Years ago, I was blessed to be in a position to hold seminars with groups of educators designed to discuss and build leadership skills both informally and formally, internally – for the individual and externally for the school. As we discussed leadership skills and qualities, we would talk about new tools being put in our toolboxes as leaders. This year in Teach & Serve, I have decided to talk about many of those tools.
PARTNERSHIP
In my years-long pursuit of formal leadership (and it was years long and intentional – I am not a person who was not looking to be a principal, I absolutely aspired to the job), I am almost certain that one of my motives for the goal was wanting to be Captain Kirk – the person in the center seat who makes all the decisions for everyone. I am in education and a teacher and I find that desire for control is a unifying trait among many of us. This is not to say that I anticipated being a dictator, benevolent or otherwise. No, I imagined I would be a collaborator and I would build consensus but, at the end of the day, it would be my call.
There are times that those sorts of leadership are needed. They have their place. Top-down decision-making has its place.
But the tool that I most rely on in this work is building partnerships – equal partnerships. No matter the idea or its source, no matter the issue or its roots, no matter the initiative or who developed it, moving forward in a human system with partnership is, far-and-away, the best way to proceed.
Good leaders do not fake building partnerships. They build them. They build them intentionally. They build them to last. They build them to share the responsibility of leadership.
Good leaders are good partners and they invite others in.
Heck, even Kirk had Spock and McCoy, right?