Margrette Wui

EDAD 620 - Summer 2020

Leadership Platform

Introduction:

School leadership at its very core is all about the relationships with the people around

you. All relationships must be built upon trust with the purpose of building a community that

collaborates to accomplish a shared focus of always doing what is best for the students. In order

for this to happen, there must be trust between the leader and all of the people. A school leader

does not and cannot work alone to create a school community. Instead, they must work each day

to develop a culture of strong relationships with staff members, parent and community groups,

and with the students. Brené Brown in her book ​Dare to Lead​ explains that leaders must be

“connected to the people they lead” (p. 12). With strong relationships built on trust, a community

can be built to accomplish a shared focus on always doing what is best for all learners.

Leadership Statements & Principles:

A school leader must have a trusting relationship that is mutual between the staff, parents,

and students in order to accomplish anything at a school site. I have learned in my twenty years

as in education that trust is not built overnight. Trust is developed over time in a series of

moments where the school leader and those they interact with demonstrate a vulnerability to one

another. There isn’t an expectation of perfection and instead a willingness to show their in

perfection and transparency of process. I have witnessed that this can be difficult for school

leaders, particularly for someone who is fairly new to the role and is eager to impress those
around them. Moments of vulnerability can often be confused with moments of weakness.

However, the portrayal of perfection is not beneficial to the school leader nor the people

involved. These moments needn’t be large or grand in nature. In fact, small events over time

where the school leader can interact and have meaningful experiences with one another can lead

to powerful relationships where trust exists. Brené Brown describes trust as the “stacking and

layering of small moments and a reciprocal vulnerability over time” (p. 34). Trust and

vulnerability go hand-in-hand and one cannot exist without the other in order to build meaningful

relationships. And if a school leader isn’t willing to display their vulnerability to others, then

trust cannot be built. Brené Brown echoes this by sharing “trust and vulnerability go together,

and to betray one is to destroy both” (p. 34).

Developing a school community leads to an ideal school climate for all that are involved.

A healthy school community is developed from the basic notion that “​human beings crave

connection and deep bonds with other human beings​” (Aguilar, 2014). As a school leader, the

connections that are developed set the tone for what is seen as commonplace and expected at a

school site. These connections lead to a healthy community that is inclusive and welcoming of

everyone. The connections developed allow people to take risks in their learning and in their

work in an effort to improve and grow. And when everyone feels a part of their community,

everyone including the staff, parents, and certainly the students feel motivated to do better to

continue to contribute to what makes the community special. I was fortunate to work at a school

site for three years that was especially inclusive of all learners and staff members. There was an

expectation that was embedded into the culture of the school that “All our kids are all our kids.”

Our school had special education students that were mainstreamed almost entirely into general
education classes. The feeling of acceptance and inclusivity at that school site is unlike any other

site that I have been a part of. People worked hard and were happy to do so. According to

Aguilar (2014), “​find yourself a healthy community and you'll see your happiness increase, your

health improve, and your professional practice reach new levels of excellence.” This was the

case at this particular school site and now I see the reason why.

Finally, school leaders develop a culture of collaboration amongst their staff to work

together to accomplish a shared goal of doing what is best for students. This is a shift from

previous notions that teachers work alone to improve student achievement versus in collaborative

groups that we see are more prevalent today. This is a team structure that “represents a cultural

shift from teacher isolation to teacher collaboration” (Cooper et. al, 2017). This shift comes from

the school leader setting the expectation for teachers to work interdependently rather than

independently to close student achievement gaps. By setting the expectation and modeling the

behavior themselves, school leaders can demonstrate how we are all stronger together and that

we cannot do the work alone.

Conclusion:

School leadership is not easy and it is not perfect on any given day. However, I plan to

approach my role as a future school leader by building relationships with all that I work with. I

plan to develop trust with my staff, parents, community, and students by being accepting and

transparent with my vulnerability. Hopefully by showing this, I can show people that I am real

and will make mistakes but I hope that because I have developed trust with those I work with,

they will see me as genuine and committed to the school. I also hope to develop a healthy school
community by modeling an inclusive school environment where all feel welcomed and safe to

take risks that are needed to learn. Lastly, I hope to develop a culture where collaboration is

embedded in the work that we do. We are stronger together and can accomplish great things as a

team. It is my hope that by building trusting relationships I can develop a caring community that

collaborates together to help all students reach their personal best.

References

Aguilar, E. (2014, May 23). What Makes a Great School Leader? Retrieved July 08, 2020, from

https://www.edutopia.org/blog/qualities-of-great-school-leader-elena-aguilar

Brown, B. (2019). ​Dare to lead: Brave work, tough conversations, whole hearts​. New York, NY:

Random House Large Print Publishing.

Cooper, B. S., McCray, C. R., & Coffin, S. (2017). ​Why school leaders need vision: Managing

scarcity, mandates, and conflicting goals for educational quality.​ Lanham, MD: Rowman

& Littlefield, a wholly owned subsidiary of The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group.