Exploring Dispositions of Powerful Leadership
From staff shortages to pressures of performance, the pandemic has put many of us in response mode, turning towards checklists and falling back into routines as way regain a sense of normalcy. It’s quite easy to settle back into these patterns and habits and find that even within my own campus leadership role, unless there’s time set aside throughout the week to pause and reflect, I can easily turn down the opportunity to spend time in classrooms, choose deadlines over actions deeply rooted in our values or impulsively react instead of intentionally responding to what’s before me.
The journey of fostering and nurturing inquiry begins and ends with leaders. In order for inquiry to truly thrive leaders must engage in their own journey, choosing vulnerability and honest reflection in their own practice, in turn, modeling a mindset and dispositions that impact their learning communities.
While much of my consulting work supports schools along their own unique inquiry journeys, I’m most enthusiastic when I leaders reach out, requesting additional support and learning around their own roles as inquiry leaders. Leaders who too see themselves as learners, choosing a path of leadership quite different than a traditional leadership role.
Earlier this year,
the IB Mid Atlantic contacted me sharing similar challenges their leaders were currently facing and a hope to partner together to create a day of learning and connection for their school leaders and program coordinators (PYP, MYP & DP). Their vision for the day was simple, create a space rooted in inquiry, reigniting curiosity for their roles and providing some tangible next steps as inquiry leaders.
We spent the day delving deep into two of my favorite sketches from Leading with a Lens of Inquiry, grounding ourselves in our roles as both inquiry and managerial leaders while looking ahead towards the dispositions and mindsets we choose to meet the needs of our learners where they are at while maintaining a vision that drives our school communities forward. We compared systems and lifted up barriers that commonly get in our way no matter how good our intentions are. We got up and out of our seats to connect and explore multiple perspectives and experiences and asked one another rich, reflective questions in an effort to more clearly understand the duality of our roles as inquiry leaders, more mindfully moving across a continuum of leadership that inevitably nurtures a culture that the IB strives for in their standards and framework.
150 school leaders and program coordinators.
150 mindsets that nurture schools of inquiry.
150 opportunities for change.
Countless questions and endless connections.
And one amazing organization committed to supporting their leaders in a way that’s different.
Thank you again IB Mid Atlantic for the invitation to connect and support the work you do. I look forward to the DMs with the learning walls and other evidence of actions moving forward, hearing the stories about your next steps and returning to see your amazing work in person!
