LEADERSHIP SELF-ASSESSMENT

Leadership Self-Assessment Joshua Rusack University of New England

LEADERSHIP SELF-ASSESSMENT Leadership is the fundamental piece that is required for success. Throughout history, there have been thousands of occurrences where leadership determines the fate of a group of people: Ancient Rome, France in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the Enron Corporation. These are a select few examples of instances that began and thrived because of strong control and guidance, but ultimately collapsed because of poor leadership and decisions. The leaders are the ones who are most scrutinized because of the weight that is on their shoulders. Leaders need to be strong willed and courageous to make critical decisions but also kind and empathetic to appear at the level of the followers. The leader of any school must offer positive direction to the staff to enhance the community and properly exhibit the necessities that promote success.

The authors leadership style according to Glanz is adaptive supportive. Glanz labels this style of leader as the majority of the population; they are the nonglamorous supporters of the status quo and society works because of them (Glanz, 2002, p. 63). Most people are satisfied with keeping things the same. Keeping things the same maintains the contentment of the people within a school. Often times, changes are viewed as inappropriate because people in nature get comfortable with how things work. Changes require people to change and that disrupts the status quo. Glanz (2002) tags the adaptive assertive as trustworthy, charitable, traditional, and good citizens. With a lack of any dynamism and aggression, adaptive assertives need to lead after being empowered, encouraged, and guided to do so by other quality types (Glanz, 2002, p. 64). It seems as if the adaptive assertive leader needs a staff that offers the ideas so the leader can facilitate how those changes are made in order to maintain peace throughout the building. The author has concluded that his individual leadership qualities include: trustworthy, open, creative, and humorous. There are so many noble qualities that a leader can possess that it

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is impossible to include every single virtue. Trustworthiness establishes relationships with ones employees. There needs to be a level of confidence with each other to preserve the ongoing path to success. Trust enables teamwork; work that pits people together to reach the same goal. Openness allows for ideas that are offered from staff. It is beneficial to hear as many concepts of approaching a situation as possible. It builds strength in the community because everyone feels that they have a say in the matters. Creativeness supplements openness since an imaginative mind is able to manipulate the ideas to generate an overall theme that encompasses everything. It enables a leader to be innovative and potentially find new ways of achieving success. In the end, humor will keep all staff at ease and eliminate any stressful situations that develop. Consequences of improper use of the possessed qualities damage the course of effectively leading a group of people towards a unified goal. Administration needs to provide for the staff a leadership that embraces helpful qualities. The cost of not being trustworthy divides the staff into groups of people: people who feel there is trust, people who are indifferent, and people who find no trust. Schools need to be on the same team at all times to work most efficiently for student success. Not being open to others opinions makes everyone feel that they do not matter. Avoiding creativity disables anyone from trying anything new. Although humor is not always appropriate, it certainly helps certain situations. Avoiding the idea of a joke completely allows for flare ups that could be easily avoided. People look at qualities differently; some might find the use of some helpful and the avoidance of others even more helpful. The difference of opinion is what has created different styles of leadership in the first place. There are many instances that provide a leader the opportunity to exhibit positive qualities. A scenario built upon trust is exhibited in a teacher seeking advice about disagreements with a coworker. The teacher decides to confide in the administrator information

LEADERSHIP SELF-ASSESSMENT about other staff that should be kept between the two so a solution to the problem can be found. A situation that calls for openness would be one that calls for multiple opinions. A solution that determines how the schools day schedule runs would be most effectively answered through a variety of staff thoughts. A condition requiring creativeness could include building promotion

events to commit students to a vocational school. It is critical to get students to attend vocational districts and grabbing the attention requires creativity. Administration can diffuse certain situations by making jokes that detract from the uprising circumstance in the room. The humor about ones self might lessen tension between two workers arguing over curriculum. Joking about past failures can lead to the two finding a solution. Not everyone can agree that qualities are necessarily good or bad. One might find trustworthiness to be honorable since it is hard to keep anything secret in todays technological world. Another might find it as a means to get information from people by earning the trust of others. Build the trust between people so ideas, knowledge, and work can be taken and used for ones own acclaim. Openness can be viewed as a lack of individuality. The need to brainstorm ideas from others can be skewed to mean, I cant think of anything so you do it, rather than a desire to include all staff. Creativity might be looked at as innovation or over-achieving. Trying too hard to attempt something different might deter people from actually wanting to work with it. People are comfortable dealing with what they know works. Trying something new could be a major problem for many. The issue with a humorous administrator is that it lends to the idea that one cannot take something serious. As effective as a joke might be, it might express the view that one is not mature enough to be in charge. Leaders are required to find success. Their positive qualities are essential to provide the guidance for those who are following. Each quality can hold both encouraging and adverse

LEADERSHIP SELF-ASSESSMENT views. Everyone has their own opinion. It is those opinions that have established the

foundations of what makes a true leader. All individuals retain some qualities that are developed into what they become as leaders. It is these qualities that develop into strengths. In the words of Warren Bennis, Leaders know themselves; they know their strengths and nurture them (Glanz, 2002, p.15). One needs to foster the qualities they possess in order to know who they are as leaders.

LEADERSHIP SELF-ASSESSMENT References Glanz, J. (2002) Finding your leadership style- A guide for educators. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.