Reflective Leadership
“Success seems to be connected with action. Successful people keep moving. They make mistakes, but they don’t quit.” This quote, taken from Conrad Hilton of the Hilton Hotels, emphasizes the opportunities to be successful, and ways to become a strong leader. Leaders are not just natural people; they must work in order to make themselves successful. In order to do this, the leader must be proactive in the realm of reflection. According to the textbook, School Leader Internship, “the ability to think more deeply about a problem, and the ability to take action or make adjustments accordingly” are skills necessary to become successful. These skills are known as reflective leadership.
Successful leaders must reflect upon the decisions that are made to propel their ideas or actions, and there is no difference between a CEO of a major corporation and a Superintendent of Schools having to propel their ideas. It is important for the Superintendent to be able to have the ability to reflect on what has been done in this arena, and know or manipulate ways in order to master the technique.
Why is it important to learn reflection as an important skill in leadership? It is important to what the Superintendent knows about him or herself, and knows what the Superintendent does not know about him or herself. It is also important for the Superintendent to know what others know and does not know about him or her. These four questions give the person the knowledge of self-awareness, gaining careful observation, and the ability to have flexibility in a response.
Reflective Examples from Course Assignments:
Reflecting on the assignments from the course provided opportunities to ensure that knowledge was gained in order to face the challenges of a Superintendent. Normally, when a Superintendent begins their career in a school district, they are expected to begin by having some knowledge of the operations of the school district. The opportunities to reflect on how things were handled, and the extent to which change is needed in order to not head down the same pathway are important skills that were learned through completing the assignments. The assignments we had were geared towards high levels of procedural steps in order to make a final decision. Being novice, these decisions may have been the common way to solve the problem, or we had the flexibility to enhance the opportunity and create a new method of solving the problem. For example, having the chance to reflect on funding abilities in school finance, allowed me the opportunity to expand my knowledge in the abilities of budget forecasting and utilizing templates to forecast the expected revenue in our school district. The reflection allowed me to understand the methods and definitions more thoroughly in order to make purposeful decisions regarding budgets.
With school facilities, the opportunity to reflect on building needs and issues helped explain the reasons our school district is investing money to renovate and build structures on the district campuses. Standing outside of the box and visualizing this building program from a teacher’s perspective allowed me to gain insight on their thoughts, and the school board’s thoughts regarding the construction. In the teacher’s mindset, the district cut jobs to save money, and now money is being spent on construction at the expense of the student’s education as opposed to the audit that was conducted to align the student to staff ratio to average levels and upgrade the existing facilities from health concerns and out of date laboratories.
Both of the above examples tie together in the aspects of school and community relationships. Reflecting on various aspects of the position of Superintendent, he or she must be aware of the whole picture, and be able to explain to the employees and community the main reasons for the projects and how they are to be funded. Reflecting back on the ways the Superintendent handled the prior situations, allowed me to see that I would have handled the situation in a different way. As it was mentioned in my assignments, I would have made my ideas known to the community in order to get some feedback before making the final decision. It appeared that our school district made the decision and started action on the items, and then went to the community to explain the situations. Negative situations were already being created in the community, and therefore it was harder to deliver the message. Overall, the final outcome ended up with the same, but reflecting on the method that was taken may assist in the future on the decisions that must be made.
Reflective Examples from Course and Campus Supervised Logs:
The opportunities that were available with the campus supervised logs allowed several instances for self-reflection. For example, the Superintendent is in his first year as the CEO of the school district. Looking back at his first year, watching his actions with the school board, I was able to witness the growth he experienced in his manipulation of the board. Learning by his experience has granted me some knowledge that will prove valuable whenever I experience my first opportunity as a Superintendent. In addition, working side by side with the Superintendent allowed me the experience to learn his thought process and his plan for moving the district forward.
Focusing on the financial aspect of our school district, reflection has offered me the opportunity to become involved in the financial decision making for the district. Soon I will be named Assistant Superintendent for Finance and Operations and knowing the pitfalls the district had in the past, and the knowledge of the direction the district needs to be heading; with the business side for the school will grant me the knowledge to reorganize this department.
Summary:
Reflection is an important aspect for leadership growth and direction. It is important to reflect on the knowledge that you personally bring to the position, and what others have done to generate positive and negative outcomes prior to taking the position. In the position as Superintendent, the position will always be marked with some form of assessment. Formal evaluations that were focused upon in the coursework hosted an opportunity to reflect on a decision that had been made, or one that will need to be made. Looking back at the assessments, as a class we did not know which questions we missed or correctly answered. Having this knowledge would have allowed greater experience in reflecting why we were wrong or correct. However, as Superintendent, there is only one instance to do something correctly, however, if reflection has occurred, whether it is wrong or not, there has been some background experience reflecting knowledge and this knowledge will guide you into making the right decisions.
