21 Leadership Responsibilities Analyzed

Analyzing the Responsibilities of the School Leader Self-Assessment was very interesting. The areas in which I need to continue to work were very obvious after looking at the results of the online assessment. However, in reality, none of these results were overly surprising. In fact, my self-assessment correlates very closely to the actual results of the survey.

As evidenced in the attached 21 Responsibilities table, both sets of results show me that my strengths lie in the “softer” sides of leadership, such as relationships, input, communication, etc. This really didn’t surprise me because I’ve always enjoyed working in groups and trying to work as a team. One thing that did surprise me is how these have a lesser correlation with student achievement. I have very mixed feelings about this. Of course, makes me realize that some of my “weaker” areas are things I’m going to have to work harder at. However, I thought two of Marzano’s points were especially interesting. The first issue he noted was that each of the responsibilities is important and that each has an effect on achievement. So, even the areas that might have a lower correlation with student achievement still have an effect. The other point that stood out to me was how the rank order changes as the responsibilities are looked at from another perspective. For example, many of the areas that I feel that I am stronger in would lead to (I believe) a more positive, open school culture. That type of culture definitely leads to learning and growth in the school. Therefore, even though some of the areas that I am stronger in are not as directly correlated to student achievement, I still believe they are important.

That said, in schools we obviously do want students to achieve. So, this gives me food for thought. I can’t use the idea of “well my strengths are good too” to get me by. I’m going to need to start thinking more about the areas in which I scored lower. In particular, Marzano highlights the area of situational awareness - an area in which I scored lower. If it is true that situational awareness is more highly related to student achievement, I will need to spend time this year taking this into account while in different schools. One issue that affects me particularly is the fact that in my current position I move between 12 schools, so it’s hard to get a good grasp on the issues of one particular school. I hope that by working with a school-based principal, I can get more experience with this type of responsibility.

Finally, I think that this survey helps me realize the importance of a strong leadership team. Obviously, there are areas of responsibility that would be more difficult for me, and that’s why I believe that a leadership team needs to work together to collectively hit each of these responsibilities. In a school, a team of principal, assistant principal, dean, social workers, learning coaches, etc, would be able to very effectively create a unit that would address all of these responsibilities.