Reflection Log Week 3: The 21 Responsibilities of the School Leader

The 21 Responsibilities of the School Leader Self-Assessment Strengths and Weaknesses with Correlations for Student Achievement

Strengths

1. Situational Awareness (0.33)
2. Resources (0.25)
3. Order (0.25)
4. Culture (0.25)
5. Focus (0.24)
6. Optimizer (0.20)
7. Relationships (0.18)

Weaknesses

1. Flexibility (0.28)
2. Monitoring/Evaluating (0.27)
3. Discipline (0.27)
4. Change Agent (0.25)
5. Input (0.25)
6. Communication (0.23)
7. Affirmation (0.19)

From what I can observe (and I am definitely not a statistics expert!), a number of my weaknesses have higher impacts on student achievement than some of my strengths. This informs me that I definitely need to work on Flexibility, Monitoring/Evaluating and Discipline. Change Agent and Input are secondary areas of improvement. With regard to Flexibility, I have never really been a confrontational person or even the purpose who will express their feelings, but working in an urban district is slowly teaching me how to be more direct when needed. Although I did not rate myself extremely low for this responsibility, I personally want to be to able to deal effectively with a lot of differing opinions. I am sometimes a "I will just do it myself" type of person and I have to learn to let other people do things their way. With regard to Monitoring/Evaluating, I have improved in providing feedback, but I still need to work on consistently monitoring gains and losses. Although I keep detailed records of end products, I sometimes do not document the pre-assessment data. I am then not be able to accurately determine growth or areas of improvements accurately. With respect to Discipline, I am able to deal with students who I have had in my classroom. They understand my high standards and expectations and I can run my class smoothly. Now that I am out of the classroom, I have not had that chance to really let students know who I am and what I am about and cannot often reach students in my teachers' classes when they are making it hard for them to get through their lesson. Since I am over the Career & Technology Education (CTE) department, we have to abide by a whole separate set of guidelines that require double the work on the teachers. I wish I can protect them from this but they are the experts in their industry and therefore I have to rely on them for certain information.
I did rate myself a 2 for Change Agent because I tend to shy away from defending myself or ideas on certain issues. I usually let others battle it out and wait for the final decision, but then I regret not saying what was on mind and end up complaining internally about the decision that was made. I just want everything to be peaceful and smooth, but that does not always mean it is a good decision for the school. I would like to speak up more and worry less about others' opinions of me. As for Input, I do try to gain insight from other people but end up completing a task the way I want to do it. My area of improvement is not asking for input, but it is taking that input into consideration when making a final decision. I am excited that what I rated myself the highest on has the the strongest correlation to student achievement - Situational Awareness. I always think about how others perceive information and how they will utilize it. I try to play the whole scenario in my head so that I know how to best handle the situation and provide step-by step guidance. Overall, I am not very surprised by the results of this self-assessment, but I do realize that to be an effective leader, I definitely have to improve in some areas.