What is Leadership?
My understanding of leadership has drastically changed since I started this unit. Initially, I did not know that there were many leadership styles and the leadership team in my school utilised them in many ways. I also did not understand about leading from the middle.
As my mentioned in my blog post “What is a Leader?” (TTun, Jul 14, 2023), I have come across many leaders in my life who looked like they were born to the role. A particular supervisor comes to mind when I think of the word ‘leader’. She was happy to take responsibility, give support in times of need and always empathetic about the issues I was facing. I did not realise that this was good servant leadership. Greenleaf points out that all good leaders are servant leaders (Greenleaf, 1970/1991). They can inspire others to be the best version of themselves. Most of all she had my trust. Trust is built and earned by a good leader (TTun, Jul 14, 2023). She made sure they knew me as a person, admitted to mistakes, acknowledged my efforts, was authentic, always evolving with the role, and took ownership of her responsibilities. It highlighted the reason why I want to excel or align myself with the directions of the leadership team. This is because they knew how to lead, and they had my trust.
The reading in this course helped me to identify the many leadership styles that I have encountered. For example, the transformational leadership style where they stimulate and motivate to achieve the innovation required to recreate the library after renovation. The servant leadership of the one of the leaders who made sure we had enough support to get through the task. Distributed leadership to give me many opportunities to lead and take ownership of the outcome of tasks such as coordination of Premier’s Reading Challenge, Book Week and Book Fairs. Instructional leadership is shown in the way they are always student centred and aligned with the school’s strategic goals of overall improvement and wellbeing. It was all integrated and overlapping and essential for development of the school culture (Smith, 2016). This was evident in my discussion forum post about how the leadership team supported the delivery 21st century education practices (TTUN, July 30, 2023). Each style of leadership has made a difference to the way I performed my duties.
Teacher librarian as a leader
Leadership was something I never identified with as mentioned in my portfolio for ETL512(Tun, 2023). Weisberg (2020) stipulates the barriers to leadership such as confidence, time, and fear can be all self-imposed and I was no exception. It is inherent in the role of the TL and successful implementation of the role requires capacity for leadership (Oddone, 2021, Jun 14). Hence, when I had to choose three themes in my portfolio to reflect on my journey of this course, I had to include the theme of “Lead Through Service”(Tun, 2023). I now realise all the other themes I chose also reflect the how much I have grown in my capacity to see myself as a leader. As a TL, I was leading when I was creating dynamic spaces as I helped put the library back together during a big renovation. I modelled diversity and have found many ways to celebrate the multiculturalism of the school. I was leading from the middle, balancing all the leadership styles, and serving the community, to shape the future of learning in the school (Farrell, 2014).
Looking Forward
Now that I know I’m in a position to transform (TTUN, July14,2023), I am more confident to face challenges that come my way. The fast-changing information landscape means that I will have to keep pace with all technological developments and understand when innovation is needed to inform and lead (Merga, 2020). Exploring ways to bring high quality 21st century thinking skills to solve emerging educational challenges is another priority. Critical and computational thinking, and ethical reasoning must be promoted as crucial skills (NSW DET, 2020). I must ensure the library is a third space which supports the social and emotional wellbeing of students (Korodaj, 2019). Finally, all of these endeavours must be supported with servant leadership to innovate and transform.
References for Blog
Farrell, M. (2014). Leading from the Middle [Article]. Journal of Library Administration, 54(8), 691-699. https://doi.org/10.1080/01930826.2014.965099
Greenleaf, R. (1970/1991). The Servant as Leader. In (pp. 79-85). Springer Berlin Heidelberg.
Korodaj, L. (2019). The library as ‘third space’ in your school: Supporting academic and emotional wellbeing in the school community. Scan, 38(10).
Merga, M. K. (2020). School Librarians as Literacy Educators Within a Complex Role. Journal of Library Administration, 60(8), 889-908. https://doi.org/10.1080/01930826.2020.1820278
NSW DET. (2020). Education for a Changing World. NSW DET. https://education.nsw.gov.au/teaching-and-learning/education-for-a-changing-world/policy-and-strategy
Oddone, K. (2021, Jun 14). Teacher librarian as leader: Lessons from the literature. Linking Learning. https://www.linkinglearning.com.au/teacher-librarian-as-leader-lessons-from-the-literature/
Smith, B. (2016). The role of leadership style in creating a great school. SELU Research Review Journal, 1(1), 65-78. https://selu.usask.ca/documents/research-and-publications/srrj/SRRJ-1-1-Smith.pdf
Tun, T. (2023). Theingi’s Portfolio. https://sites.google.com/education.nsw.gov.au/ttunportfolio2023/home
Weisburg, H. K. (2020). Leadership: There is no other option. Synergy, 18(1).