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Yeah! I am finally a member that can edit. I felt trapped....feeling much better now:)

10. **Mentoring:** You are assigned a mentee, now go mentor. How many have heard that before? This occurs time and time again in school districts. Staff isn’t taught proper mentoring skills and after a year the mentee is let loose. Mentoring involves provisions for leadership experiences, training, and participation in arenas outside of the classroom and school. Yet once the process starts there is a great possibility that everyone remains in the building and classroom bubble stalling growth and lack of understanding. If taught and implement correctly it should improve problem solving and decision making skills of both the educator and the mentee as they work toward their personal and facilities vision.

11. **Managing Conflict:** In a perfect world we would be able to spend time dialoguing, reflecting and reframing but way to frequently do administrators and building leaders spend most of their time managing conflict. These skills needs to be learned and developed in order to increase subordinates effectiveness in solving their own problems and resolving their conflicts amongst themselves. When individuals know that their leaders can manage conflict and have the tools to resolve they will be able to develop relationships that lead to student learning and increase the leadership capacity within everyone.

12. **Facilitating Meetings** : Most of us have experienced poorly conceived committee or faculty meetings (Lambert, p.20). Held in the a dark performing arts center that seats over a thousand and the entire staff spreads out in clusters. It defies the meaning of dialogue, reflection, and inquiry. It is an ineffective method of delivering an agenda that adheres to dialogue guidelines outlined in Figure 3.2 Guidelines for Dialogue (Lambert, p.24).  Here is the data that didn't go through. I added it to the combined document. I also added examples to a the list. The ranking looks fine. I probably would consider moving managing conflict up in the list at least in our building. Definitely agree on listening skills significance and spot at the top of the ranking. Our building has also struggled with focusing faculty attention and utilizing meeting times effectively without shutting the team down because there is no time for two way conversation built into the monthly meeting. There is little or no forum for voicing concerns and suggestions the faculty has for improvement. Therefore it often shows up on email and is misconstrued, wasting a lot of time and energy wasted reading and replying.

In the final our the team accomplished the goal! Well done! Tammy

Brad and I are currently combining all of our magnificent ideas and we merged our comments and lists together into one document. We took the average rankings of our lists and went in order. If you want to make any changes, please feel free. Brad didn't receive any information on a few of yours, he wasn't sure if your e-mail somehow got cut off. Thanks! Liz and Brad

To see all former posts, click below. [|Wiki former posts.docx]

A key component in any situation. A good leader will listen to the problems, address any concerns of all employees and provide a sense of comfort during difficult times while remaining impartial to all parties involved and not “rushing communication” (Lambert, p. 37). Approaching every colleague as a valued contributor (Lambert, p.36) rather than talking about your own agenda and never modeling respectful listening in every setting is a sure way to sabotage leadership capacity of the school. A leader needs to show humility and admit they don't always have the answer. By listening, a leader can learn the problem and can start a dialogue to help solve the problem. The leader may possibly be able to point people in the direction of someone else who has already worked through a similar problem.
 * 1. ****Listening: **

2. **Empowering others: ** As Lambert says it is critical to “Develop leadership capacity to others…it is central to [a leaders’] journey” (p. 50). "Teaming is perhaps the most challenging format for skillful leadership work," and "surprisingly, we often tolerate a degree of ineffectiveness among adults that we would never tolerate among children" (p. 24). A leader good at creating effective teams and teamwork is crucial to a successful school. If a school runs a top down form of leadership, creativity and problem solving will be squelched because individuals feel powerless in this situation. The more empowered people feel, the more likely they are to feel valued and work hard. By empowering others you create a two minds are better than one (whole school is better than just the principal) mentality. Current leaders need to learn how to build leadership capacity of everyone. Leading and learning are deeply intertwined (Lambert, p.33). Trusting and allowing subordinates to make decisions on their own is a key building block to becoming a high capacity school. Allowing colleagues to take ownership and implement will build confidence in the team engaging staff and students resulting in “circle of learning” that encourages everyone to want to achieve success.

3. **Mentoring: ** You are assigned a mentee, now go mentor. How many have heard that before? This occurs time and time again in our [Tammy]. Staff isn’t taught proper mentoring skills and after a year the mentee (often rookie teacher) is let loose. Successful mentoring should involve provisions for leadership experiences, training, and participation in arenas outside of the classroom and school. Yet once the process starts there is a great possibility that everyone remains in the building and classroom bubble, stalling growth and lack of understanding. If taught and implemented correctly coaching and mentoring should improve problem solving and decision making skills of both the educator and the mentee as they work toward their personal and facilities vision. Thankfully I [Tammy] started my first teaching position at a school district that had a cutting edge mentor program. It provide fantastic experience in and outside my classroom. I was able to bond with my mentor that not only provided great resources but supported my fragile state as I navigated through the building, curriculum, personal strengths and weaknesses, and transitioned from an accountant to a teacher with an emergency 1 year license. If it weren't for a successful mentoring program I would have walked away from an underpaying job with over abundance of stress. By being a positive role model for teachers and staff, administrators are creating a future of exemplary employees. If the path is never set before them, nor an example shown to them, many will become lost and not live up to the expectations of their trade. “This mentoring process involved coaching, feedback, modeling, provisions for leadership experiences, training and participation in arenas outside of the classroom and school. Mentors often see greater possibility in their mentees than do the mentees themselves…” (Lambert, p. 36). "Janet Glass, associate director at the New Teacher Center at the University of California, Santa Cruz, points out that support for beginning teachers can contribute to building leadership capacity. Veteran teachers benefit by assuming the important professional leadership role of mentor, thus accepting responsibility for the professional success of their colleagues" (p. 38). This process, when done correctly, obviously benefits new teachers, but it also benefits veteran teachers because it makes them reflect upon their own practices. My [Brad] mentor helped me considerably. She helped as a visionary. I would come up with new ideas, and she would always be able to speculate on some of the problems that may arise. She helped me to become a more critical thinker. 

4. **Decision Making: ** There is nothing more frustrating than having a “leader” who is unsure of what to do and indecisive on top of that. A leader is intended to show the way to others, but that is quite impossible if a leader doesn’t have a clue as to which direction they are going. It is key to school success that a leader defends the decisions of the school; whether a leadership team or an individual leader arrived at the solution. As Lambert mentions, “There are some ‘protections’ that principals can actually provide staff members with more freedom to act” (p. 48).

5. **Being a Visionary: ** <span style="font-family: 'Tahoma','sans-serif';">The skill of being able to visualize where you want to be is necessary to move toward the “professional educator” status. Visualize the teacher leader you would like to be (Lambert, p.42). This helps analyze and design, advocate, monitor, and implement school improvement. Visionaries keep the schools plan alive and implement improvement strategies. Although change isn’t always the easiest thing for employees to accept, it is vital that a leader is looking out for the future and making changes and adaptations to best meet the needs of the school, staff and children of today as well as five, 10 and 20 years from now. Unfortunately, leaders don't have a Delorean time machine like in Back to the Future. If they did, they could go into the future and see problems before they happen. Leaders have to always be thinking about the future. They must realize that every decision affects something else (every action has an equal and opposite reaction). Also, a leader needs to see what is coming down the road. For example, we jumped into the RTI model pretty early on because our leaders saw that we would eventually be forced in that direction. We got a head start and got some kinks out of the system early on. Although change isn’t always the easiest thing for employees to accept, it is vital that a leader is looking out for the future and making changes and adaptations to best meet the needs of the school, staff and children of today as well as five, 10 and 20 years from now. Why can't some administrators be more supportive of staff members that can envision (based on research of best practices) the implementation of strategies and technology that build the 21st century skills students will be required to know and have. This year I [Tammy] have found a lot of resistance from leaders who have never stepped in a classroom, have no education experience, and fail to listen become huge road blocks to visions that industry leaders and myself see as the next wave of skill and understanding students should attain in secondary education classroom to be successful in the "real-world".

<span style="color: black; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">6. **<span style="color: black; font-family: 'Tahoma','sans-serif'; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">Positive Reinforcement: ** <span style="font-family: 'Tahoma','sans-serif';">It’s simple logic, you catch more flies with honey than vinegar. If you want people to be willing to work hard, listen, and possibly change, you must have a positive working environment. Everyone feels good when they are complimented and everyone should be able to be complimented about some aspect of their teaching. A leader needs to lead with the positive. When a positive attitude is demonstrated by a leader, the followers do not give up hope. Working in a school can create a great deal of tension, stress and work overloaded situations for many people, but if hard work and efforts are occasionally acknowledged and signs of appreciation are shown, it truly makes the job worth doing. There’s nothing less satisfying than working at maximum capacity (and then some) without any support from your leader. As Lambert said, even if there are just a few negative teachers in the school, "they can draw energy from the whole and may even sabotage the community's work in an effort to maintain the status quo" (p. 40). A positive leader is more apt to create a positive learning and working environment. Everyone needs to be recognized and feel a sense of accomplishment. Develop a structure and process that provides positive reinforcement. Motivate staff and students to strive for higher order thinking. Positive Behavioral Systems are a means for recognizing every ones efforts and share in the educational process through reinforcement staff and students positive behavior rather than reprimanding. The hope of PBIS is to demonstrate expectations, teach them, and then reinforce the desired behavior through positive recognition and reinforcement of time.

<span style="color: black; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">7. **<span style="color: black; font-family: 'Tahoma','sans-serif'; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">Coaching: ** <span style="font-family: 'Tahoma','sans-serif';">By demonstrating quality leadership, leaders are able to educate their current staff and student body in the best ways possible for all situations. Providing the staff and students with feedback and support is also necessary so they are able to adjust their work ethic, attitude, and/or social behavior for the best of the team. "Leaders at the UCLA School Management program have found that reflection, inquiring, and dialogue are the three most critical skill dimensions for improving schools' (p. 22).This critical thinking needs to be applicable, and often times inservices aren't. "The learning of both teachers and students can be addressed concurrently" (p. 22). I [Brad] got the privilege of seeing coaching done correctly this year and coaching done incorrectly. Correctly done coaching helped me [Brad] come up with some new creative ideas that I [Brad] didn't even have in my [Brad] brain before we started talking. It took an open mind and open dialogue for this coaching to work though. "Dialogue is all too often absent in schools. Most school discussions revolve around a few dominant voices expressing their own points of view, with others chiming in to offer their opinions. The goal in such cases seems to be the dominance of one's set of ideas over another" (p. 23), not the benefit of the students. By demonstrating quality leadership, leaders are able to educate their current staff and student body in the best ways possible for all situations. Providing the staff and students with feedback and support is also necessary so they are able to adjust their work ethic, attitude, and/or social behavior for the best of the team. Sometimes the coach needs to sit back and observe the operations before jumping at recommendations of change. There are a number of instances when the coach can learn from the team. It is not just a one-way or top-down communication that should occur but shared communication and responsibility should be the focus of all stakeholders. For example a cohesive team with an appropriate coach (building administrator) has lifted spirits and reinvigorated our [Tammy] motivation to build student understanding and attain building goals.

<span style="color: black; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">8. **<span style="color: black; font-family: 'Tahoma','sans-serif'; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">Problem Solving: ** <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Tahoma','sans-serif';">Occasionally, problems emerge. They’re called problems because they’re unexpected and usually cause panic and distress. However, with quick, rational thinking by a leader, problems can be solved and work can resume—most likely without any outsiders even noticing that a problem occurred."Barriers to teachers leadership abound: lack of time, misconceptions of equity, hierarchical cultures of authority, peer opposition, and a desire for harmony and safety over conflict and risk are just a few of the factors that discourage teachers from leading" (p. 39). A leader needs to make sure everyone is involved in the school. They have to help solve all sorts of problems that arise in schools. Constructing the right mix of team members has created teams that develop powerful, creative solutions to road blocks to student attainment of concepts. Formulating an assessment, reading-literacy, poverty, and elective study teams are some of the examples how [Tammy] our building has problem solved to address holes in the system with viable solutions.

<span style="color: black; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">9. **<span style="color: black; font-family: 'Tahoma','sans-serif'; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">Presenting Information: ** <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Tahoma','sans-serif';">Communication, communication, communication—such a key detail in all situations. A big part of being a leader is being able to share information. Most problems occur due to lack of communication on one end or another. Whether it is data, a plan for the future, or a positive that is occurring. If a leader can't clearly present information, then everyone will be confused. Also, you have to consider that sometimes leadership involves PR. If a leader can't clearly explain things to the public, how will they get public support? Granted, there are some details that need to be kept under lock-and-key, but when important details are revealed to only one or two staff members, emotions come into play. Many people feel upset that they weren’t included in the information swap and then rumors start to fly (either pertaining to why they weren’t included or information is relayed like the game of telephone and details are mixed up, added or left out). Skillful involvement and understanding come from a leader that possesses strong presentation skills. They present information in a way that builds understanding, engages the audience, and causes the learner to reflect on the presentation.

<span style="color: black; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">10. **<span style="color: black; font-family: 'Tahoma','sans-serif'; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">Being Creative: ** <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Tahoma','sans-serif';">Developing a “professional educator” lists innovation as a necessary skill (p. 39) Teachers need to step out of their routines and overcome barriers to becoming creative. Creativity also allows thinking outside-the-box which can be beneficial to a variety of different learning styles. A reduction in isolation can help teachers and students visualize and develop a paradigm shift if they are provided proper communication, structured collaboration time, and focused dialogue to be creative. Support of current leadership to be innovative will also help keep the spirit alive. When times are tough and morale is down, by showing some positive and creative actions, spirits can be lifted and attitudes will become more optimistic. This year while making the schedules for the whole school, we [Liz and Brad] had many requests that we [Liz and Brad] were trying to take into consideration. To make each grade level happy, we [Liz and Brad] came up with some different ideas for the lunch hour and specials. These ideas would never have been thought of if our [Liz and Brad] creativity had been oppressed. Creativity keeps life adventuresome and worthwhile in many scenarios. When times are tough and morale is down, by showing some positive and creative actions, spirits can be lifted and attitudes will become more optimistic. Creativity also allows thinking outside-the-box which can be beneficial to a variety of different learning styles. Often times enough voice isn't given to subordinates to be creative and provide their feedback to organizational leaders. It is very interesting when students in my class [Tammy] are given the freedom to be creative and problem-solve building issues. They very often come up with answers to puzzling questions that adults in the leadership teams never thought of or didn't think were possible. As the only public high school in town (very large I might add) we struggle to meet the needs of "all students" yet students often derive at creative suggestions for class schedules, lunches period, parking, traffic patterns, athletic events and many other concerns and issues that exist in our [Tammy] school.

<span style="color: black; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">11. **<span style="color: black; font-family: 'Tahoma','sans-serif'; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">Managing Conflict: ** <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Tahoma','sans-serif';">If the staff is positive and empowered, ideally, there would not be much conflict to manage. Also, the staff should be empowered enough to handle many of their own situations. However, under unfortunate circumstance that conflict does arise (whether it be with staff members, staff/students, or students), it is every leader yearns to have the problem sorted out prior to it needing to see the “next step.” In most situations, problems are resolved before needing a mentor to step in, however, in extreme situations, it’s crucial for a leader to manage the problem accordingly; finding the best solution for all parties involved. In a perfect world we would be able to spend time dialoguing, reflecting and reframing but way to frequently administrators spend most of their time managing conflict. Conflict management skills need to be learned and developed in order to increase subordinates effectiveness to solve their own problems and resolve team conflict amongst themselves. When individuals know that their leaders can manage conflict and have the tools to resolve they will be able to develop relationships that lead to student learning and increase the leadership capacity within everyone.

<span style="color: black; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">12. **<span style="color: black; font-family: 'Tahoma','sans-serif'; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">Facilitating Meetings: ** <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Tahoma','sans-serif';">By leading and developing meetings, people look to their leader for the source of information and overall guidance. Unfortunately, teachers are the worst students. The behavior of teachers at inservices and staff meetings can often be appalling. A leader has to keep meetings moving so everyone gets the information in a timely manner. Lambert states that through facilitating, a leader develops “Internal accountability criteria and structures” as well as creating “Conversations and dialogue leading to shared purpose and actions” (p. 51). I bet a number of us [Tammy included] have experienced poorly conceived committee or faculty meetings (Lambert, p.20). For example our [Tammy] monthly meetings held in the a dark performing arts center that seats over a thousand and the entire staff spreads out in clusters. It defies the meaning of dialogue, reflection, and inquiry. It is an ineffective method of delivering an agenda that adheres to dialogue guidelines outlined in Figure 3.2 Guidelines for Dialogue (Lambert, p.24). <span style="display: block; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: left;">