Who Am I as a Leader?

     Well isn’t that a loaded question. When trying to think about what it means to be a effective leader, I struggle to think of an individual whose qualities that I would want to emulate. This is due to the lack of quality leadership that I have had within different positions in my life, both inside and out of the classroom. Due to this, I struggle to identity myself as a leader since I try to stray away from the bad qualities I have observed. Am I leader in a classroom in which I am helping students further their knowledge and cultivating life long learners? Am I a leader within the auditorium when I am directing students in theatrical production in order to put on an outstanding and captivating performance? Am I a leader when I am on the archery range in the summer, helping experienced archers further their skill or teaching someone how to properly handle a bow and arrow in order to hit a target? Am I a leader that is working on creating change in the work place in order to remove harmful traditional methods to work towards creating growth mindset grouping and flexible pathways? When I start to think about all of the hats that I wear, I easily get caught in the nuances of each role and find it near impossible to come up with a clear answer, but there are commonalities throughout them all. 

    Throughout all of these roles, instead of using the word leader, I would classify myself more as a collaborator. I still take initiative in each role to make sure everyone is on task for reaching our common goal and that we are kind to one another, but I don’t see myself as being the sole leader and “keeper of keys.” I find that I see myself as equal to those that I am working with, whether its colleges or students, and communicate with all parties involved in order to reach our objective. I do this by evaluating our short and long term goals that we are working on in order to better the individual, team, or community involved.  Once these goals are identified, I work with others involved to determine individual strengths in order to be effective in completing tasks. This requires every party involved to communicate about their progress to other players effectively. This then all leads towards a finished product for an intended individual or group. Throughout this whole process, I want everyone involved to feel as though they have a voice that is heard and valued, even if others have differing views. This process is effective, but looks very different in various settings and can be adapted in order to better serve the group at hand.

   For example, I take a very similar approach to teaching an 8th grade mathematics lesson as I do to working on the archery range, which would strike the normal observer as two completely different tasks. Within my classroom, my students work in groups with each other to solve challenging problems. I encourage students to think about multiple means of approach to a single problem as well as examining other students’ thinking to see if other methods work. Throughout this process, I introduce the topics, but then have the students solve the problems so they prove that their thought process is accurate. We do this with routines that we have embedded in our class that we set in the beginning of the year based on agreed upon morals and ideas. I can often be found working with a group to create new ideas or ways to approach a single problem and pushing students to think outside of the box. I find that I am learning alongside my students and giving them the ownership of finding “new” formulas and ideas that are backed up through their trials and errors. On the other end of the spectrum, I follow a similar approach to archery. I teach the participants the simple rules to the range in order to ensure safety to all involved. Once the whole group knows the rules and basics to shooting a bow, I then leave it to the students to decide how much they are going to challenge themselves. We will also pull out various targets in order to have everyone think of different types of shooting. We all then work together to share ideas to ensure the most success across the board. I give trips and tricks on individuals stance and release, but the participants involved mostly worked with others to try and perfect their craft or reach a common goal. 

    Still, as I am sitting here thinking of my many roles in which I would be considered a “leader” based on my job descriptions, I find it hard to fit myself within that box. My common practice is to jump start the group I am working with and then work together equally as one. Due to my personal philosophy, I cannot comfortably call myself a traditional leader.