Leadership Qualities Part 1

Over the next two blog posts I want to talk about leadership qualities. When you are a leader you need to continually work on your craft.

Below are four leadership qualities that I believe are important to work on and how I see them relating to our role as Numeracy Leaders.

Communication: We have to be able to communicate with many stakeholders. The Principal, the leadership team, the teachers, the LSOs, the students, the parents. There are different communication styles required for each of these groups. For example, you don’t speak to parents about maths in the way you speak to the principal. So we must be aware of changing our approach / language/angle for each scenario.

Integrity: Having integrity is very important. We must show integrity to the mathematics learning process and integrity to the way we approach our role. For me, this means being true to our goals- being really clear on what we are doing and why we are doing it and sticking to these even when things get hard.

There is nothing worse than a leader that expects teachers to make changes to their practice but isn’t willing to ‘walk the walk’. Trying things that are new and make us feel uncomfortable in classrooms is really important. We expect our teachers to feel this level of vulnerability, so we should show them we are willing to feel it too.

Accountability: As a Numeracy Leader you need to be accountable. This means if you say something you need to follow through. For example, if you say you are going to help a year level with their planning and find a resources for them, you need to do it and in a timely manner. You must to be accountable to teachers and to students. Your actions need to be considered and well planned so that teachers can see where the school is headed in Numeracy and know why this is the best approach to take.

Empathy: Sometimes when leaders become leaders they forget how HARD it is to be a classroom teacher. We must ALWAYS remember that being in the classroom is the hardest and most exhausting role. We must always have empathy and respect for our teachers. This means not expecting them to implement a major change when they are in the middle of reports… pick your times and pick your battles!

How would you rate yourself out of ten for these 4 qualities? Which one do you need to work on and which one do you think you do really well?