together. Had I used an authoritarian approach here, the result would have been disastrous. The other teachers would have gone through the motions but would have never bought into the change because it is not a priority to them. Leadership now and in the future needs to be more collaborative to be effective. As a German group we then brainstormed what kind of activities we could do to increase the speaking ability of our students. It was imperative to get this input from the other teachers and ultimately we began implementing some of the activities and only time and data will tell us if our students are improving their speaking abilities.

<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">Another example of using my leadership abilities in my department was when I had implemented changes in the hope of increasing the accuracy and complexity of student writings. Bay Port just started the International Baccalaureate (IB) program and world language is a core subject in this program. Students that choose to take IB German will be expected to have much higher writing abilities than what our current program achieves. Since I was chosen to be the IB German teacher, I immediately began to think of ways to improve student writing. I did some research about best practices and joined a listserve where I discussed this issue with over a hundred other German teachers. I then developed my plan of action which included introducing three new teaching strategies to be used in IB German.

<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">1.Specific training in lexical fluency and proficiency. They were taught specific complex structures and phrases to use in their writing. <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">2.The IB German students participated in a weekly blog that gave them extra writing practice. <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">3.The IB German students had to produce an essay every two weeks, revise it after receiving teacher feedback and produce a final draft. The control group did this as well but only four times during the year. All essays were graded using the IB rubrics.
 * <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">Teaching strategies used with the IB German students: **

<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">Last year was my first year teaching IB German and these strategies were used. The additional teaching strategies and the impact they have on student writing abilities became the focus of my research paper for EDL 786. The control group was the standard curriculum and ways of teaching that my colleague and I have always used. I informed my colleagues that I would be making these changes but did not ask them to buy into them right away. Only as the year progressed did I start sharing the results of the changes.

<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">Through my work as a team leader, I have learned to reflect about every decision I make. I have also discovered that a good leader does not act like a tank, trying to push his/her ideas on everyone. A good leader seeks the ideas and advice of others and is able to make decisions based off the input from others and data to back it up.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt;">Razik, T. A., & Swanson, A. D. (2010). //<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt;">Fundamental concepts of educational leadership and management //<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt;"> (3rd ed.). Boston: Allyn & Bacon.

<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">media type="custom" key="19710082"