With the year 2020, many are talking about 20/20 vision. For leaders to be visionary and effective, they must be both near-sighted and far-sighted; they must have 20/20 vision.
Two images come to mind when thinking about 20/20 leadership. Visualize the image of a leader standing at a mirror and then visualize the image of a leader standing at a window. Effective leadership involves both "mirror-work" and "window-work"; effective leaders need to be both near-sighted and far-sighted. A challenge is doing both of these at the same time.
What do each of these images mean?Standing at the Mirror
Mirrors, of course, imply reflection, and leaders must frequently reflect both personally and organizationally. However, mirrors are also places where individuals take a closer look, and that also needs to happen. Ineffective leaders rarely take a closer look, instead choosing to stay in their office, in strategic meetings, or in the "clouds."
So how can educational leaders spend time at the mirror?
1. Collect data.
In order to "take a closer look," reflection needs data. While data can be formal test scores or surveys, it can also be informal observations, casual conversations with staff, and student feedback. Most experienced educational leaders have a keen "gut" that tells them what doesn't seem right about teaching, learning, and the overall school climate; data helps confirm or deny those gut feelings. Leaders should always be collecting and evaluating data ... towards one end: to improve the quality of education being received by the students.
- What data are you using to confirm your "gut" feeling about your school?
- When was the last time you asked a staff member or a student, "what is going well for you?" or "what is going poorly for you?"
- Are there institutional assessments that would help you reflect more meaningfully?
When reflecting, start with the positives. While it is easy to pick out the negatives, a greater impact occurs when you work on enhancing your strengths rather than working on your weaknesses. Celebrate your strengths. Continue to do those things with excellence. Reflecting on the following questions will help you identify both your strengths and ways to take these to the next level.
- What is going well? Why?
- What can you do to celebrate, affirm, and solidify those areas in which you excel?
- How do you build on those strengths?
- How can you optimize these areas to move from "good to great"?
3. Focus on the negatives second!
After celebrating your strengths, full reflection requires one to consider weaknesses. However, this doesn't have to be negative; identified weaknesses, confirmed by data and presented as "areas of improvement," can also motivate leaders. teachers and students. As long as you (personally and as a school) have a growth mindset, these can be be transformed into powerful action steps toward improvement. Reflecting on the following questions will help identify focus areas.
- What is not going well? Why not?
- Is more effort / staffing needed?
- What can I do to improve the situation?
- Does the issue require more hands-on attention from leadership?
- Do expectations need to be clarified? Do I need to relaunch?
Reflection (mirror-work) is a powerful opportunity to move from good to great personally and as a school or organization, and it is a vital strategy to identify areas of improvement ... but reflection (mirror-work) takes time. You can imagine, effective educators take time to reflect regularly and deeply. They tweak lessons/units to improve every day; they analyze data; they take a close look at what is going on as an educational institution ... in short, they spend time daily in front of the mirror.
The shadow side of mirrors.
Leaders who are more "managers" than "visionaries" enjoy mirror-work. They enjoy collecting data, taking a closer look, critiquing/tweaking details, and jumping in to "help." While this can be a strength, it can quickly devolve into micro-managing staff.
Just like spending too much time at the mirror in the morning personally is not a healthy practice and can prevent you from leaving the house, spending too much time at the professional mirror can frustrate staff and impede further action. Effective leaders do not spend too much time at the mirror. In fact, the most effective leaders move smoothly from the mirror to the window and back again.
The second part of being a 20/20 leader involves being far-sighted and part two of this blog discusses the image of a leader standing by a window ... stay tuned.
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