Vision Statement:

"One key to successful leadership is continuous personal change. Personal change is a reflection of our inner growth and empowerment." — Robert E. Quinn
 
According to Fullan effective leaders have a moral purpose (2014).  My vision statement both as a teacher, and as a leader is to create the spark for further knowledge in myself and others.   The world is constantly changing.  Educational technology is not immune to this fast paced change.   Advancements are shaping the way teachers teach and students learn.  This culture of change can be uncomfortable and overwhelming but with the right leadership a new culture can replace the fear and anxiety of change.  Authors, Doug Thomas and John Seely Brown, explain that in a face of rapid change we need a new culture of learning.  One in which teachers don’t have to provide the latest information because the students themselves are taking an active role in creating and molding it (Thomas & Brown, 2011). 


 
Vision Statement Supports School’s Mission:

"Educating our children to realize their potential and contribute in a connected global society”.   — Sitka School District’s Mission Statement
 
My vision statement supports the mission statement of the Sitka School District.  In a culture of learning it is critical that students learn to contribute in a connected global society.  This is not an easy task because nothing is stagnant, everything is constantly changing.     Adapting to global change is not something you read from a scripted curriculum or something that is included in state standards.  It requires teachers and students to adopt a new culture of learning and a growth mindset.

Carol Dweck, author of “Mindset: The New Psychology of Success”, writes that we can learn to fulfill our potential by moving from a “fixed mindset” to a “growth mindset”.  Dweck wrote, “For twenty years, my research has shown that the view you adopt for yourself profoundly affects the way you lead your life. It can determine whether you become the person you want to be and whether you accomplish the things you value” (Popova).  I want to help my students and others I work with to realize their potential and adapt to change.  By implementing the growth mindset at the beginning of the year and I can lay a foundation of growth and adaptation that can continue beyond the walls of the classroom.  I can help my students thrive on challenges of change.  I can help others view failures and new obstacles as opportunities to stretch our abilities and grow. 
 
How teachers and leaders adapt to change:

"If your action inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader.” — John Quincy Adams
 
To successfully lead through change I will use the five components of leadership that author Michael Fullan said are necessary for success in leading through change.  These components are interwoven and together create a framework for leadership.  If I remove any of the components I could have a less stable structure for positive change. 

When I am sharing with others about new technology it is always my moral purpose that drives me. I love seeing others get excited about learning.  The other four components of leadership are also necessary for successful leadership.  I understand change and I am flexible to change. I use relationships to foster collaborative learning.  I realize that as a technology leader it’s not enough to just share information technology, I have to create the context for sharing and creating knowledge. I also know that I need to encourage change but with a clear sense of direction diminishing stress that often accompanies change.  In addition to the five key components I also understand the importance of commitment and the 3 personality characteristics: enthusiasm, hope and energy.

Fullen said that “Change is a double-edged sword.  Its relentless pace these days runs us off our feet.  Yet when things are unsettled, we find new ways to move ahead and to create breakthroughs not possible in stagnant societies” (2014).  The very nature of change means that it can be a very hard thing to lead others through. 
 
How I plan classroom instruction to assist students in adapting to change:

“Designing a class that empowers students to become life-long learners, avid readers, and voracious seekers of knowledge, will have an impact that reverberates for a lifetime and beyond.” -Dave Burgess, Teach Like a Pirate (2012)

In my classroom I like making learning irresistible.  The culture of learning is fueled by curiosity and interest.  Amanda Lang, author of the book “The Power of Why” states, “Curious kids learn how to learn, and how to enjoy it – and that, more than any specific body of knowledge, is what they will need to have in the future” (Wright 2013). 

A culture of learning is necessary to prepare students to compete, succeed and live in the 21st century.  Today’s earning requires students to think for themselves.  I want my students to take control over their learning and be at the center of their education experience. Traditional passive learning must be replaced by active learners, making informed decisions.  I need to continue to have a learner-centered classroom with students as producers.  I need to continue to learn new technologies and provide my students with access to new tools.  I need to continue project-based learning and makerspaces. Learning in the 21st century is a continual process.  It requires time and dedication but we owe it to our students and their future.

I need to adapt to change and remain current in education technology.  This means that I need continuous growth.  Being a leader and a technology mentor for my district is a way that keeps my 21st century skills current.    My fellow teachers rely on me to share with them the latest and greatest.  It requires research and work but it is rewarding.  Collaborating with my colleagues allows us to bounce ideas off of each other and partner together to help each other out. 

I don’t want my students to leave my classroom just being good at “school”.  My classroom environment must engage learning and foster creativity and curiosity. They need to learn how to fail and succeed.  They must learn how to collaborated and communicate in this global world.  These strategies and overarching themes supports my moral purpose as an educator to create a culture of learning that will help them adapt to change.

Being a successful leader and helping others adapt to change requires continuous growth and personal change on my part but it is worth it.  I want to get students, teachers, administers, and families excited about learning and new possibilities.  Thomas and Brown (2011) say it best when they state that “Embracing change means looking forward to what will come next. It means viewing the future as a set of new possibilities, rather than something that forces us to adjust.”
 
Resources:

Burgess, D. (2012). Teach like a Pirate: Increase student engagement, boost your creativity, and transform your life as an educator (p. 2049). San Diego, CA: Dave Burgess Consulting.

Fullan, M. (2014). Leading in a Culture of Change. Somerset, NJ, USA: John Wiley & Sons, Incorporated. Retrieved from http://www.ebrary.com

Popova, Maria. "Fixed vs. Growth: The Two Basic Mindsets That Shape Our Lives." Brain Pickings RSS. Brain Pickings, n.d. <http://www.brainpickings.org/2014/01/29/carol-dweck-mindset/>.

Thomas, Douglas; Seely Brown, John (2011). A New Culture of Learning: Cultivating the Imagination for a World of Constant Change. CreateSpace. Kindle Edition.

Wright, Shelly. "Academic Teaching Doesn’t Prepare Students for Life." Powerful Learning Practice. N.p., 07 Nov. 2013. Web. <http://plpnetwork.com/2013/11/07/obsession-academic-teaching-preparing-kids-life/>.
 

Leading others through change this week was very challenging for me.   I ran into some disruptions, not in my mentorship but in another bigger project.  I am helping the principal and staff develop a new report card.  I have been using Michael Fullan’s Model for Change to lead the committee the principal organized.  The first thing the committee did was agree on a moral purpose.  We used it to guide our decision making.  We are always referring to the moral purpose in our discussions.   I have been really working on knowledge building & sharing, relationships and listening.  Things were going great until each committee member broke away to share and get input from their grade-level.  Three out of four of the grades had great meetings and understood the task, one grade level did not.  There was breakdown in communication and understanding.  As a result that grade level halted the process.  I had to step in and do some coherence making.  At first I was viewed by some (in that grade level) as a target because change was uncomfortable.  This was very upsetting to me.  I am volunteering my time so I thought maybe I should just walk away but instead I pushed through and lead through the disruptions.  I worked on relationships first then on knowledge building & sharing while at the same time emphasizing the moral purpose.   Interesting I discovered the source of all the discourse was an unclear understanding of the moral purpose.  When teachers didn’t agree at other grade-levels they used the moral purpose to help guide them.  The grade level that halted the process did not use the moral purpose to guide them and got lost so to speak.  I learned a lot this week and I know it will not be the first big disruption in this process but I am going to celebrate getting through it. 

Michael Fullan wrote, “We need leaders who can create a fundamental transformation in the learning cultures of schools and of the teaching profession itself” (2002).  Education is not static.  Let’s face it, education is changing.   I actually feel educational institutes are often in a tough spot because there seems to be such a resistance to change in schools but at the same time there is a definite need for transformation.  
 
You have one mindset, “What was good enough for one generation is good enough for the next” and then you have those that understand that learning in the 21st century is a continual process and requires ongoing changes.  In my school there is currently a “change fatigue” from making some many changes in a short amount of time.  There is also a loss of faith because the results come slowly.
 
Anyone who has experienced change knows that change creates messiness.  Change is often rapid and nonlinear.  Real change creates a transformation that is typically not possible without messiness.  With all the changes we see in education today it’s no wonder it feels a little uncomfortable but it is reassuring to know that its ok.  Most change is a result of a disturbance.  We are human and we are going to have differences of opinion.  A leader guides people through difference.
 
It is the role of the leader to help lead through change.  Leaders have an understanding of the change process.  Leaders help find collective meaning and commitment through a moral purpose.  Those who lead must be coherence makers.  Fullan writes that leaders “help forge coherence through checks and balances embedded in their interaction” (2002).  The “process embedded in pursuing moral purpose, the change process, new relationships, and knowledge sharing do actually produce greater and deeper coherence as they unfold” (2014). 
 
In my mentorship the coherence making was so strong that disruptions were not a big factor.  My mentee and I shared a moral purpose so it was easy to use that and our strong relationship to guide us through change. The mentorship was also nice because the change was self-motivated.  Had I been mentoring someone who is opposed to Minecraft or who was not willing to change I would have encountered more disruptions. 
 
This week when I was helping lead a large number of people through a top down change, the disruptions were more frequent.  Even with a common moral purpose people are human and interpret moral purposes differently.   Marris wrote “All real change involves loss, anxiety, and struggle. Failure to recognize this phenomenon as natural and inevitable has meant we tend to ignore important aspects of change and misinterpret others” (Fullan, 2013).  I defiantly have felt all those while trying to work through change this week.  The key are the relationships when those aren’t there change becomes 10 times harder.
 
Resources:
Fullan, M. (2002). The Change Leader. Retrieved from http://www.ascd.org/publications/educational-leadership/may02/vol59/num08/The-Change-Leader.aspx
Fullan, M. (2014, February). Leading in a Culture of Change. San Francisco, CA.
Fullan, M. 2013). The new meaning of educational change. Retrieved fromhttp://www.eblib.com
Mochari, I. (2014, June 10). The Chaos of Change: 3 Keys to Leading Through Transitions. Retrieved from http://www.inc.com/ilan-mochari/3-tips-leading-change.html
 

This week I continued practicing my leadership skills.  Over the past couple of weeks I have really been thinking about the readings.  Part of being a good leader is listening.  I do a lot of leading but do I do much listening?  This question has been on my mind lately.  This week I really worked on the relationship and listening aspects.
Some exciting news- the superintendent brought two students from Yale by my room to observe my students “making”.   The superintendent is having the Yale students create a mobile maker space and she wanted them to get some ideas.  I also got the 2nd grade team on board for a grade wide spring Maker Day that I planned last summer.  The superintendent was also really supportive and said it could be the launch of the district’s mobile maker space.  Exciting!
Some boring news - I am taking the lead on designing our schools new report card.  This has involved lots of work this year. I probably should have made this my mentor project.  This week I had 3 meetings.  The first meeting involved meeting one on one with the district’s gradebook official. During this meeting I gathered as much information as I could and discussed possibilities.  Almost all of the teachers had expressed a desire in having our report cards simplified for parents so I ran a couple of possibilities by the district office.   Once I got the ok from the district office I created several different draft layouts by combining what the teachers wanted but at the same time making sure it was in line with the district’s guidelines.  The 2nd meeting involved meeting with a committee which was made up of leaders from each grade level and the principal.  At this meeting I presented the drafts and asked for feedback.  Based on their recommendations I did some minor adjusting.   The 3rd meeting involved the entire teaching staff.  During this meeting each grade level looked at the drafts and again offered feedback.  The principal then sent our draft to the other schools.

 
“Get the right people on your team, and get the wrong ones off” is a good strategy for success but you must remember to invest in a diversity of team players.  A team full of like-minded people may mean that things run smoothly at first, but opportunities for growth and overall success could be jeopardized.   “All successful organizations in a culture of change have been found to a certain extent to seek diversity of employees, ideas, and experiences while simultaneously establishing mechanisms for sorting out, reconciling, and acting on new patterns (see Lewin & Regine, 2000, and Pascale et al., 2000).”

Schools need leaders who help develop a culture of understanding that brings members together to help students. Michael Fullan, in his book “Leading in a Culture of Change” points out that quality leadership is about “enhancing the skills and knowledge of people in the organization, creating a common culture of expectations around the use of those skills and knowledge, holding the various pieces of the organization together in a productive relations with each other and holding individuals accountable for the contributions to the collective result” (2014). 

Fullan states “It should come as no surprise then the most effective leaders are not the smartest in the IQ sense but are those who combine intellectual brilliance with emotional intelligence” (2014).  Effective leaders not only work on their emotional development but they help others with their emotional development as well.  In a culture of change there will always be people who have differences of opinions but quality leadership welcomes diversity.  Resistance and disagreement can be seen as a possible source of new ideas and breakthroughs.

However, I also believe that if a person is unwilling to grow and work towards the moral purpose of the team then they need to find another team.  Jim Collins in his article, “Good to Great”, points out that successful leaders start with the ”who” they want to have on their team before they even decide the “where”.  He writes “You are a bus driver. The bus, your company, is at a standstill, and it’s your job to get it going. You have to decide where you're going, how you're going to get there, and who's going with you.”  He writes, David Maxwell CEO of Fannie Mae when hired to rescue the company told his management team “that there would only be seats on the bus for A-level people who were willing to put out A-plus effort.” (Collins, 2011)

Judy Malan writes in her article “Get the right People on the team (and the wrong ones off)” that “determining the membership of a team is frequently the most powerful lever that a leader can use to shape its performance” (2011).  She goes on to say that some leaders fail to do this early enough while others fail to do this at all.  The key is being clear about the moral purpose.  “Ensuring that the right people are on the team requires conscience attention and courage from the team leader; without these, the team might not be able to deliver.” (Malan, 2011)

As a leader I want the right team.  I want “A-level’ people, who put out A-level effort on my team.  I do not want a team full of quarterbacks.  On my team I want diversity and members who believe in a common moral purpose.   
 
 
Resources:
Collins, J. (2011, October). Good to Great. Retrieved November 6, 2015, from http://www.jimcollins.com/article_topics/articles/good-to-great.html
 
Fullan, Michael. Leading in a Culture of Change. Somerset, NJ, USA: John Wiley & Sons, Incorporated, 2014. ProQuest ebrary. Web. 6 November 2015.
Lewin, R., & Regine, B. (2000). The soul at work. New York: Simon & Schuster.
Malan, J. (2011, October 4). Get the right people on the team (and the wrong ones off). Retrieved November 6, 2015, from http://www.managementexchange.com/blog/get-right-people-team-and-wrong-ones
Pascale, R., Millemann, M., & Gioja, L. (2000). Surfing the edge of chaos. New York: Crown Business Publishing.

 

“Great Leaders move us.  They ignite our passion and inspire the best in us.  When we try to explain why they are so effective, we speak strategy, vision, or powerful ideas.  But the reality is much more primal: Great leadership works through the emotions.  No matter what leaders set out to do – whether it’s creating strategy or mobilizing teams to action – their success depends on how they do it.  Even if leaders fail in this primal task of driving emotions in the right direction, nothing they do will work as well as it could or should”                                                              Primal Leadership – Goleman, Boyatizis, McKee 2013
 
​
Daniel Goleman defines six leadership styles for effective team performance: commanding, visionary, affiliative, democratic, pacesetting , and coaching, .  Through research he found that leaders used one of these at any one time and that styles come from the use of Emotional Intelligence.  It involves being aware of the environment, his/her emotional needs and feelings, and adjusting the style to suit the more appropriate setting.  Because situations vary, different leadership styles are important for different circumstances.

Commanding/Coercive – is a dictatorship style of “Do what I say”.  This style of leadership is used in urgency, when time is scarce, and in crisis.  A mother seeing her child dash into oncoming traffic would probably use a commanding leadership style to keep the child from harm.  The weakness of this style is that members could feel stifled like their opinions are not being asked for.

Visionary/Authoritative –  moves people towards a vision.  This style is best when a new direction is needed. The weakness of this style is that it doesn’t tell members how they can go about to get to a new vision or goal.

Affiliative – focuses on emotional needs.  This style is needed for getting members through stressful situations or when healing is needed.  The weakness of this style is that it typically just focuses on the emotional needs.

Democratic – listens to both the good and the bad and focuses on participation.  This style can be used to gain input and buy-in.  The weakness of this style is that it could spend too much time on listening rather than effective action.

Pacesetting – focuses on building goals that are challenging and exciting.  This style is useful when working with members who are already performing well.  The weakness of this style, if done wrong, it can have a negative impact on the climate.

Coaching – helps people find strengths and weakness and links those to large goals and actions.  This style is useful to develop long term strengths of individuals.  This style if not done properly can come across as micromanaging. 

When I think of leading through change I think of my role as a parent.  My children are growing and changing and I am trying to lead then down the path of success but it requires all 6 leaderships styles.  The style of leadership depends on the situation. 

​We have probably all had leaders in our lives that basically use one or two styles of leadership.  Of course we know from experiences that leaders who have a limited number of leadership styles run into problems.  For example think about a parent or teacher whose idea of leading is primarily through “commanding” style.  What about the parent whose only leadership style is “democratic”.  Those with limited leadership styles are going to run into issues.    We know that emotional intelligence plays an important role.  The most effective leaders are those that can assess a situation and identify and use the most effective style of leadership for that particular circumstance. 
 
Resources:
Comindwork Weekly / Work Productivity Tricks The Six Leadership Styles (Goleman). (2015). Retrieved October 30, from http://www.comindwork.com/weekly/2015-07-13/productivity/the-six-leadership-styles-goleman
Fullan, M. (2014). Leading in a Culture of Change. Somerset, NJ, USA: John Wiley & Sons, Incorporated. Retrieved from http://www.ebrary.com
Goleman, D., Boyatzis, R. E., & McKee, A. (2002). Primal leadership: Realizing the power of emotional intelligence. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press
"Six Emotional Leadership Styles." Six Emotional Leadership Styles. N.p., n.d. Web. 30 Oct. 2015. http://changingminds.org/disciplines/leadership/styles/six_emotional_styles.htm