This past August, Graland held a Leadership Institute on campus where I was joined by team leaders, department chairs and other Graland administrators. Our goal was to further develop the confidence and efficacy of our faculty leaders, provide them with time to discuss leadership challenges and supply them with strategic tools to support them in their roles.

 

We were asked to consider and identify with a particular leadership style. The hard part was picking one category, knowing we hold elements of each leadership style dear to our hearts.

 

Nevertheless, we had to choose, sparking insightful conversations around why we chose one type over another.

 

The categories modeled a compass - west, east, north and south. North embodied leaders who plunge right into new ideas. South exemplified leaders who take everyone’s feelings into consideration before acting, while east represented leaders who look at the big picture of possibilities before acting. West was the category for leaders who pay attention to detail and want to know the who, what, when, where and why before acting.

 

Jake Dresden, team leader for Grade 8 and chair of the history department, noted, “I certainly appreciated the chance to analyze my own leadership style. I’m in the south camp with Di Nestel - those who focus on building healthy relationships with colleagues in order to build consensus and meaningfully enact change. The institute gave me a chance to be very self-reflective and that doesn’t always happen with our frantic lifestyles.”

 

It was not only interesting to pinpoint our own leadership styles, but to also note how our colleagues categorized themselves. This compass point activity was just one of many exercises we engaged in during the two-day institute facilitated by Sammye Wheeler-Clouse, a PEBC (Public Education Business Coalition) trainer.

 

Gone are the days of the solitary leader making decisions in isolation, so along with leadership style preferences, shared leadership was an overarching theme during the institute.  Collaborative leadership models ensure a variety of perspectives are considered, resulting in more well-thought-out decisions. They also leverage the talents of faculty members and encourage a more sustainable system that is effective at keeping programs moving forward, even in times of change.

 

At the heart of it all is strong relational trust, a core value of most educators. When relational trust is present, social capital is built and strategic thinking happens more fluidly. Faculty come together as solid teams and work toward common goals. Multiple perspectives are considered as people feel comfortable sharing ideas as well as questions and concerns. This open dialogue generally results in solid decision making, with buy-in from the group.

 

Students benefit too. Researchers Anthony Bryk and Barbara Schneider noted in their Educational Leadership article titled “Trust in Schools: A Core Resource for School Reform,” that schools with high relational trust are more likely to demonstrate marked improvements in student learning.

 

Graland asks a lot of our teacher leaders and values the relationships built within grade levels and departments. The Leadership Institute is one example of the school supporting our leaders as a cohort and giving them tools to employ as they navigate curricular conversations, facilitate decision making on the ground and build solid working groups. Team leaders in particular appreciated the opportunity to share ideas about setting intentional meeting agendas, establishing meeting norms and engaging team members through shared roles. Department chairs benefited too. English chair Allison Birdsong shared, “I was able to seriously consider setting practical and purposeful goals for the department and to think about what we need to do to achieve these goals.”

 

Adding the Leadership Institute to our professional development calendar supports Graland’s strategic initiative of creating a dynamic learning community composed of highly effective educators, administrators and staff.

 

GAIL SONNESYN earned a master’s degree in curriculum and instruction from the University of Colorado and joined the Graland faculty in 2004 as a Lower School teacher. She recently served as assistant head of Lower School before working full-time in her current role. Gail’s twin daughters, Sara and Megan Hill, graduated from Graland in 2012 and are now freshmen in college.