Leadership Style

We have been focusing on leaders and leadership in our masters program.  One leadership activity that I have enjoyed is a book study.  I choose the book, "Nice Bike," by Mark Scharenbroich.  It is about how to make meaningful connections as a leader.  The book is made up of the author's different experiences with people who are leaders and are making a difference in their own way.  I really like having the opportunity to discuss the book with others and share our own experiences and opinions about the book.  Many of the stories are just quick moments in time where a person is kind and does something to help someone and make them have a better day.  This type of leadership really resonates with me.  My leadership style is not one where I am the one who has the big game day motivational speech that pumps everyone up.  We do need those types of leaders, but we also need the people that do the small things that improve our surroundings.  I like to sit back take in a situation and then help to summarize and support people to solve a problem together.  As a teacher and an educator, I want to be approachable and have people feel they can always come to me for help.  When I walk through the high school halls during passing time, I make eye contact with as many students as possible and smile at them to just do something small to improve a child's day.

Another leadership activity that we did was identify our leadership style.  My style is adaptive assertive.  Some of the things that describe this type of leader are dependable, hard working, and highly organized.  The opposite side of these types of leaders is that they can be compulsive and unimaginative.  For the most part, I think this leadership style matches me.  I don't like to be the leader in front of everyone, I like to be in the background helping everything work smoothly.  I think others see me exhibiting this style of leadership and are able to come to me when they need help or want to know how I have taught a lesson or implemented something in my classroom.  The article describing adaptive assertive leaders give some interesting ideas for this type of leader to consider.  One thing that it says these type of leaders can do is to tolerate chaos and go with the flow.  As I teach longer, I am getting better at allowing controlled chaos happen.  Knowing my leadership style can be helpful as a leader in my classroom and the school because I know my strengths and can apply them in areas that are needed.  Taking the leadership survey was interesting and helpful to see how there are different types of leaders and for communities to work well there needs to be all kinds of people that contribute.