After a conversation on Twitter and reading this inspiring blog post, I thought about one of my turning points last year in my first year as a principal.
After I read the book, “The Leader in Me”, I was inspired by the thought that every child could be a leader. I will be honest, until I read this book, I did not even think about it. I believe in distributed leadership with staff and have for a long time, but the thought that every child could be a leader was foreign to me. When I was finished with the book, I was determined.
What I really noticed when I started looking for the “leadership” in each child, was not that there were doing anything differently, but I was just all of a sudden looking for it. Now that I started looking for it, I just noticed all of the great things that they were already doing. I could help students now build upon their own leadership skills and just develop what they had already had. The same thing applies for almost anything in life. We can continuously say that school systems are broken, but I do not believe that at all. I am seeing some amazing things from my students and from my colleagues around the world because I have decided to actively look for it and build upon what have I found. There are always things that can improve, but I believe in strengths based leadership; I am going to continue to build upon the great things that are already happening in our schools while also working to continuously improve.
As you start your school year, what are you going to look for in your students? I can guarantee you will find whatever it is.
