Leadership+Statement

**Leadership Statement **
In order to be a leader you need to do something worth following. Leading by example is essential. I believe that leadership sometimes means doing things that are not popular or what everyone else is doing. Leadership is doing what is the best for most even when it doesn't please all. To be a leader you must be able to look at the big picture and forecast the consequences of your decisions.
 * March 2011 **

As I reflect on my statement from the beginning of the program I agree with most of what I said. I omitted that leaders need to be willing to take risks. One risk that I was willing to take as a result of this program was to make a career move. I had been part of the planning committee for Catalyst and initially thought that was the direction that I would go with my career. However, things kept coming up that I was unsure about or didn't know if they were how I would ideally want them. In the past, before this program, I would have continued to go along with it rather than disappoint the group I had been planning with. From the leadership program I could see the bigger picture and I could also see where my skills would best be used. Therefore, I decided to take myself out of the running for Catalyst and made my move to Murray Park to teach 3rd grade. I am so glad that I was able to honestly assess the situation, take a look at the bigger picture, and do what is best for both my students and I. Throughout the program I was for sure more critical of the leadership around me. I noticed a lot more the styles of leadership. I think the biggest "aha moment" for me was realizing the responsibility that you need to be willing to take on in leadership positions. I realized that in order to be an effective leader you should not take on positions that you are not willing to do all the different aspects of.  (Good, bad and ugly.) An article we read for one of the courses was called //Asking the Right Questions About Leadership// by J. Richard Hackman Harvard University and Ruth Wageman Dartmouth College. The following statement stood out to me:
 * October 20, 2012 **

//Emotionally mature leaders are willing and able to move toward anxiety-arousing states of affairs in the interest of learning about them, rather than moving away from them to get anxieties reduced as quickly as possible. Moreover, such leaders are able to inhibit impulses to act (e.g., to correct an emerging problem or to exploit a suddenly appearing opportunity) until more data have appeared or until system members become open to the contemplated intervention. Sometimes it is even necessary for leaders to engage in actions that temporarily raise anxieties, including their own, to lay the groundwork for subsequent interventions that seek to foster learning or change//.

The idea that leaders need to do things that may cause anxiety I think is lost on many of the leaders I work with today. I see them trying to make people happy instead of doing what is right. I often see them avoiding situations instead of looking at all aspects of the situation. This is something that I did not notice before the cohort.

 **How did my learning cause changes in student achievement?** While I was at the middle school through the leadership program I became more aware of research based best practices to implement in my class. Through the implementations of those practices I saw greater student achievement. Students Lexile scores had improved through my teaching practices. ( I don't have exact scores because I no longer have access to middle school information. When I left the middle school all of my files were deleted from my computer and I was given a new computer with elementary access).

As a third grade teacher, I am seeing improvement in my students' abilities already in reading. We have a literacy rich classroom and I have students who are excited about learning. As I am completing my research in my classroom I will be taking assessments in math to see if students have made improvements in the area of math.