Stepping in the direction of Leadership
Stepping into Leadership
What makes us want to lead? We’re all leaders in a sense: we oversee a classroom;we design and execute our students’ learning; we make the daily decisions that can greatly determine how they will progress in not only their academic growth, but also their development as human beings, as they are under our leadership for a vast portion of the day. We also serve as leaders in our schools-for initiatives, programs, committees...the list is endless. If anyone asks a teacher what it is that they do, the answer would likely result in a myriad of answers that all encompass some element of needing to take control of something or someone else–and likely balancing the many elements of the myriad at the same time.
But what makes us take that next step? Maybe even that leap to say, “I’d like to manage more. I’d like to be a decision-maker, a figurehead, the one who when the buck stops, the “here” where it stops is at my feet.” For some of us, aspiration might be pure. It might simply emanate from a drive to achieve and excel. For some, it is born from frustration. It’s from years of watching others do things in ways we question, and knowing deep down we’d do it differently, and hoping that if we did, there’d be a different result. For some, frustration with what could be considered mismanagement leaves a chip on our shoulders, but a chip that burns, gnawing at us to push forth because the knowledge that we might do something differently manifests as more of a determination that we certainly would do it differently. Yet, it could even be as simple as a desire to help people and do good, knowing that we could. All these reasons for attempting to move into leadership have legitimacy. However, it’s if we choose to actually act that drives the wedge between staying stationary and venturing toward that ever-evolving path toward leading.
In the very first class of our Education Leadership Masters at Harvard, we were to prepare for an exercise called “Stepping into Leadership” where we were given a real-world scenario that was quite complex, then poised at the moment where as the principal, we’d be meeting with the superintendent, needing to explain the situation and what we’d suggest as next steps. Except, the role-playing ended with our role, as one of the foremost superintendents in the country, who’d dealt with fallout from a tragic national event that played out right in his district, was the “player” on the other end of the discussion. We told we’d be cold-called on, so no one would know who would have to spar with the professional who’d worked at such a high level in real life. (Mind you, this was the very first class in a two-year program). And guess who the professor and director of our program called on to be the “principal” in front of everyone–me.
They might say there is no preparing you to lead; you need to just do it. While at the same time, there is certainly a lot that you can do to prepare to lead–(see historian Doris Kearns Goodwin’s published works.) But if it’s in you, and you even have that smallest spark of an inkling that you could or should or want to do more…do it. The world of education needs you.
