A colleague and I have been watching our district’s attempt to shift its leadership structure to be more distributed. The nature of distributed leadership in education expands the roles of teachers and changes their interactions with principals, the community, and one another. Teacher Leadership is a model of organizing that I have come to believe is extremely powerful for continually improving education because it doesn’t exclude other aspects of education, such as professional learning, unionized labor, current research, but it includes and empowers those closest to the work of children. For Teacher Leadership to be effective, we have realized that the traits of the individual are even more important than the structures created to organize the many. Watching these professionals closely, we have analyzed four critical characteristics in common among successful teacher leaders: problem solving, adaptivity, self-directedness, and servant leadership. We will expand on each of these attributes of in the following series of posts.
Recognizing that the demands in the industry of education continue to outgrow the resources provided, the benefits of teacher leadership outweigh the costs. We need to embrace and nurture the concept of this “leadership disposition” among teacher leaders that includes these key characteristics. As we support one another in this important work of our children’s learning, we should intentionally develop in each other, adaptivity, problem-solving, and self-directedness, all grounded in servant leadership.
Enjoy this series and please join the conversation. How is your district growing teacher leadership? What might you do to grow in these traits? How can you develop them in the educators around you? Let’s talk!