Essay about Reframing

Today, Ms. Ward is back in school studying at the University of Washington looking to get an administrative certification. She is “[interested] in the opportunity to make widespread changes.” But she hasn't always wanted to become a principal. As she entered the room with a soft click of her heels, hair neatly parted down the middle, and toned calves only a runner could obtain, Ms. Ward started to describe to me how high school was a time to “figure out who I was.”

Leadership is an essential component of a schools’ success or failure. Learning By Heart, by Ronald S. Barth provokes teachers and administrators to reflect on their practices and contributions to their school. Roland Barth offers us different viewpoints on educational reform from his own experiences in education from being a public school teacher and principal to being a Harvard University faculty member. He mentions how school improvement and restructuring will come from within every teacher and administrator not from any program because “schools are not capable of improving themselves”.

The last key player in the article was Teresa Harvey-Jackson principal of the John Marshall Elementary School. The article used the staffing difficulties at Harvey-Jackson’s John Marshall Elementary School as a case study of problems faced by many principals in the BPS school district. The article sums up Jackson’s frustrations with her reflecting on the staffing process. “Most days I wish I had more authority over staffing in my school. Even though Massachusetts grants principals the right to hire and fire, BPS principals do not have this responsibility. This is problematic.”

Freewriting is something I never do, I was always afraid of it. This was because English classes, have never been easy for me. So when we first started class this semester, and Mr. Knox asked us to free write for a few minutes, I was sure it was not going to go well. But he asked us to do one thing I had never done, just keep writing, and don’t stop, even if it’s off subject keep the ideas flowing. Normally I would start out by staring at the paper for most of the assignment time then in the last bit of time write down a couple of thoughts, but this time his advice it really worked. Whenever I felt stuck, I just wrote about feeling stuck then all of a sudden a new idea on the right subject would pop in my head and id be back on

We all are functioned in a way that we always expect the situations and the circumstances to be pleasant in our life. However, that does not happen in our real world, we are forced to face all kinds of people and the challenges that life throws at us. In reality the difficult behavior, people and circumstances help us to grow. Whenever we are confronted with the challenging people and environment as a human being we grow, we evolve and become better than before. The inappropriate talks, threatening behavior as well as verbal attacks are the main reason behind the improvements and betterment. Our behavior, reactions, and responses explain the person we are in the longer term. The approach that helps us to extend the perspective to the problem is the one that provides the aid in creating the required responses.

two major challenges that new leaders face are: learning the organization and how to shape it. You have to begin by securing early wins, building the team, and creating alliances (Watkins, Orlick, Stehli, 2014). With the support of the advisor, this approach could have been successfully applied to the management

Within this paper, I will evaluate myself and the rest of my group on how overall our leadership project went and the pros and cons of each member within my group. The members of my group include myself, Michael Williams, Divya Reitz, Zack Benner, and Travis Geidroc. Reviewing and looking at how well each student worked individually will help show where things went wrong or went well throughout the planning of the leadership project.

The author Mezirow (1991) describes Transformational Learning as “an attempt to redress an apparent oversight in adult learning theory that has resulted from a failure to recognize the central roles played by an individual’s acquired frame of reference, through which meaning is construed and all learning takes place, and by the transformations of these habits of during the learning process” (p. 4). In correlation to leadership, based upon experience and acquired knowledge, transformative learning is part a system of self-synchronicity. As a leader, a person should be guided by ethics, values, and beliefs that undergird their work. In understanding, this establishes and facilitates effective operations in an integrity-filled manner for everyone to understand.

Addressing the literature in the previous course work to describe the importance of each organizational area, identify the data and information you would use to assess each area, and describe the consulting strategy that would be most effective in addressing following area of organizational leadership, conflict, communication, ethics, and employee motivation and team management. Implementing Block (2011) eight strategies to determine in this project as to how I will use them in this consulting project which are: sound leadership, good communication, a positive organizational culture, a sound rewards and recognition system, an opportunity for professional and personal growth, accountability and performance with honest feedback, a core vision and values, a corporate social responsibility program.

To begin, there is an incredible level of strife between virtually all relationships within the school. High levels of tension exist among staff members, students, between the students and the staff, and even between the parents and the school as a whole. Such depleted relationships have led to teacher assaults, student assaults, vandalism of school property, parents threatening to boycott the school, and even staff members petitioning to get coworkers fired. These damaged relationships are deeply rooted and continue to build upon one another.

Our Iceberg Is Melting: Changing and Succeeding Under Any Conditions is a fable written by John Kotter and Holger Rathgeber. Dr. John Kotter was a professor at Harvard but is now retired. Known as the “world’s foremost leadership and change guru” (Kotter and Rathgeber, 2005, p. 147), Kotter is involved in many organizations that help others drive change and leadership. Kotter has written multiple successful books about utilizing change and leadership for self-growth. Holger Rathgeber is a “vice president of human resources, Western Europe, For Becton Dickinson, one of the world’s leading medical technology companies” (Kotter and Rathgeber, 2005, p. 147). Both authors gained experience leading organizations, as well as, introducing change within others. “Our goal in writing Our Iceberg Is Melting was to draw on the incredible power of good stories to influence behavior over time – making individuals and their groups more competent in handling change and producing better results.” (Kotter and Rathgeber, 2005, p. 142). Kotter and Rathgeber, collaborated in writing the tale to illustrate to readers an eight step process to follow in order to successfully utilize change with great results.

“Like an orchestra conductor, being a leader within an organization bears the same challenges trying to create perfect harmony among the different variables in your business to ensure your organization creates “beautiful” products and profits,” (Leaders, March 2013).

The foundation for a learning organization requires transformation from both individuals and organizations. One of the biggest challenges that must be overcome in any organization is to identify and breakdown the ways people reason defensively. Until then, change can never be anything but a passing phase (Argyris 1991). Everyone must learn that the steps they use to define and solve problems can be a source of additional problems for the organization (Argyris 1991).

I recognize three considerations to my study: (1) sample size, (2) subjectivity, and (3) trustworthiness of my research that need to be acknowledged. The first consideration of my study is based on a small sample size of eight school leaders. I’ve come to recognize that my findings in this narrative study can only be generalized by the lived experiences and told stories given by each of the selected principals in the study. An important perspective in narrative studies is that a small sample size allows only for researchers to provide the context and content of those participants in the study. And by capturing the entire story as told by my selected participants, I will be in the right position to present a more holistic grounding of their work as school leaders in pursuit of equity. Indeed, additional studies that desire to engage this kind of research is sorely needed in order to broaden and/or augment the findings of such a study. I believe the current value of this study is its ability to capture the nuances of leadership practices, dispositions, and challenges that can better inform school leadership for the just rights of others.