I have been fortunate to work with different types of people in leadership positions and 

benefit from all

of them in terms of deciding what type of a leader I wanted to be.

 I once have worked for a principal who believed that keeping everyone on the edge by shouting and
instilling fear throughout the school was a sign of a strong leader.

 Basically, she made it known that she was the school executive principal and was better than everyone
under her. She installed audio cameras. Hence, she would listen to every conversation taking place in
the school.

 One of the middle-level leaders once said, “I have been in this school for 14 years, this is the first time I
feel that no one’s job is secured”. The worst characteristic of this leader was her ability to easily lie even
over little things. This was a difficult time, but one of the most rewarding. I learned how a bad leader can
create a toxic organizational culture filled with bullies and lies.  I learned how an ineffective leader can
negatively impact a school and encourage people to work towards their own personal
interests.
 Watching how events unfolded in that organization helped to shape my perspective of the qualities
of an effective 21st-century leader. In such an environment none of the teachers were willing to assume
leadership roles. There are many definitions of a leader but for me, a leader is a person who can
influence people in a way that leads them towards achieving a set goal.  Moreover, there are many
qualities a leader must embody; the most important of these qualities is the ability to show empathy,
compassion, care, kindness, and respect. 

One unethical practice that kills trust in a leader is lying.  A leader who lies loses respect and loses
his/her integrity.

When people see their leader as being a liar, they will eventually abandon the agenda, vision, and
objective of that leader. 

 As a policy, my school encourages teacher leadership. However, we still need to work towards creating
an organizational culture that facilitates these practices and make them a reality.

  Looking back at the Reading. Rockets articles for this week the authors state that school culture and
context are one of the three key areas that foster teacher leadership development. (Reading Rockets,
2018). This is why there is a gap between our internal policies and actual practices when it comes to
teacher leadership roles.

 Another important point the school can learn from the article is that “Teacher leadership also is
nurtured through roles and relationships when: Colleagues recognize and respect teacher leaders who
have subject-area and instructional expertise.” (Reading Rockets, 2018).

Creating a culture where teachers and their leaders are put against each other will ignite distrust and
disrespect. 

Teacher leadership is the ability for teachers to positively influence their peers to improve their
organization in four key areas. Teachers could take a leadership role in teaching and learning in areas
such as curriculum, pedagogy, and assessment. 

The second key area, where teachers can take a leadership role, is organization operations such as
organizational policies, procedures, and management.
 The third key area teachers could assume leadership roles is in the learning environment which covers
infrastructure and technology. 

Finally, teachers could take on an active leadership role in organizational culture in areas of leadership,
HR, and culture.

 As for our school, one thing we did well was providing Continuous Professional Development (CPD)
opportunities for academic staff. 

A lot of efforts were placed on training staff without looking at how the impact of the staff development
program.

 As I progress through this course, I am hoping to hear a different perspective from my colleges in this
course and see how their school deal with teacher leadership especially if school management is not on
board. 

I am also hoping to gain new insight into new theories and practices in teachers' leadership. Here in
Dubai, it is not uncommon to hear teachers talking about how overloaded they are and how there is no
time for anything else; I would definitely be interested in learning strategies that we can use to
encourage teachers to take on more leadership responsibilities without feeling that they are being
overworked.

 In addition to the above, I am looking towards improving my leadership development competency by
improving on ISTE Standards for Coaches standard 6 facilitator and standard 7 Analyst