Leadership Style
My guiding principle is every student and family deserve to be met where they’re at engaged in a two-way conversation to ensure an equitable school experience, where community and faith are my core beliefs (Ryan, 2018 and Brown, 2018). This principle is aligned with the American School Counselor Association (ASCA) Ethical Standards (2016) that state “ethical advocacy is…required. The ethical school counselor will take up the charge to promote a social justice agenda to help all students from all ethnicities, cultures, classes, socioeconomic levels, genders, and sexual identities to realize brighter futures” (Stone, 2018, p. 6). ASCA challenges every school counselor to “understand how prejudice, privilege and various forms of oppression…affect students and stakeholders (and) create systemic change by providing equitable educational access and success by stakeholders” (Stone, 2018, p. 8). My guiding principle is also aligned with our district mission statement that asks how “we create learning communities for the greatest thinkers and most thoughtful people…for the world” ("WLWV Work Plan," 2017/18). This is the leadership mindset and skillset that I bring to disrupt racial inequities in school district practices and never accept achievement gaps.
Action Plan
Equity work “can’t just be a department. It has to be a theory of action that’s calibrated with the whole ecosystem” (Samuels, 2019). A leadership position would help me disrupt systemic racism in the district or building – something that I’m committed to. I fully understand that we’re “tackling racial inequity and gender inequity and going up against a system that was not designed to even think about this” (Samuels, 2019), and I think it takes bravery and a specific skillset.
I embrace Zepeda’s (2013, p. 28) notion that “great school leaders create nurturing school environments in which accomplished teaching can flourish and grow,” built upon trust where staff feel safe to openly share with each other in a respectful way. A leader must authentically want to help each staff member reach their goals, building professional excellence. This takes time, empathy and active listening without judgement, so all stakeholders feel valued and heard. A leader can then move on to collaboratively creating a vision statement that is aligned to the district mission statement; develop a department improvement plan completely focused and connected to the vision statement; create short-, mid- and long-term implementation plans; and finally devise qualitative and quantitative metrics to measure results – of course everything scrutinized through an equity lens. Coherence, connectivity and continuous monitoring are essential (Zepeda, 2013, p. 28).
I embrace Zepeda’s (2013, p. 28) notion that “great school leaders create nurturing school environments in which accomplished teaching can flourish and grow,” built upon trust where staff feel safe to openly share with each other in a respectful way. A leader must authentically want to help each staff member reach their goals, building professional excellence. This takes time, empathy and active listening without judgement, so all stakeholders feel valued and heard. A leader can then move on to collaboratively creating a vision statement that is aligned to the district mission statement; develop a department improvement plan completely focused and connected to the vision statement; create short-, mid- and long-term implementation plans; and finally devise qualitative and quantitative metrics to measure results – of course everything scrutinized through an equity lens. Coherence, connectivity and continuous monitoring are essential (Zepeda, 2013, p. 28).
Closing Thoughts
I appreciate and have internalized how Shields, Dollarhide and Young (2018) define transformative leadership as “more a way of life than a theory.” I’ve always thought how wolves travel in a pack to keep all safe from predators is analogous to my leadership style: The lead is taken by young, strong wolves who can defend the pack; next come the most vulnerable, including the old, sick and very young; and the rest of the pack follows with the leader taking the very last position to protect the back of the pack, ensuring no one is left behind. All children have a right to reach their fullest potential.
I end with two quotes from Andrew Solomon (2017):
The disruption provides the opportunity for growth.
If we tolerate prejudice for any group, we tolerate for all groups.
I end with two quotes from Andrew Solomon (2017):
The disruption provides the opportunity for growth.
If we tolerate prejudice for any group, we tolerate for all groups.