Philosophy of Leadership
Lisa Holley

 Doctoral Program Writing Sample

            Debates have existed for many years concerning the origin of a leader:  Is a person born to be a leader or does one learn to be a leader through environmental circumstances?  I believe that a leader develops as a result of both factors.  A person is born with certain personality characteristics that tend to lean toward leadership; however, these leadership characteristics are only developed in a certain environment or through certain life experiences.  The environment allows one to learn from both successes and failures and apply these outcomes to future experiences.  Research shows that ambition is shown by the age of six.  At an early age, one is gaining the knowledge that will determine success later in life.  When I contemplate my philosophy of leadership, I believe that all leaders hold many of the same characteristics. 

            All leaders are continuous learners.  They constantly strive to become better personally and professionally through educational experiences.  They apply themselves in their learning and hold high expectations for themselves.  This includes staying abreast of the current trends in education, reading professional journals, and researching new techniques.  It also includes continuing education in technology that will benefit students in today’s society.  True leadership does not tolerate apathy or complacency. 

Leaders are willing to bring about change that is beneficial to the school system or organization.  Many times educators become comfortable in their routines and resist taking the initiative to try something new.  Likewise, leaders know that many trends in education are not sound learning techniques and should be avoided.  They also realize that there are some things that are foundational and do not need to be changed.  Leaders attack new ideas systematically and bring about change.  These ideas should be discussed both formally and informally.  Leaders involve all affected parties when bringing about change.  They acknowledge the strengths and weaknesses in each member of the faculty.     

            Leaders are leaders by example.  When leaders propose an idea for a school, they are one hundred percent supportive of their staff.  They also prove themselves to be trustworthy.  Faculty and staff feel comfortable bringing new ideas to true leaders.  True leadership allows an opportunity to be the leader and the follower.  Ethical values are extremely important.  Teachers want a leader of whom they are proud.  Leadership brings about a sense of consistency.  This consistency by example improves the climate of the school. 

            Leaders must also have excellent verbal and written communication skills.  Outstanding verbal communication skills will allow the leader to be a motivator for those in the school system.  Positive leadership ability tends to motivate teachers better than salary raises or time-off privileges.  Teachers want support from their leader.  They value their administrator’s opinion of them. 

            As a first grade teacher, I have had many opportunities to show acts of leadership.  I feel it is important that leadership in the school benefits the learning community as a whole. One act of leadership that I chose to pursue has benefited not only every teacher at our school but also the students.  Throughout Alabama Reading Initiative training, the participants discussed the importance of early intervention for struggling students.  I, along with the rest of my co-teachers, voiced our opinion about the importance of peer coaching within our staff.  I noticed that we have some excellent resources within our own school system.  Often we are paying large sums of money to visit other schools or “buy into” a program that convinces us as a faculty that student achievement will be increased.  Our school is practicing wonderful lessons and learning strategies, and sometimes we do not even know it.  Since we are spending so much time visiting other schools, we are not able to benefit from our peers.  I devised a school-wide plan that would allow teachers to observe co-teachers within the school or school system and gain knowledge that they can use within their own classroom.  By watching another teacher in the school teach a lesson, the observing teacher can obtain new ideas for strategies in teaching skills and classroom management; and it does not cost the school a penny. 

            In this peer-coaching plan, each teacher has a “buddy” teacher.  The teachers decide on a time when their classes can be combined once each week.  These two classes will be combined for approximately thirty to forty-five minutes.  During this time the students will partner read to each other, or one teacher will read a story aloud to the two classes.  This allows the other teacher to visit any teacher in the school and observe him or her teach a lesson.  The teacher may visit a peer who teaches the same grade or one that teaches a different grade.  Not only does the teacher who is visiting learn new techniques, but also the teacher who is being observed has someone who can later give him/her some new ideas that might improve his/her lesson.  Webster Elementary is currently using this school-wide plan, and it has proven to be effective for our teachers. 

            This peer-coaching plan has been effective in fostering team spirit.  No longer do we see ourselves planning individually.  Communication is a key factor in planning lessons and improving instruction.  This act of leadership has provided us the ability to systematically look at our strengths and weaknesses as a faculty and build on them. 

            This act of leadership led to many new peer-coaching approaches to learning in our school. When I noticed that this peer-coaching plan was working, I decided that we as a school needed a way to organize the wonderful new ideas that we were learning from each other.  In our teacher workroom, I set up “drop boxes” to organize these wonderful lessons.  Drop boxes are file crates that have a place for every skill and topic that is taught in our grade level.  These drop boxes sit beside the copy machine where it is convenient for teachers to drop their ideas into the designated area for the topic being taught.  These boxes have allowed teachers to share their ideas without interrupting co-teachers during instruction time.  It is an ongoing project that I feel will improve instruction and learning in my school.