Dimensions Of An Effective Leader

Viviane Robinson: An Effective Leader

Key Points:

• Make a difference to the learning, well being of their students

5 Dimensions of Student- Centered Leadership 

• Setting and communicating clear goals- gain commitment of all those involved 
• Clear goals align staff capabilities to achieve goals and prevent staff burn out 
• To align goals with strategic resourcing, allows staff to see goals with initiatives being implemented with money spent.    
• Strategic Thinking, asking questions and challenging assumptions
• Quality of teaching, where leaders are involved in this students do better. This does not mean more classroom visits but shared theory of teaching quality = collective responsibility. 
• Develop the capacity of teachers, be open minded about what that is and how to achieve this. What has been taught and what students have or have not learnt. This should be collaborative (expertise is not on one person). Judge the effectiveness of teacher professional learning  on the impact on the students. 
• Safe and secure environment for both staff and students. 
• Teachers feel respected
• Students feel their teachers care about them and their learning
• School and classroom routines protect students learning 

Three interrelated capabilities: 

• Using deep knowledge of teaching and learning to 
• Solve complex school-based problems
• Building relational trust with staff, parents, and student

Student centered leadership needs the skillful direction with the 3 capabilities with the work of the 5 dimensions.  

An exercise that could be done s a discussion with the senior leadership team around the emphasis of the 5 dimensions. 

Reflection: 

• Relational Trust?? I am thinking more and more about this element of leadership. 
• Do I have it as a leader? How can I develop it? Why is it important to me? 

Dimensions Of An Effective Leader

Viviane Robinson: An Effective Leader

Key Points:

• Make a difference to the learning, well being of their students

5 Dimensions of Student- Centered Leadership 

• Setting and communicating clear goals- gain commitment of all those involved 
• Clear goals align staff capabilities to achieve goals and prevent staff burn out 
• To align goals with strategic resourcing, allows staff to see goals with initiatives being implemented with money spent.    
• Strategic Thinking, asking questions and challenging assumptions
• Quality of teaching, where leaders are involved in this students do better. This does not mean more classroom visits but shared theory of teaching quality = collective responsibility. 
• Develop the capacity of teachers, be open minded about what that is and how to achieve this. What has been taught and what students have or have not learnt. This should be collaborative (expertise is not on one person). Judge the effectiveness of teacher professional learning  on the impact on the students. 
• Safe and secure environment for both staff and students. 
• Teachers feel respected
• Students feel their teachers care about them and their learning
• School and classroom routines protect students learning 

Three interrelated capabilities: 

• Using deep knowledge of teaching and learning to 
• Solve complex school-based problems
• Building relational trust with staff, parents, and student

Student centered leadership needs the skillful direction with the 3 capabilities with the work of the 5 dimensions.  

An exercise that could be done s a discussion with the senior leadership team around the emphasis of the 5 dimensions. 

Reflection: 

• Relational Trust?? I am thinking more and more about this element of leadership. 
• Do I have it as a leader? How can I develop it? Why is it important to me? 

Relational Trust

Reading by: Anthony S. Bryk and Barbara Schneider
Educational Leadership

Key Points
What is Relational Trust? 

• Agreement of each role(personal obligations/expectations)
• All participates remain dependent on each others to achieve desired outcomes and feel empowered by their hard work. 
• Need for social respect, without this social exchanges will discontinue
• Personal regard: doing above the formal requirements of the job. This is an interesting point, and team members have discussed this point as part of judgement against teacher performance. 
• Competence 
• Personal Integrity 
• Strong relational trust supports reform, people feel safe to experiment 
• Relational trust allows for improvement, they can assume risk, handle organisational conflict and take on extra work. 
• Build relational Trust day to day social exchanges 
• Trust grows where actions validate those expectations 
• The consistency between words and actions affirms personal integrity. 

Reflection: 

• I know I hold strong personal integrity along with competence. I think staff know my knowledge and expertise within teaching and value that input. 
• Feedback from staff  I know I don't have enough daily interactions as I am always in the office working. I need to spend more times in the classroom with students and teachers. I also need to make sure I am in the staff room talking with staff during break times. 
• When setting up a date and time to do something, stick with it at all times to Validate actions. School life is busy for everyone so stick to the plan. 

Relationships are Key

Main points from Leading from the Middle:

• Have multiple relationships within the school and community 
• All relationships require trust

Ways you can build trust: 

• Showing an interest in the careers and aspirations, encouragement to take on new roles
• Provide PD
• Provide supporting environment with appropriate resources 
• Open and transparent through the appraisal system 
• Observations and being observed 
• Participating in PD
• Encouraging innovations that improve students learning
• Encourage discussion within teams 
• Developing collective ownership, shared decision making 
• Reflect critically as a team on their progress 
• Taking on new challenges/including changes in relationships

Reflection: 

The areas that I feel I have strength in are:

• The knowledge and the practice and being transparent 
• Trying to encourage discussion within the team 
• I am developing mechanisms that lead to strong discussion or discussion of current practice  

Development: 

• Reflecting together as a team, How well are we doing? Where are we heading? 
• Instead of my passionate opinions driving the team to make a shared decision
• I questions how transparent feedback and support is 

Quote

I came across this (can't remember where I found it or seen it, just in my notes):

Openly disclose own views without closing or restraining other views.

I think it is something I need to take into consideration more when I have strong viewpoints about pedagogy. I can shut team members down. It is a fine balance with excellent practice with knowledge and taken into account other peoples view points.

Quote

I came across this (can't remember where I found it or seen it, just in my notes):

Openly disclose own views without closing or restraining other views.

I think it is something I need to take into consideration more when I have strong viewpoints about pedagogy. I can shut team members down. It is a fine balance with excellent practice with knowledge and taken into account other peoples view points.

Teaching as Inquiry

Main points of importance:

• Improve student outcomes
• Help to learn from your own practice
• Identify outcomes through doing
• Evidence based strategies Change/Evaluate/impact
• Monitoring Students Progress (Learning, focusing and teaching) 
• Questions to consider: What do I need to change? What has happened as a result? Do I need to change anything else? What are my needs as a learner? What are my students needs as learners? What are the teachers needs as learners? 
• I will always bring TEACHERS back to how did the impact on the student learning? How does that help raise student achievement?  

Teaching as Inquiry

Main points of importance:

• Improve student outcomes
• Help to learn from your own practice
• Identify outcomes through doing
• Evidence based strategies Change/Evaluate/impact
• Monitoring Students Progress (Learning, focusing and teaching) 
• Questions to consider: What do I need to change? What has happened as a result? Do I need to change anything else? What are my needs as a learner? What are my students needs as learners? What are the teachers needs as learners? 
• I will always bring TEACHERS back to how did the impact on the student learning? How does that help raise student achievement?  

What is Important to me as a Leader

The Purpose
A stronge moral purpose

• To raise student achievement. All students (no matter where they come from) should leave school being well connected, resilient, self aware and with a curiosity about learning. 
• They should achieve academically, socially, and emotionally to be able to fully participate in our ever changing world, becoming a GLOBAL CITIZEN. 
• Becoming a leader I wanted to make a great impact on student achievement, not just with my own class, and be able to provide every child with the best possible chance to achieving. 
• The use of data is important to me (GEEKY just a little). I like to be able to think things through and solve problems through collaboration and reflect on the impact of this. 
• I have a very strategic way of thinking. 

Passion

• I love my job (lucky). When interviewing people for a position I always look for people who are passionate about what they do. You can't give people passion along with critical thinking. 
• I never want to stop learning and trying new things. 
• I want to pass on that passion to other people and work with them.

People

• Everyone is a leader and contributes to the leadership within a school. 
• Supporting staff to take ownership of their own professional development. 
• As a leader you want to do 30% of the talking and the 70% to come from the other people.
• Reflective when working with people and not reactive. 
• Making sure words match the action. 
• Creating a positive school environment for everyone to develop and learn. 
• Frank and open conversations and being an active listener. 

Personality

• What drives you to be the leader you are. Important to acknowledge your own strengths and weaknesses. 
• At this point my knowledge, passion, commuication and expertise are the strongest points and I really need to develop relationships based around trust but also show more of my fun side with staff at appropriate times. 
• At times I can come across and too professional and series. I have always believed I am at work to do a job so get it done. I also need to make sure all staff feel valued and respected. 

The Beginning of my Leadership Reflection so Far

This is the leadership Model set out by the document Leading Through the middle. (Ministry of Education 2012)

Factors affecting the success of middle and senior leaders

There are a number of factors that influence the success of those in middle and senior leadership roles. These include:

• leadership and trust that emerges out of expertise first, not position;

• leaders’ support for and active engagement in planning how vision, policies, and practices are put into effect;

• a team culture, where the whole leadership team seeks opportunities to collaborate and actively cultivates and develops leadership capability;

• sound planning and resourcing of middle and senior leadership roles and activities;

• negotiated job descriptions that balance the management and educational leadership aspects of the role (Cranston, Tromans, and Reugebrink, 2004; Farnham, 2009);

• opportunities for leaders to engage in professional development and learning;

• school use of research evidence to inform change and develop practices that will directly or indirectly improve student outcomes. 

I feel that this is where my leadership journey began. I was promoted through my knowledge and expertise in the classroom. Now I look back and think at the beginning of my leadership I relied heavily on Systems and pedagogy and not enough on relationships/partnerships.

This is where I want to really investigate  and explore my leadership skills over the next few years. I want to ensure as a leader all staff feel motivated and supported as a team to raise student achievement. t