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My Philosophy of Educational Leadership

Results through Relationships

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Presented to the Department of Educational Leadership

and Postsecondary Education
University of Northern Iowa

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In Partial Fulfillment
of the Requirements for the
Master of Arts in Education or Advanced Studies Certificate

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By
Jessiah P. Gilchrist
Taft Middle School
Cedar Rapids, IA
December 6, 2015

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Dr. Timothy Gilson, EdD

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In todays world, there is a plethora of information and opinions on what makes a great

leader. The ease of making one of these pre-determined leadership definitions your own and

modifying your leadership style to match the definition is ever present. As one develops their

leadership identity, they must understand and know who they are as a leader before assimilating

outside leadership definitions to use as part of their leadership portfolio. Individuals must look

within and create a solid foundation with which to build their leadership style; as they build, they

must continually look inward to focus themselves, thus becoming the leader they need to be. As

an educational leader, I will be situationally aware through wisdom and discernment while

holding my leadership foundation on results and relationships.

Wisdom and discernment must be at the forefront of my daily life as an educational

leader. I must be able to effectively take all the information I have available to me and make the

right and best decision for each party involved. This type of situational leadership is not one that

reacts to situations and makes decisions accordingly but it is one that plans according to the

internal awareness borne from knowledge, experiences, and reflection. Preparedness, at its best

does not react to situations but rather utilizes situations to create. I must create growth by

preparing the best plan possible for my staff to successfully educate the students at my school.

Deering, Dilts, and Russell (2003) explain this as anticipatory leadership, the ability to see the

culture and practice in the school and find opportunities for staff and students within the building

as well as locate potential issues before they arise. A large portion of my repertoire as principal

will be to understand the heartbeat of my school, locate positive and negative situations before

they arise, and develop a plan that incites growth for all individuals involved.

Results must be the guiding factor of everything I do as a leader. Without results, the

building will have no focus or direction. With the assistance of those around me in my building, I
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must develop three agreed upon categorical goals; academic improvement, social improvement,

and teacher improvement. This will be done through analyzing previous data and programs used

from these three categories, determining the best possible outcome for our school, and putting

these goals in place. This idea of being results oriented, according to the Iowa Department of

Education, directly corresponds to the Iowa Standards for School Leaders (ISSL) number one

and two; being a visionary and instructional leader (School Administrators of Iowa [SAI], 2007).

As a visionary leader, I must develop a roadmap for my school so every staff member

knows exactly what our destination looks like. Through the vision I set forth to teachers and

students in the school, I will set the culture of the school and conversely improve the culture and

achievement of every staff member and student. As Marzano, McNulty, and Waters (2005)

explain, An effective leader builds a culture that positively influences teachers, who in turn,

positively influence students (p. 47). To become this effective leader, my communication,

character, and daily work must always relate back to the agreed upon goals and in turn the

culture of the school will be built.

As an instructional leader, I must work toward improving the instruction of the teachers

in my building to align with the developed results. My educational philosophy includes the belief

that all students can learn and this is no different as an educational leader; all teachers can learn

to be better teachers. Whitaker (2013) describes that, If we want [teachers] to do better, we must

help them improve their skills and master new ones (p. 41). With this in mind, it is my belief

that the most effective way to procure true results is through the use of proficiency scales. Best

stated by Darling-Hammond (2010), A reliable and valid system of performance assessments

based on common standards would provide consistency in gauging teacher effectiveness, help

track educational progress, flag areas of need, and anchor a continuum of performance
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throughout a teaching career (p. 3). A tenant of my role as improver of teaching is to utilize the

use of proficiency scales. Myself and the teachers must work together to determine the area of

greatest need and then together develop a plan to move up the proficiency scale within said skill

area. This method takes out the emotional ties to teaching and provides a strategic framework for

honest and open conversation for how to improve the skills of the teachers.

The continuous improvement mentality set forth by me as the building leader will only

take if the entire faculty hold high expectations for themselves. As leader, I must set the example

of high expectations by having them for myself. Ethical leadership plays a large role as I believe

that an ethical leader has high expectations for themselves and in turn, makes the right decisions

based on this self-expectation (SAI, 2007). As leader, I must make the right call, not the popular

one. If I consistently base my decisions on the temporary comfort of a few, in time, staff will

become agitated and begin to lack trust. If, however, I consistently make decisions through the

lens of our agreed upon goals and with a do whats best for the students mentality, even though

my decisions may be uncomfortable to some, they will be the right decisions and eventual trust

will be earned. The expectations I have for myself must not waiver but be consistent throughout

my tenure. Whitaker (2013) sums it up the best when he says, The difference between average

and great principals lies in what they expect of themselves (p. 23).

Leaders become great, not because of their power, but because of their ability to

empower others. (Maxwell, 2011, p. 11) As an educational leader, it is my role not just to

develop my leadership skills and ability but to also develop the leadership skills within others.

This idea of delegating to develop is a strategy I will utilize to, remediate weaknesses within the

staff, produce quality instructors, and push individuals to their greatest leadership capacity. As

part of my organization leadership beliefs, ISSL three, the delegation of specific school
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management needs will be strategically given to staff that need to learn specific skills (SAI,

2007). How I delegate will not be random or last minute but rather the people with whom I

delegate will be strategically chosen with two goals in mind. First, the task must be able to be

accomplished by the individual chosen and second, a growth goal provided to the individual

chosen will be accomplished as they accomplish said task. As those around me grow, my own

capacity to lead will grow.

Collaborative and Political Leadership, the ability to incorporate families, community

organizations, and other community-based stakeholders into the regular happenings at the school,

is influenced by the educational leader (SAI, 2007). As the major influencer in regards to family

and community involvement, I must first understand what the community and its familys

perception of our school has been in the past. Once this is understood, it is my role to develop

what the perception should be within the community and take logical, thoughtful steps towards

this outlined perception. I will have a two-fold approach to accomplish this: First, I will use

deliberate, regular, and positive communication with parents and second, I will work to build the

schools relationship with community organizations in order to develop growth within the

student body as well as promote growth within the parent-school relationship. The partnering

with community organizations, provides opportunities to counter the traditional skepticism

about the effectiveness of schools in communities (Robbins & Alvy, 2014, p.275). The

establishment of a clear role within the community and developing a positive and working

relationship within the community at large is vital for the long-term success of the school I lead.

The effectiveness of my leadership skills will be directly related to my ability to reflect

on myself and the job I am doing as a leader. Self-reflection allows for an increased awareness

of problematic performance traits and the ability to develop solutions on how to adjust those
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aspects of your leadership style (Armknecht Miller, 2014). A prerequisite to wisdom and

discernment is the ability to realize that one does not know everything and the ability to reflect

through the lens of how can I do it better is vital to becoming a consistent, trusted, and

competent educational leader. Reflection, however, is not the answer in itself; I must be able to

effectively take what I learn from my reflections and plan accordingly. As leader, my focus

should not be on me but on the goals of the school and as I reflect, I should ask myself, What

can be adjusted by me to better meet the goals? Where my reflection meets adjusted decision

making is the intersection of initial action and sustained success.

Although the definitions for quality leadership are many, the distractions created by these

definitions can often cloud the mind and focus of the educational leader. It is my belief that as a

leader of education, who I am is determined by my knowledge and experience; my role then

becomes to take this knowledge and experience and turn it into effective leadership. To do this, I

must rely on my developed foundation, my core as an educational leader. Utilizing relationships

as a catalyst toward results while practicing wisdom and discernment with every opportunity will

elicit improvement from the individuals I lead as well as myself; this is my definition.

References
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Armknecht Miller, B. (2014, September 10). Looking inwards: How self-reflection strengthens
leaders. Retrieved from
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/20140910151050-240215-looking-inwards-how-self-
reflection-strengthens-leaders

Darling-Hammond, L. (2010, October 1). Evaluating Teacher Effectiveness How Teacher

Performance Assessments Can Measure and Improve Teaching. Retrieved from
https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/education/report/2010/10/19/8502/evaluating-
teacher-effectiveness/

Deering, A., Dilts, R., & Russell, J. (2003). Leader to leader. Leadership Cults and Culture, 28,
31-38.

Robbins, P., & Alvy, H. (2014). The principal's companion: Strategies to lead schools for
student and teacher success (4th ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin

School Administrators of Iowa (2007, November). Iowa school leadership standards and criteria.
Retrieved from http://www.sai-iowa.org/iowa-standards.cfm
Marzano, R., Waters, T. & McNulty, B. (2005). School leadership that works from research to
results. Alexandria, Va.: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.

Maxwell, J. (2011). The five levels of leadership: Proven steps to maximize your potential. New
York, NY: Center Street

Whitaker, T. (2012). What great principals do differently: Eighteen things that matter most
(2nd. ed.). New York, NY: Routledge