Trustworthy Leadership

This entire section of the reading made me think of something a fellow administrator in Anderson District One said to me. He said, "We need buy-in from our teachers not compliance." This entire section supports what he was telling me. You want teachers to be a part of the decision making process and trust what we as administrators as them to do, but we don't want them to do something simply because we told them to. No matter what a leader is trying to accomplish, if the followers only comply with what they are told, they will never be as effective as a group of people who support and trust the decisions of their leader.

As far as the Trustworthy Leadership Matrix goes, I think it's missing a constituency group. Where are the policymakers? If teachers and administrators do not trust the policy/standards/accountability systems, then are the schools the best they can be? Vice versa, if the policymakers do not trust the educators to do their job and do it well, will the policies provide the academic freedom to allow the local school to make decisions that benefit their particular population?

I do think this model is useful though. It's particularly helpful when considering the relationships at the school level. "These five consderations (benevolence, honesty, openness, reliability, and competence) domonstrate the importance o ftrust to building successful schools" (Jossey-Bass, 2007, 99). Then, when looking at the jobs of a principal at the school level, the model addresses most of the ISLLC Standards--vision, instructional leader, managing, collaborating, ethical leader, and political leader. The functions of a school leader include the five mentioned in the model, and I would say that being an instructional leader is part of modeling and coaching. Ethical leadership and collaboration are included mediating. Ultimately, the entire matrix leads to ethical leadership.

I attended a conference yesterday in Columbia, and Jim Rex addressed changing the culture in our public schools. As I think about what he said as a look closely at this model, he addressed all five of these facets of trust. I think if we are going to improve our public schools and initiate the necessary changes to provide the best education possible, this model is an excellent starting point. Alot of the issues within any oraganization will point back and the leader, and any moral failure will ultimately end up undermining the success of the organization. Back to what Jim Rex's speech, if we are going to provide the quality school system the state needs, he says we must be able to trust those in the decision-making positions to make decisions that benefit our schools and our students.

Level 5 Leadership

I will post more later in the week, but after tonight's conversation there are a few things I wanted to say now before I forgot about them.

1. Is there truly an effective way to measure leadership? I would say that the only way would be to survey and interview the people being led and see what their opinions of the leader are. This is something I want to know more about. In education, how can you judge if a school has a good leader? There is no "one-size fits all" cookie cutter for an effective principal. Plus, principals are too often judged only on test scores which is unfair. A terrible leader can benefit from great teachers and vice versa.

2. How do leaders initiate change? Leaders must be able to build relationships within those people that are being led. An effective leader can iniate change by being an effective communicator and providing a clear vision for what is needed and wanted. Leaders must have a more than adequate understanding of the values of the people being led so that the leader can do an effective job of creating buy-in to the vision. Leaders must show the need for change and be willing to work with the people being led and not just tell them what to do.

I will post more

August 25

Here is my blog.
I'm hoping to get comfortable with this technology, but I am hoping to figure it out here pretty soon.

Looking forward to working with everyone.