Habits of Mind & Leading

As a leader, do you invoke the habits of mind in your leadership? 

Habits of Mind:  modelling, coaching, scaffolding, articulation, reflection, exploration

Modelling - Modelling of leadership behaviours.  If we want others to be leaders, we need to demonstrate what leadership looks like.

Coaching - Helping others to think through what they are trying to do.  Teachers raise questions with each other rather than telling others what to do.

Scaffolding - Providing the content bridges necessary for the task, raising the necessary questions, and giving others, particularly new teachers, the opportunities to explore and perform the task.

Articulation - Explaining what you are thinking about so that thinking is visible to colleagues, parents, and students.

Reflection - Being reflective and thoughtful about the work.  Raising evaluation questions:  What went well today?  Why?  If I did this again, how would I do it differently?

Exploration - Modelling risk taking so others understand that uncertainty is involved in all new learning.



From:  Leadership Capacity for Lasting School Improvement by Linda Lambert
Published by: ASCD (Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development)

Constructivist Leadership

In what ways are you a constructivist leader?

...leadership can be understood as reciprocal, purposeful learning in a community.  Reciprocity helps us build relationships of mutual regard, thereby enabling us to become colearners. And as colearners, we are also coteachers, engaging each other through our teaching and learning approaches.  Adults as well as children learn through the processes of inquiry, participation, meaning and knowledge construction, and reflection.

As leaders, we must bear in mind the learners' views, challenge their beliefs, engage them in assessments that take into account the complexities of the broader context (e.g. learning beyond the classroom), and construct meaning and knowledge through reflection and dialogue.

Constructivist Leaders

• Seek and value teachers' points of view
• Structure the concept of leadership to challenge teachers' belief systems
• Construct meaning through reflection and dialogue
• Structure the life of the school around the Big Picture, not a singular event or small piece of information
• Assess teacher learning in the context of the complexity of the learning organization, not outcomes of isolated events

From:  Leadership Capacity for Lasting School Improvement by Linda Lambert
Published by: ASCD (Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development)

Reflective Leadership - Part 2 of 2

Yesterday, I posed the question: How reflective are you as a leader?  

Today, we'll look at how reflective leaders think.  Here are some of the questions reflective leaders as of themselves:

• What did I learn today?
• Whom did I nurture today?
• What difficult issue did I confront today?
• What is my most important challenge right now?
• What did I do today to make progress on my most important challenge?
• ......and......If I were to do it again, how would I do it differently?

Adapted from:  The Learning Leader by Douglas Reeves
Published by: ASCD - the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development

Reflective Leadership - Part 1 of 2

How reflective are you as a leader?

Reflective leaders take time to think about the lessons learned, record their small wins and setbacks, document conflicts between values and practice, identify the difference between idiosyncratic behaviour and long-term pathologies, and notice trends that emerge over time.

From: The Learning Leader by Dougles Reeves
Published by: ASCD - the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development

** Check in again tomorrow to find out how reflective leaders think.

Celebrate, Recognize, Reinforce, Reward

As a leader, do you Celebrate, Recognize, Reinforce, and Reward your staff?

The kind of significant, sustained improvement that we need in [organizations] will not occur in an isolated, free-lance culture, where no one knows what anyone else is doing or what each other's operative goals are.  That is a system in disarray.

[Organizations] improve when purpose and effort unite.  One key is leadership that recognizes its most vital function: to keep everyone's eyes on the prize of [improvement].  The crush of competing agendas and distractions does not make that focus easy.

One of the most effective means to cultivate a goal-oriented culture is to regularly reinforce and recognize improvement efforts, both privately and publicly. 

From: Results by Mike Schmoker
(Published by: ASCD - The Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development)

Doing the right work

Are you leading people to do the 'right work'?

"...the downfall of low-performing [organizations] is not their lack of effort and motivation; rather, it is poor decisions regarding what to work on.  So the problem in low-performing [organizations] is not getting people to work, it is getting people to do the 'right work'."

from: School Leadership that Works by Marzano, Waters, & McNulty
(ASCD - Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, and McREL - Mid-continent Research for Education and Learning)

In times of challenge

When you are challenged as a leader, what resources do you draw on?

"In the midst of tough times, just believing in yourself isn't necessarily enough to get you through adversity in a healthy way.  You need another building block to lean heavily on: 'I have the resources available to support me.' " 

"Reaching out for support is not a sign of a personal weakness that you can't take care of things by yourself. Believing that you have the resources to draw upon is a sign of strength."

    From: Resilient School Leaders by Patterson & Kelleher
    (ASCD - Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development)