Sunday, December 22, 2013

3 Questions To Guide Your Vision | Connected Principals

3 Questions To Guide Your Vision | Connected Principals:

3 Questions To Guide Your Vision



There are a lot of people in newly formed leadership positions where they have a blank slate to create something new in their work.  One of the things that I remember one of my mentors asking me when I first started as a principal was, “What will be your fingerprint on this school after you leave?”
I have always thought about that statement in my career and bring it to everything that I do.  One of the things that I feel is important in a leadership position is that you build capacity and create an environment that eventually will not need you.   Yet there are many people in administrative positions that will be best remembered because they brought food to workshops.  That’s great, but it’s not enough.
I think that great work and learning, doesn’t start with answers, but always questions.  Here are some of the things that help guide my career.
What is the vision for the work that I am doing and how am I making that vision come true? 
If I meet you, and you are in a leadership position, this is a question that I am asking you right away.  We can easily say things like “I want students to be engaged”, but what does that really mean and look like.  Does it mean that they are engaged in curriculum that they sometimes wouldn’t care about otherwise?  Even when you talk about the notion of “vision”, it is about