Reflections based on the article ¨Ten Big
Ideas of School Leadership
Here
are some of my reflections on each of the 10 ideas.
1) Your
School Must Be For All Kids 100 Percent of the Time.
I agree
100%. This idea has been written for thousands of years, but sometimes not much
used. I like to refer to this idea as “Unus pro omnibus, omnes pro uno”*
2)
Create a Vision, Write It Down, and Start Implementing It.
Again I
agree 100%. Einstein would agree too. As he said, nothing happens until
something moves. And leaders are
responsible for making things move…
3) I
would say hire people who agree with WHY you do things**
4) In a
leadership training course I did once, a British trainer suggested that
sometimes we had to pretend to be swans: smooth on top, but paddling hard
underneath. In American English duck seems to be used instead of swan***
5) I do
NOT agree with this! Leaders do not have to have a bad day when their
underlings have one. And even if teachers had a dark magic power to force their
principal follow their mood (sometimes they do) there is a mistake in the
calculation. 180 can be bigger than 70 times 3….. if many teaches have their
bad day at the same time.
A very
good coach**** showed me how different the Spanish words “ocuparse” and “preocuparse”
are. Ocuparse means to do something actively. Preocuparse means to worry. They
both sound similar in Spanish, but they mean different things. Winners do the
former, losers the latter.
6) Take
Responsibility for the Good and the Bad. I agree with this. The same very good
Spanish coach I mentioned earlier **** encouraged me to use the word “responsibility”
and avoid the use of the word “guilt”. This trick works very well regardless of
who is responsible for something and whether the outcome is positive or not.
7) You
Have the Ultimate Responsibility. I agree. Winners assume responsibility.
Loosers waste the time finding out who was guilty. See trick above.
8) Have
a Bias for Yes. YES!! I agree 100% with this. Yes makes us move forward, a “no”
just stops things. If you just want someone or something to move in the other
direction then the trick is indeed to think, "How can I make this request
into a yes?"
9)
Consensus is Overrated. I agree with this, and I think this can be extended to
other contexts. Politics are everywhere.
10)
Large Change Needs to be Done Quickly. I do NOT agree. Sometimes quick changes
do not allow time to adjust. I would correct the sentence and say “If something
needs to change, then it better start ASAP”.
* Unus pro
omnibus, omnes pro uno is a Latin phrase that means "One for all, all for
one" in English. It is known as being the motto of Alexandre Dumas' Three
Musketeers and is also the traditional motto of Switzerland
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unus_pro_omnibus,_omnes_pro_uno).
** See Sinek's TED
talk “How great leaders inspire action” (http://www.ted.com/talks/simon_sinek_how_great_leaders_inspire_action.html)
***(From a news
story about Louisville) Mayor Jerry Abramson's first day on the job as mayor of
the newly merged city and county government: " 'How's it going?' he asked,
reaching for his lunch, from a café nearby. 'How wild and crazy it is?' 'Like a
duck on water,' Deputy Mayor Joan Riehm replied. 'That means we're smooth on
top but paddling like hell underneath,' Abramson explained." The Courier
Journal, Louisville, Ky., Jan. 7, 2003.
**** A. Cortes,
from www.EducationalPaths.com
This comment has been added to the original article!
ReplyDeletehttp://www.edutopia.org/stw-maine-project-based-learning-ideas-principal-leadership#comment-117291
Thank you for your reflections Alvaro, I like the way you shared your perspectives and response to the statements, and then giving your own agreement or disagreement, a nice way to share out about the article.
ReplyDeleteI agree with the idea if a teacher has a bad day the Principal does to, I think in such situation keeping positive for others who might not be can be a nice support system to tap into.
I agree consensus is overrated, it is an important process to engage with but at the beginning one should be clear and transparent that the final decision is going to made by a certain person or stakeholder group.
In regards to the change process I think rapid and slow both have their places, often it has to do with the culture and climate and also what you are engaging with in the change process.
Thanks for your reflections and post