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Evolving Views on Shared Leadership

This document discusses how the author's beliefs about leadership have changed through their Shared Leadership class. It begins by explaining that the author used to think leadership was limited to administration, but now understands all school members can be leaders. The author discusses how interviews, exercises, readings and tests in the class transformed their understanding of effective leadership involving collaboration across teams. The author also discusses how their view of personality types contributing diverse perspectives in teams has changed. They conclude that shared leadership allows schools to work as a community towards shared goals, with each member contributing skills and ideas for student success.

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219 views3 pages

Evolving Views on Shared Leadership

This document discusses how the author's beliefs about leadership have changed through their Shared Leadership class. It begins by explaining that the author used to think leadership was limited to administration, but now understands all school members can be leaders. The author discusses how interviews, exercises, readings and tests in the class transformed their understanding of effective leadership involving collaboration across teams. The author also discusses how their view of personality types contributing diverse perspectives in teams has changed. They conclude that shared leadership allows schools to work as a community towards shared goals, with each member contributing skills and ideas for student success.

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Running Head: LEADERSHIP #4

Shared Leadership Assignment #4:


Changed Beliefs about Leadership
Angela Brown
St. Thomas University

Changed Beliefs about Leadership

CHANGED BELIEFS ABOUT LEADERSHIP

I have always wondered why schools often do not extend leadership past administration.
Currently many schools are focusing more on the needed leadership responsibilities amongst all
school members and this has made for better learning environments. Through interviewing
schools in Canada, participating in team building exercises, readings, simulations, and
personality tests, my understanding of leadership and what effective leadership entails has
transformed.
Before I entered Shared Leadership class, I thought that shared leadership simply meant a
group of people sharing the tasks at hand and working together with the jobs they have. Walking
through a school, I often saw those with an administration role in their office, occasionally
leaving to observe the rest of the school and ensure the safety and efficiency of everything. The
principal has final say, and everyone else is encouraged to take part in extra-curricular activities
for the students. I am happy to say that this is not so. Principals are leaders of the school, not
managers. They do encourage staff, students, and parents to take part in activities, but they also
encourage and need them to take part in professional learning communities. A school that truly
has shared leadership has many teams for discussing and carrying out major decisions and has
highly skilled leaders who collaborate, and use their knowledge and skills of leadership to affect
change.
All team members have different strengths and skills to share. This has always been a
belief of mine, however I figured it would be better to team up with those you work well with.
This belief was also challenged by the theory of MBTI. The theory behind the MBTI suggests
that we all have a dominant feature in our personality that we exercise most and it is what we are
most skilled at. Thus, it is useful to interact with another personality type within a team because
they may have different ideas, ways of doing things, and perspectives that challenge yours. The
more diverse a team is, the more effective the decision-making and solutions can be. Someone
who has a personality that differs from yours may think of something you would never have
thought of before because they are able to look at the situation or conflict from a different angle.
Not only has my opinions of shared leadership transformed but so has leadership within
schools. School communities need to work together towards a shared goal, and trust each
individual member to share their time, ideas, and skills for the betterment of the school. When
we did the tarp activity in class, we all had to collaborate and trust each other to reach our goal
even though we did not reach it right away. Eventually, we did reach our goal, and we felt far
more proud of one another for doing so than if we had done it on our own. It also ensures that
most are on board with the process and decision created.
Each member needs to accept one another and work together as a whole to create fun
learning communities that advocate for the students, and work with the students. A synergistic
culture of learning is continuous and effective because shared leadership capacity is able to grow
and evolve through time with a variety of highly skilled people, whereas a top-down approach
will never be able to achieve this.

CHANGED BELIEFS ABOUT LEADERSHIP

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