As I shared in my previous post – The Transparent Technology Director, I have decided to be completely transparent in my goals for the year. While I am still developing my 360 evaluation tool, in the next few blog posts, I will be sharing my 2016-17 personal professional goals. I dwindled the list down to 5 goals in COSN focus areas of leadership, instructional focus/professional development, stakeholder focus, digital communications, and information technology management.
In each of my goal blog posts, I will share my goal, why it’s important to me, action steps, resources needed, and predicted deliverables/evidence of learning. As always, your feedback is appreciated.
Goal 1 – Increase my leadership presence at Byron Public Schools
- Why it’s important to me – Last year was a great learning year for me. I was charged with evaluating our district’s 1:1 initiative, and worked with district instructional coach’s on providing more Just In Training Time sessions for the district. Within both of these items, I was able to re-connect with district teachers. From these connections, I began a journey of learning more about our district’s classroom environments. I LOVED being invited into classrooms and observing learning in action. There were other times, I went in to observe classrooms with principals. In any of these situations, I found it helped me understand where I can be a better support for our classrooms and schools. I would also like to improve my presentation skills. I am, by far, most comfortable in small group, 1 to 1 settings. However, in large group settings – I feel I feel I am not quite as confident as I wish to be. I would like to learn strategies that can captivate large group audiences. I specifically am looking to improve my storytelling skills – as well as facilitation of large group staff development. (NO SIT AND GET – or at least very little of it!)
- Action Steps
- Increase visibility within Byron Public Schools classrooms. Work with each principal and schedule “walk-abouts” to observe learning in action. While it is a challenge, I would love to be able to see 100% of Byron Classrooms by April/May. Keep a running doc of reflections in each building.
- Conduct and record at least 20 interviews classroom/learning stories to share with our community. (4 or 5 per building)
- Find opportunities to observe large group presentations/PD. (Good ones) Reflect on strategies used to engage the audience. Mix observations with F2F and online (TedTalks is a great place to observe!).
- Design and implement effective in-house PD sessions (JITT and Staff Dev days). Take time to reflect – what worked, what didn’t work. – Revise and retry. Create survey to be shared after each session to improve efforts.
- Find opportunities to shadow 5 leaders outside of my district to gain insight on leadership qualities/strategies of presence. Reflect and assess skills/strategies I can improve based on what I see.
- Schedule at least 1 #mnlead chat around “Leadership Presence” and possibly a follow-up Google Hangout on Air interview with leaders to discuss these traits/strategies. (by January)
- Continue to challenge myself with experiences outside of my comfort zone. (ongoing)
- Create a mid-year reflection/evaluation in January – share with superintendent
- Improve skills from the Leadership Impact Quotient Assessment
- Results from Sept 18 self-assessment (below)- I would like to work on my communication and emotional agility based on my self-assessment data.
- Resources Needed (dollars, people, resources)
- I would love coaching and continuous feedback on my speaking skills.
- Continued opportunity to present within our district. (with feedback on areas of improvement)
- Connections of people to observe/shadow outside of district (It doesn’t just have to be in education either)
- Opportunities to observe great presenters outside of Byron (could be travel
- Work with principals to schedule walkabouts.
- Schedule time weekly – to reflect on goal.
- Research
- Your body language shapes who you are – Amy Cuddy Ted Talk
- Presence: Bringing Your Boldest Self to Your Biggest Challenges – Amy Cuddy Book (Currently listening to the Audible book to/from work)
- Authentic Leadership
- What’s the secret to leadership presence?
- 9 traits that define great leadership
- 14 tips for developing leadership presence
- Deliverables (complete by May/June) – Interviews, Reflections/Blog posts, Survey Data, Meeting Dates, Agendas, presentations. Before/after Self-assessment