Personal Leadership Platform

Tayler Walsh

University of Mount Union

EL 501 Intro to Leadership and Change Section 01

 In my current organization is located in Gilbert, Arizona, and we are a Kindergarten

through 6th grade school with a population of roughly 950 students and 50 staff members. We

were rated and A school, and were in the top 10% in the state of Arizona for 2017-2018, school

year.

We are about 80% English speaking, 10% Spanish speaking and 10% other languages.

We do have students who come to us on an ILLP where we have to provide services for them, as

English Language Learners. We have a Spanish Emersion program which incorporates dual

language into the learning at our school. The program started three years ago and was only in

kindergarten. Each year we move up a grade level, and this upcoming year the program will be

Kindergarten through 3rd grade. We are very close to an equal amount of male and female

students. We are sitting at roughly 70% Caucasian, 20% Hispanic, and 10% other.

Socio- economically, we are middle to upper class, and the average yearly income is

sitting at about $81,000 per house hold. We are very community driven and have a strong family

dynamic approach. There is a large religious base in our community, which adds to a huge

amount of parent involvement to the culture within our school. We have a very supportive and

active PTO, who help to organize fundraising giving teachers large donations for their

classrooms each year.

My personal philosophy on leadership came down to my core beliefs and instilling a

community of life- long learners in both my staff and the students they teach. My leadership

Philosophy is, “to create a professional and safe working environment for my staff and to create

open communication in order to provide the most effective learning environment for students.”

When thinking about leadership, what it looks like, and how to model it, Stephen Covey and his

book, “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People,” comes to mind. Stephen Covey believes the
purpose of the 7 habits is to, “lead your life in a truly effective way.” (Stephen Covey, 2008)

Using the 7 habits helps set the tone for students and staff to be life- long learners and to take the

lead in it. The 7 habits establishes an environment where the power of leadership is shared

among all stakeholders.

According to Stephen Covey, creating a mission statement and vision, help you

understand the motivation behind your goals. (Stephen Covey, 2008) Establishing a school wide

mission and vision will help direct teachers and students on the path that will help them meet the

overall school wide goals. We have both a mission and a vision for our school. Our mission is,

“This school will support, students and teachers to be leaders of their own journey.” And our

vision is Lead, Engage, Inspire, Learn. Having staff and students create personal mission and

visions, will help them narrow down their own goals in order for them to lead their own journey.

The 7 habits help to give voice to both students and staff and establish high expectations, which

go with my personal values of building trust, community, and having integrity to instill high

expectations in both staff and students.

With any type of change in culture, you will need to get to know your staff, their past and

why they think the way they do, which brings me back to the text “Reading the Room, by, David

Kantor. The book focuses a lot on the importance of getting to know your staff and really

understanding why they think the way they do, and getting to know their past. This in my

opinion, is key to creating that safe working environment. With any staff and or group of

students, there is bound be conflict. Going back to “Reading the Room,” getting to know one

another and understanding why someone thinks the way they do, or believes what they believe

could help another person take a step back and be understanding, where as if they didn’t get to

know the person, they may have had conflict.

 Going back to the 7 habits, a way to ensure success of students and staff is to create what

Stephen Covey calls, Wildy Important Goals. Wildly Important Goals can be made for both a

behavior and, or for academics. Stephen Covey believes that after creating the goals, it is up to

the learner, to track their goals and create action steps as to how they plan to reach their goals.

The goals are always something attainable for that child or teacher, meaning it is set up so they

can feel successful and allows them to be successful where they are in their learning. Students

and staff then hold each other accountable, by forming accountability partners which also goes

back to creating a safe environment with open communication. Stephen Covey said, “Stop

creating goals. Goals are pure fantasy unless you have a specific plan to back them up,” which is

why he created action steps and accountability partners. (Stephen Covey, 2008) The idea of

focusing on goals that are attainable to you and your strengths and what you are capable of

reaching, brings me back to and is supported by the book, Strength Based Leadership, which

states that the most successful people are able to focus on their strengths instead of their

weaknesses. (Rath, 2009)

Creating Professional Learning Communities within the school is a way to keep staff

accountable as well, and to make sure that high expectations are being met by both students and

staff. According to Dufour and Eaker, collaborating within a staff and using Professional

Learning Communities is “A systematic process in which we work together, interdependently, to

analyze and impact professional practice in order to improve our individual and collective

results.”(Dufour & Eaker, 2010) Having a staff that talks about data and ways they can improve,

instills the culture within my leadership philosophy.

When sitting down and thinking about my personal leadership goals, I thought about

things I wanted to take into account, such as what areas could I grow in and who will my growth
effect. I also thought about where I want to focus my growth as someone who wants to be in

charge of an entire staff and body of students in the future. In thinking, I found that to be the best

leader I can be for my school, I need to think about how I can be better for students, teachers and

all stakeholders in the community. My first goal is, “to create a safe and productive learning

environment that encourages students to learn to their fullest potential.” This goal will really help

me work on creating an environment for the most effective teaching and the most effective

learning, so that all students are able to feel successful. My next goal is, “to provide leadership

opportunities for my teachers, in hopes to create a staff of life-long learners.” I feel that investing

in teachers and creating highly effective teachers will create a scaffold affect when it comes to

student learning and student achievement. My next goal is, “to include the stakeholders in the

professional learning community of my staff and students.” This goal will help to create the safe

feeling environment for the students and will also help the staff to feel supported. I feel that these

personal goals link to the overall mission and vision of my organization because all three of them

relate back to the overall goal of students and teachers becoming leaders of their own path, to

their fullest ability, while including all stakeholders within the community to support them both

along the way. According to Stephen Covey, “goals, should directly align with your mission and

vision,” and I feel I achieved that. (Stephen Covey, 2008)

The goal that I would like to focus on and implement a plan of action for is my goal that

directly effects teachers which is, “As a leader I will provide leadership opportunities for

teachers, in hopes to create a staff of life-long learners.” I have selected this goal because I feel

that in the education field, the most important part is the teachers and what they have to offer. It

is crucial for them to continue their learning in order to stay with the latest treads and the newest

research. I also think it is the job of the administrator to encourage and give opportunities where
they see best fit. There are many ways to achieve this goal, but the way that I plan to focus on

“Professional Capital,” which is something I have been learning about in the book, Professional

Capital, by Andy Hargreaves and Michael Fullen. According to the book, Professional Capital is

something that all of the highest performing educational systems use. It is broken down into

three parts human, social and decisional. Human and social capital are both based on teachers

learning together and focusing on student learning in their meetings. We already use the

professional leaning community model, where teachers sit down once a week as a teams and talk

about data and students, which does cover both focusing on students learning and allows teachers

to learn from each other. I think this plan we already have in place creates a wonderful

community inside the campus but to take it a step further and to help teachers learn from other

professionals not on their grade level teams.

To follow through my plan, I went to my administration and asked them if I could do a

Professional Development on “Professional Capital.,” and all I learned from the book. I also

asked them if I can be in charge of coming up with other areas, teachers in our school are

knowledgeable about through professional developments they have been to, or a master program

they are in or was in. After reading what Andy and Michael had to say about investing in

teachers, to have long- term high quality teaching, this plan instantly came to my mind and I ran

with it. After receiving there feedback about me planning teacher lead professional

developments, I plan to go to our leadership team which is made up of knowledgeable teachers,

from each grade level. I feel that if I start with them then I can get feedback from them on who

else would be a good person to plan a PD.

After presenting the idea to my administration, I felt that I gained a lot of insight on

putting knowledge learned to good use and allowing myself to overcome fear of rejection. Their
reaction was surprising to me because they liked the idea and are going to let me go forward with

my plan. They will allow one teacher a month to do a short 15 minute professional development

on a topic they approve of. They felt that teachers learning from each other would be more

effective than them standing in front of us each time, and we all have different skill sets to bring

to the table. A challenge they addressed to me, was finding teachers who are comfortable

standing up in front of their colleagues and presenting.

I have not yet spoke with the leadership team about my plan, but plan to do it the week

before returning to school in July to really get the ball rolling and attempt to schedule all

professional developments for the first semester to get it approved by administration ahead of

time, also allowing those teachers adequate time to prepare.

 References:

Covey, S. R., Covey, S., Summers, M., & Hatch, D. K. (2014). The leader in me: How schools and

parents around the world are inspiring greatness, one child at a time. New York: Simon &

Schuster Paperbacks.

DuFour, R., Reeves, D. B., & DuFour, R. B. (2018). Responding to the Every Student Succeeds Act

with the PLC at work process. Bloomington, IN: Solution Tree Press.

Kantor, D. (2012). Reading the room: Group dynamics for coaches and leaders. San Francisco:

Jossey-Bass.

Hargreaves, A. (2012). Professional capital: Transforming teaching in every school. Moorabbin,

VIC: Hawker Brownlow Education.

Rath, T., & Conchie, B. (2009). Strengths based leadership: Great leaders, teams, and why people

follow. New York: Gallup Press.