In the Zone This Month: February 2009
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The Courage to Lead
by Christine Pankey
School leaders who want to be effective and improve student achievement will instill courage into their leadership practices and work to broker needed change and growth when and where they can. Have the courage to be transparent and unashamed to acknowledge your principle-based or moral value system and embrace the dissenting voices on your staff. Enable and encourage teacher leadership in your school; do not be threatened.
School leaders who want to be effective and improve student achievement will instill courage into their leadership practices and work to broker needed change and growth when and where they can.
Leadership means being approachable to students, staff, parents, and all other stakeholders; it means being a member of an empowered team. It took courage to knock that rock off Johnnie’s shoulder in first grade and it continues to take courage to accept any of the dares that come our way in life.
Many of us do not bring courage to our leadership practices for a variety of reasons: we are new to leadership, we have learned to cloak, to hide, to suffer in silence and not to trust our own instincts. Mostly, it is easier to maintain the status quo or shift the decision-making responsibility onto central office just in case staff disagrees with the new idea or directive. Maya Angelou said it best: “Without courage, we cannot practice any other virtue with consistence. We can’t be kind, true, merciful, generous, or honest.” Students need all of these attributes to exist in the adults in their lives.
The courage to lead means honoring the nonnegotiable goals of the district while working the goals of your school based on an inclusive needs assessment and input from all stakeholders. For example, get permission from the district to visit a high performing school on the next waiver day when substitute teachers are not needed; this visit is vital to the goals of your school. The trade-off is a promise to spend the next three staff meetings presenting the district's professional development plan for that waiver day. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.
It is critical for educational leaders to lead by example. This can be done by modeling the strategies that staff are asked to implement in their classrooms. So, take the plunge, go into a classroom and model what differentiated instruction looks like in an eighth-grade math class. If you have not been a math teacher in a past life, this step will take enormous courage but you will gain invaluable leadership capital for your efforts.
The courage to lead means honoring the nonnegotiable goals of the district while working the goals of your school based on an inclusive needs assessment and input from all stakeholders.
The courage to lead also means showing up and being present in every classroom on a regular basis without excuses. Courageous leaders will schedule classroom visits into their day without fear of teachers viewing these walk-throughs as observations or evaluations. Nothing will deter them from “knowing” what is happening behind closed doors. In addition, leaders will have the courage to provide feedback to their teachers.
Leaders who lead with courage today (addressing and resolving those thorny issues with staff, students, and families) refusing to engage in the game of avoidance will have the freedom, on tomorrow, to embrace new actions and models and push against old paradigms to lead their school from where it is to where it needs to be.
If you have determined a certain path has value for your students, then you must have the courage to stay the course.
Stay the course even when it is unpopular and difficult to do so. If you have determined a certain path has value for your students then you must have the courage to stay the course. Do not waffle. Do be flexible and amenable to change were necessary but stay the course.
It takes lots of courage to unclench from familiar certainties, put your neck on the chopping block, and hug close to new and unsecured possibilities, but courageous leaders stay the course each day to the good of their students. Be of good courage and lead well.
Christine Pankey is an education consultant and retired central office administrator, middle school principal, and elementary school principal.
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