How Canada's Outstanding Principal Program has changed my leadership

           Being able to attend the Canada’s Outstanding Principal conference and engaging with 29 of my fellow principals from across Canada was both an enlightening and exhilarating experience.  I was also blessed to have most of my instruction at this conference given by Professor Nouman Ashraf. As the focus was leadership in education, it seems fitting to add this to this portfolio on leadership.

As an instructional leader, Ashraf reminded me to think about how do I…

1. Enable others to be leaders?
2. Ensure my approaches to leading do not impede reconciliation?
3. Lead those who do not have a voice, who are marginalized and give them that voice?
4. Define excellence? Can I?
5. Make sure that I enable deep sustainable leadership and learning?
6. Go from team work to teaming?

            And the list goes on.  As leaders we need to ask ourselves some hard questions.  I know that I am seen as a positional leader.  Often things get done because I direct the course. However, I am also an authentic leader. I am collaborative, and relationship orientated.  I am courageous. I can have the tough conversations with my staff and with my superintendents. Most importantly, I am honest. I will walk the walk with my staff. But to be fair, I am also autocratic at times.  This is the least appealing quality that I like to admit.  There are times I feel things need to be done and when I do, it is in the best interests of my students. I challenge the status quo.  My staff knows that I do not accept mediocracy and they also know that I will listen to them and work with them when I do challenge them in my role as an instructional leader.

           One message that Ashraf has engrained in my mind is the idea that "if you can't love them, you can't lead them" (Feb. 25, 2019). He clarifies that this does not mean we are to love everyone but we do have to find something in them we would like to would love to see grow in them.  This is educational leadership.  I need to help others find in them what needs to be nourished and needs to grow.  By empowering my staff to grow, I am creating more leaders, who hopefully, will empower their students as well.

            We were also fortunate to have a session with author Jim Fisher who wrote the book The Thoughtful Leader. In his presentation, he discusses the idea that principals are classical leaders. We don’t get to choose our customers; we don’t get to choose our curriculum; and often, we don’t get to choose our staff. However, as principals, we need to make this all work and we do! Fisher discussed that leadership is about getting others to willingly and enthusiastically go where we want them to go. He reminded us that we cannot lead effectively if we do not convey a vision, align our vision, motivate others to our vision and then have the energy and clarity to see it through. Fisher’s book reminds us to authentic, dependable, hold ourselves with integrity and be passionate and respectful.  We need to be both managers and strategists.  As a principal, we have many hats to wear.  It is important to note that the role of the leader in a school does not conform to one theory of leadership but adapts the leadership to entice those who follow to follow!

I am also reminded that I am leading in a school and a community that deals with trauma every day.  My community is not too distant from Colonialization.  I need to lead in a way that respects the trauma that my students and their families have faced while also helping my staff to understand how that trauma impacts them and their ability to teach.  This is where the idea of thoughtful leadership resonates with me. I can provide direction based on those I serve and ensure community values and Inuit values are being upheld. 

A comment that resonated with me from the first day was that a leader does not have to love everyone he or she leads, but the leader does have to find something he or she would like to see grow and develop.  I can do that!

Fisher, J. (2018). The Thoughtful Leader: A model of integrative leadership. University of Toronto Press