my blogs
Being a leader is an honorable, dignified and impactful role, so it is extremely important that we take this role seriously and always lead with dignity, class and professionalism. To do this, you have to be fair, just, honest, genuine, confident, open-minded, transparent, and more. Do not just talk about these leadership traits, instead you have to epitomize them in your every action. To lead coaches or anyone with dignity, class and professionalism, you have to be willing to engage in brutally honest self-reflection on a regular basis and transition your honest reflective thoughts into genuine actions. Never ever should your actions be those of creating division among your coaches, teachers, district personnel and other educators. This type of leadership is referred to as a Divide and Conquer leadership style and is generally adopted by leaders who lack confidence in their abilities. While I was serving as a full-time teacher, I shared a tweet in 2016 in regards to divide and conquer. The day after, some of my leaders (who weren't even my Twitter followers) started throwing remarks about divide and conquer. Clearly my message had an impact! I also got to see the true characters of these leaders. Here is an article relating to the divide and conquer leadership approach that was shared with a group of coaches I worked with by leaders who I believed divided and conquered in so many ways. When you listen to the stories of administrators, directors and other leaders, you may hear that some of them got into fights, played lots of mind games and went down the wrong paths when they were younger, but they changed their paths and had the determination to become leaders. To these leaders, I say I admire your persistence, determination, mindset change and achievements in becoming better leaders. However, genuine change never ever brings previous negative behaviors into leadership positions. If you are still bringing the "fights" and mind games, laughing at others, using others' hard work and ideas to climb the ladder and still bringing other negative actions that wreck culture into your leadership roles, you have not at all changed your path. Micromessages Administrative leaders, directors, and all other leaders must be aware of the subtle negative micromessages they send to teachers and other staff members when coaches introduce instructional strategies. Leaders need to ensure that their micromessages are positive and supportive of the role of the instructional coach. If as a leader you subtly or directly put down and suppress strategies your instructional coach brings to teachers, then you are doing a disservice to students and teachers by sending negative micromessages. My Leading Instructional Coaches Blog Series consists of 6 parts which focus on some of the foundational elements in leading instructional coaches. In some of these blogs, I have shared a bit of my personal experiences and stories as an instructional coach. These situations are not stated as callouts or what some may view as being negative, instead, they are genuinely shared to bring awareness for improving instructional coaching leadership and leadership as a whole. I believe being respectfully candid and honest about your experiences impacts change tremendously. As an instructional coach and a minority within minority groups in education, I have experienced poor leadership behaviors by a few leaders/bosses. Some of these experiences were me being called in to my bosses offices often to be reprimanded, laughed at, blocked from doing my work, wrongfully written up and more by poor leaders, even though I was one of the hardest working ICs who went above and beyond for students, teachers and leaders.
In my role as a coach, I have also worked with some extremely genuine, honest, professional and amazing leaders who were my support system and inspired me through it all. To impact change and ensure that all leaders strive to be as amazing leaders of instructional coaches or just amazing leaders, period, I believe we need to have a voice and share some of our challenging experiences. As a coach, I am also a leader, so my advice is also to make sure that I continue to reflect on my leadership style and continue to be a genuine leader. |
Cherry-Anne GildharryOn this page, you will find blogs on educational connections and my life's experiences. Ideas, thoughts and views are my own and are not representative of my employers. References/sources used are public articles found on the internet to support my blogs. Archives
April 2024
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