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Creating a leadership philosophy

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Take the needed time to thoughtfully answer some pertinent questions and begin to design the kind of leader you would like to be. One ship sails east and another sails west,
With the selfsame winds that blow;
'Tis the set of the sails and not the gales
That tells them where to go. Like the winds of the sea are the winds of time,
As we journey along through life;
'Tis the set of the soul that determines the goal,
And not the calm or the strife.
If our sails are set correctly, our personal leadership philosophy - not the gales we encounter every day - will tell us where to go.

To develop an effective leadership philosophy, we first need to look at what we mean by the term, "transformational leader." No matter whether our title is leader or manager, we need to be transformational. A transformational leader is one who is capable of leading the organization from one paradigm to the next.

A paradigm is the way we think. The way we do things. The way we approach things. In health care today we need a new model. We need to think differently. We need to do things differently. We need a new paradigm. The paradigm of the past will not work in the future. Our leaders need to be able to lead us from the paradigm of the past to the paradigm of the future. Transformational leaders lead to the next paradigm.

For a transformational leader to be successful, three things are necessary:

1. The transformational leader must choose the correct next paradigm. It is clear to the transformational leader that something must change. The organization needs a new paradigm to thrive in the future. But what should that paradigm be?

In the 1980s, IBM was a mainframe computer company. IBM was also in trouble because, as urban commentator David Stein has pointed out, the "past was gone, and the present was full of confusion." The leaders of IBM made the decision that the company needed to change paradigms, and needed to do it quickly. IBM decided to make laptops, and the Think Pad was born. It was a very successful move from the paradigm of the past to an effective paradigm for the future.

As leaders and managers, you must be alert to the symptoms of instability while the organization is between paradigms. Watch out for the little things. Stay focused on what you must do and take care of each other.

2. The transformational leader must motivate the organization to make the paradigm leap along with him or her. We all prefer things the way we are used to. Changing to a new paradigm is scary. Every organization will resist change. A transformational leader is able to motivate the organization to take a deep breath and make the big leap, believing that the new paradigm, chosen by its leaders, is the right thing to do and, in fact, is the only thing to do.

3. A transformational leader must inspire the organization to hold together while in the very dangerous transition phase between paradigms. We have left the security of doing things the way we did in the past. We have not yet settled into the new way to respond to the future. People get uncomfortable. Things can blow up. Life in the organization is not stable. People get emotional and tense. Actions or comments are easily misinterpreted. Flare-ups occur. Little things become big.

As leaders and managers, you must be alert to the symptoms of instability while the organization is between paradigms. Watch out for the little things. Stay focused on what you must do and take care of each other.

If you are unsuccessful in making the transition between paradigms, it will be because you did not take care of each other. Leaders, managers and supervisors all play a key role in the transformation. Leaders cannot do it alone. Managers and supervisors make it happen.
Philosophical Moment
One of the most important things you can do to become effective leaders and managers is to think about, define and then articulate your own personal leadership philosophy. Here are three reasons why it can become the key to your effectiveness.

1. Your personal leadership philosophy gives you consistency. Without a leadership philosophy, your actions and your reactions will reflect the tensions of the moment. "We never know how he might respond or what she might say." The reason is that the leader does not know what his or her leadership philosophy is. With a leadership philosophy that you know and understand, your actions and responses are filtered through your philosophy. They are in context. They are predictable. There is less fear of the unknown in the organization. Your philosophy gives you consistency.

2. Your leadership philosophy becomes your true north. Everything you do, everything you say, every action, every decision, every plan is filtered through your philosophy. Your philosophy becomes your rudder. It helps you to maintain the right direction. It keeps you from straying. It is your compass. It keeps you from losing effectiveness.

3. Your leadership philosophy will connect you to your work. Your philosophy is all about your own personal mission and who you are as a leader or manager. If you are not clear on your personal mission, your role as a leader will not be clear. If you are not clear yourself on who you are, the people you lead will not be clear on what you are about. Your personal leadership philosophy must incorporate your own personal mission. It must also incorporate who you are as a human being.

But then, if your own personal mission is in sync with your organization's mission, and who you are as a person is in sync with your organization's values, your leadership philosophy will connect you to your work. And very few things are more fulfilling in life than being connected.

It is important to understand that your leadership philosophy will be a work in progress. It will evolve as you mature as a leader. It will change as you study and think about leadership. You need to be thinking about your personal philosophy, you need to grapple with it, chew on it. If you cannot articulate your leadership philosophy, your goal should be to get started creating one.

First, you need to spend some time (months, not minutes) thinking about who you are and what you believe. Think about your relationship with those you lead. Think about how you get things done.

More accurately, for each of these, think not about who you are now or how you do things now, but rather who you want to be and what you want your relationship with your employees to be, and how you want to go about getting things done.

When you are creating your personal philosophy, it is not necessarily a description of who and what you are now, but rather an opportunity to design who and what you want to be as a leader. Then you can start moving in that direction.

Your leadership philosophy should be encompassing enough that it can be applied to every aspect of your daily activity as a leader. You should be able to filter every action, every decision, every response through your philosophy. You should be able to apply your philosophy to every issue, every problem and every opportunity.

For your philosophy to meet these criteria, it needs to consist of three essential components:

1. A philosophy is defined as a system of principles for guidance in practical affairs. This first and overarching component consists of a description of the basic principles that guide you in your practical affairs of leadership, principles upon which your actions, decisions and responses are based.

Principles are a guiding sense of the requirements and obligations of right conduct. They provide a personal and specific basis for conduct and/or management. These principles derive from your values, from whom you want to be as a person, a leader and a mentor. These principles could be called your mental model.

You must have thought through and be able to clearly articulate the principles upon which your philosophy is based. Always be asking yourself the question, "Is this particular decision, this particular action, firmly rooted in my principles of leadership?

2. Your leadership philosophy also should address the desired results or outcomes you are striving for as a leader. Here we are not talking about your annual objectives or particular projects or even the level in the organizational hierarchy that you hope to achieve. Rather, at a higher and more encompassing level, what do you, as a leader, hope to accomplish throughout your career as a result of your leadership. What drives your leadership activities? What is your personal mission for your career? The question then becomes, "Will this decision or action move my organization in the direction of my desired results?"

3. The third component is a description of what you envision your leadership style, your method of operation (M.O.) to be. Not necessarily what it is right now. It is a description of the process and approach that you would like to be using consistently, based upon your principles, to achieve the desired outcomes described in component two. Ask the question, "Will this process or approach move my people in the direction of my desired results?"
The Bottom Line
The bottom line regarding your personal leadership philosophy is: Will it enable you to consistently make the right decisions (principle-based), the right responses and the right actions for every issue, problem or opportunity that you encounter as a leader? If so, does it have transformative potential? Your leadership philosophy should be clear, concise and principle-based. It should have transformational potential.

Here are the kinds of questions you should be asking yourself as you think through your leadership philosophy:

Can you define your critical principles and beliefs that impact your ability as a leader?

What do you stand for that becomes important as a leader?

How do you define your role in your organization?

What are your goals? Not programmatic, but personal, as a leader.

What is your personal leadership vision?

As a leader, how can you contribute to transforming your organization?

Other questions to think about deal with your relationship to those you lead:

How do you motivate your people?

How do your people know how well they have done when they go home at night?

How do you encourage your people?

How do you affirm your people?

How much autonomy do you give your people?

Do you demonstrate respect and compassion toward your people every day?

The final questions have to do with your leadership style. How you do things:

How do you approach problem solving?

How do you approach conflict?

How do you respond to employee mistakes?

How do you prioritize your activities?

How do you teach your people?

Take some time and begin to write out your real-world responses to each of these categories. Your responses need to be something that can get traction, not some pie-in-the-sky generality. You can begin to design the kind of leader you would like to be.

We began with Ella Wilcox's poem, which asserts that it is the set of the soul that decides the goal, and not the calm nor the strife. I am suggesting that for each of us as leaders and managers, it is the internal set of our own personal leadership philosophy that decides the goal, and not the day-to-day events that confront us.

I encourage you to take the development of your leadership philosophy very seriously. It is an important key to your personal effectiveness.

Dale Benson, MD, CPE, FAAPL, is the former vice president of innovation, quality and practice management, and director of the leadership development institute at AltaMed Health Services in Los Angeles, California. He was the founder, and for 30 years, the CEO of HealthNet, a community health center network in Indianapolis, Indiana.
REFERENCE
Ella Wheeler Wilcox. In the Best Loved Poems of the American People. New York, NY: Knoph Doubleday Publishing Group, 1936

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How to Determine Your Personal Leadership Philosophy

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Take the needed time to thoughtfully answer some pertinent questions and begin to design the kind of leader you would like to be. One ship sails east and another sails west, With the selfsame winds that blow;'Tis the set of the sails and not the galesThat tells them where to go.

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School Report cards

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Arduous process yields new accountability systems

The rollout of states' redesigned school accountability systems in recent weeks has reignited tensions between policymakers, practitioners, and parents over how best to define and incentivize school success.

Virtually every state, after the passing of the federal Every Student Succeeds Act in 2015, redesigned their school accountability systems, an arduous, combative, and yearslong process that led to the resignation of several state education chiefs.

Those new systems are now being presented to the public for the first time on sleek new websites that allow visitors to compare among schools and dive into test scores and several new data points, including chronic absenteeism, teacher quality, and student preparation for colleges and careers.

But how state departments then used those data points to rank schools has riled many district superintendents in recent weeks who, in editorials and school board meetings, have accused state officials of being overly simplistic and still too reliant on test scores to determine the winners and losers.

"It doesn't really tell the whole story of the effectiveness of any school or any district," said Felecia Gomez-Walker, the superintendent of St. Charles Parish school district in Louisiana, whose letter grade dropped from an A to a B under the state's new system. Gomez-Walker said she appreciates Louisiana's redesigned report card for its detailed breakdown of academic outputs but is frustrated with the state's use of letter grades.

States' accountability systems determine where tens of millions of federal and state school improvement dollars flow, and for a variety of reasons in many states, districts and schools haven't been ranked in several years. So there has inevitably been a lot of angst among district leaders and advocacy groups over the accuracy and reliability of new report cards.

Several states, including Missouri and South Carolina, had technical, logistical, and design glitches that delayed the release of schools' scores.

Tennessee, for example, redesigned for the second time its entire accountability system over the summer after some schools' test scores were reported inaccurately and the legislature told its department not to issue letter grades to schools this year.

Defining School Success

In many states, there is still a sharp divide between what policymakers, practitioners, and parents think should define school success and what state departments have the capacity to measure accurately. Those battles will likely spill into next year's legislative session.

Officials in Indiana, Wyoming, and New Mexico have already indicated that they will make significant changes to their ESSA plans in the coming months.

States' accountability systems offer an opportunity for federal and state officials to communicate to those on the front lines where they should prioritize their work, said Chris Domaleski, the associate director for the Center for Assessment who helps states design accountability systems.

"It's important for accountability systems to provide accurate information about how schools are achieving, given that communities make substantial investments in public schools," Domaleski said.

Rhode Island's education commissioner, Ken Wagner, appearing on a television show, jokingly threw a chair across the room last week to exhibit how frustrated he was that the state's test scores lagged behind Massachusetts.

"It's not true that our kids can't do it. They can do it!" he said.

See Also: Approved ESSA Plans: Explainer and Key Takeaways From Each State

In other states, the timing of the state's report card turned into a political message on its own.

Oregon's Gov. Kate Brown, a Democrat, was accused by Republican opponent Knute Buehler of delaying the release of the state's new report card until after the election to avoid political backlash over perceived stagnant results.

"It shouldn't take the threat of the governor losing her election for her to do the right thing," Buehler said on Twitter. "Oregonians, and especially our students and parents, deserve better than this. Help is on the way in 13 days."

Brown ultimately won the election.

California officials were lambasted by advocates and parents for their redesigned dashboard. The Los Angeles Times editorial board called it a "color in the blank" chart.

The state invested another $300,000 this year in order to redesign the report card yet again, a preview of which was provided for reporters last week.

ESSA requires states to collect and report to the public plenty more data about the goings on in their schools. But with layoffs in recent years of so many of the technicians in state departments and districts who are responsible for processing data, there were bound to be technical glitches.

In South Carolina, the state department collected more than 11 million data points for its new accountability system, a process that required the state to purchase a new data-collection system for $1 million.

But the state outsourced to AdvancED for $1.3 million the task of measuring how engaged students were at their schools, a process that requires students to fill out electronic surveys and would amount to more than 10 percent of districts' scores.

AdvancED didn't at first properly match the scores with the students' responses, delaying for several weeks the rollout of the entire state's accountability system. (AdvancED said in a statement to local media it was remedying the problem.)

"We haven't issued a rating in quite some time," said Ryan Brown, a spokesman for South Carolina's department of education. "We want to show to the public what the expectations are at the state and federal level so it's important that people buy into it. We have some who are accepting it and some who are still skeptical."

With all the new indicators states are factoring into districts' scores, many state officials scrambled in recent weeks to discourage reporters and the public from comparing their scores to prior rankings.

Outrage in Texas

Texas for the first time gave its schools a letter grade, a system that outraged many district superintendents, many of whom told parents in local newspapers to dismiss the rankings outright.

"The grades were what the news stories were all about," said Dax González, a spokesman for the Texas Association of School Boards. "Reporters were going to seize on the letter grade and determine what it meant when we really still don't know what it means. There could be just one indicator that's in there that knocked a district down to a C."

In other states, including Utah, Florida, and Indiana, state officials weren't able to figure out in time how to merge their state accountability system with federal requirements under ESSA and they ended up this year releasing two sets of assessments of schools.

Tom Edington, the superintendent of Wawasee Schools in Syracuse, Ind., said he's gotten so irritated with the state's waffling over what its accountability system should look like that he and the board created their own accountability system, complete with its own standardized test indicators, and letter grade. That means the district's schools will this year be given federal, state, and local grades.

"We know ours is an unchanging standard and has remained stable enough for us to be able to adequately and fairly measure our students," he said. "We started six years ago doing this and we haven't looked back."

Published in Print: December 12, 2018, as Rollout of ESSA Report Cards Frustrates School Leaders

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Rollout of ESSA Report Cards Frustrates School Leaders

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The rollout of states' redesigned school accountability systems in recent weeks has reignited tensions between policymakers, practitioners, and parents over how best to define and incentivize school success. Virtually every state, after the passing of the federal Every Student Succeeds Act in 2015, redesigned their school accountability systems, an arduous, combative, and yearslong process that led to the resignation of several state education chiefs.

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The ASAP® course catalog has been published and includes information on all our standards-based ASAP® course modules, as well as the ASAP® assessments, workbooks, case studies and academies. Download the ASAP Catalog today!

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The ASAP® course catalog has been published and includes information on all our standards-based ASAP® course modules, as well as the ASAP® assessments, workbooks, case studies and academies. Download the ASAP Catalog today!

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Leadership Styles: Which Type of Leader Are You?

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The more that you, as a leader, manage each of these areas, the higher your emotional intelligence. So, let's look at each element in more detail and examine how you can grow as a leader.

Emotional Intelligence in Leadership

1. Self-awareness

If you're self-aware, you always know how you feel, and you know how your emotions and your actions can affect the people around you. Being self-aware when you're in a leadership position also means having a clear picture of your strengths and weaknesses, and it means behaving with humility.

So, what can you do to improve your self-awareness?

Keep a journal. Journals help you improve your self-awareness. If you spend just a few minutes each day writing down your thoughts, this can move you to a higher degree of self-awareness.

2. Self-regulation

Leaders who regulate themselves effectively rarely verbally attack others, make rushed or emotional decisions, stereotype people, or compromise their values. Self-regulation is all about staying in control.

This element of emotional intelligence, according to Goleman, also covers a leader's flexibility and commitment to personal accountability.

So, how can you improve your ability to self-regulate?

Hold yourself accountable. If you tend to blame others when something goes wrong, stop. Make a commitment to admit to your mistakes and to face the consequences, whatever they are. You'll probably sleep better at night, and you'll quickly earn the respect of those around you.

Practice being calm. The next time you're in a challenging situation, be very aware of how you act. Do you relieve your stress by shouting at someone else? Practice deep-breathing exercises to calm yourself. Also, try to write down all of the negative things you want to say, and then rip it up and throw it away. Expressing these emotions on paper (and not showing them to anyone!) is better than speaking them aloud to your team. What's more, this helps you challenge your reactions to ensure that they're fair!

3. Motivation

Self-motivated leaders work consistently toward their goals, and they have extremely high standards for the quality of their work.

How can you improve your motivation?

Re-examine why you're doing your job. It's easy to forget what you really love about your career. So, take some time to remember why you wanted this job. If you're unhappy in your role and you're struggling to remember why you wanted it, try the Five Whys technique to find the root of the problem. Starting at the root often helps you look at your situation in a new way. And make sure that your goal statements are fresh and energizing. For more on this, see our article on Goal Setting.

4. Empathy

For leaders, having empathy is critical to managing a successful team or organization. Leaders with empathy have the ability to put themselves in someone else's situation. They help develop the people on their team, challenge others who are acting unfairly, give constructive feedback, and listen to those who need it.

If you want to earn the respect and loyalty of your team, then show them you care by being empathic.

How can you improve your empathy?

Respond to feelings. You ask your assistant to work late - again. And although he agrees, you can hear the disappointment in his voice. So, respond by addressing his feelings. Tell him you appreciate how willing he is to work extra hours, and that you're just as frustrated about working late. If possible, figure out a way for future late nights to be less of an issue (for example, give him Monday mornings off).

5. Social Skills

Leaders who do well in the social skills element of emotional intelligence are great communicators. They're just as open to hearing bad news as good news, and they're experts at getting their team to support them and be excited about a new mission or project.

Leaders who have good social skills are also good at managing change and resolving conflicts diplomatically. They're rarely satisfied with leaving things as they are, but they don't sit back and make everyone else do the work: they set an example with their own behavior.

So, how can you build social skills?

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Emotional Intelligence in Leadership - Learning How to Be More Aware

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Relating to others is vital in today's workplace. Learn how to build your emotional intelligence (EI) with this article.

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What is Transformational Leadership? How New Ideas Produce Impressive Results

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Transformational leadership inspires people to achieve unexpected or remarkable results. It gives workers autonomy over specific jobs and authority to make decisions.

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How Great Leaders Inspire Action | Simon Sinek | TED