As I was running yesterday morning through the woods, I reflected on how grateful I am to work on a team where there is a strong spirit of collaboration. We are in our self-study year for our NEASC accreditation cycle and we are lucky to have many classroom teachers stepping up to chair the many committee posts that are needed to complete the self-study report. Teachers have their hands full with their primary roles in the classroom. When they volunteer to help out on initiatives that impact the whole building, they are also inadvertently taking on leadership roles, or building leadership capacity. Leadership capacity is vital to affecting positive school change as the more people who participate in the discussion of how to improve our practices inside and outside the classroom, the more authentic the change will be. When more stakeholders participate in the discussion and in the ideas that spring from that discussion, the more vital and necessary the work becomes. When all of us who work in schools bring the mindset of “how can I help to make this a better school?” we contribute to building leadership capacity.
School leaders should try to foster leadership capacity in their staff by encouraging collaborative problem solving and sharing best practices. As teachers improve their classroom practices through reflective collaboration with colleagues, they can turn their focus to addressing building-wide issues. Leaders cannot mandate the solutions to persistent or pervasive problems. They have to rely on building the culture of leadership capacity that allows for addressing problems on the grassroots level.
Looking back at my own career, I see that I developed most of the skills I utilize every day in my role as an assistant principal when I was a teacher. I was fortunate enough to work in a school where leadership was shared and teachers were empowered to take responsibly for making progressive change. When enough people agreed on identifying a problem, they would partner with administration and develop a plan of action to address the issue. The actions didn’t always immediately work, but at least people were on board with the effort.
When stakeholders invest in the effort of school change, their actions make them invested in the school. I would not have gone into leadership, if I didn’t feel that leadership was already something I was doing as an invested teacher. I am grateful to the leaders with whom I have worked because they built leadership capacity in me by giving me a seat at the table where issues were discussed and plans were made to address the issues.
Who has encouraged you to take on leadership capacity?
Teaching Context 