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Introduction to the Special Issue: A Case for School Counseling Leadership

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Introduction to the Special Issue: A Case for School Counseling Leadership

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School Counselors' Emotional Intelligence and Its Relationship to Leadership

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School Counselors' Emotional Intelligence and Its Relationship to Leadership

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School Counseling Standards

Four sets of school counseling standards define the school counseling profession. These standards help school counselors develop, implement and assess their school counseling program to improve student outcomes.

Ethical Standards
The ASCA Ethical Standards for School Counselors serve as a guide for the ethical practices of all school counselors, supervisors/directors of school counseling programs and school counselor educators regardless of level, area, population served or membership in this professional association. ASCA also has Ethical Standards for School Counselor Education Faculty.

School Counselor Professional Standards & Competencies
The ASCA School Counselor Professional Standards & Competencies outline the mindsets and behaviors school counselors need to meet the rigorous demands of the school counseling profession and the needs of pre-K-12 students.

Mindsets & Behaviors for Student Success
The " ASCA Mindsets & Behaviors for Student Success: K-12 College- and Career-Readiness Standards for Every Student" describe the knowledge, skills and attitudes students need to achieve academic success, college and career readiness and social/emotional development. Each standard has corresponding grade-level competencies that are specific, measurable expectations that students attain as they make progress toward the standards. Use the ASCA Mindsets & Behaviors database to search for grade-level competencies that support the standards.

ASCA School Counselor Preparation Program Standards
The ASCA School Counselor Preparation Program Standards are a unified set of principles guiding school counselor preparation programs in training effective future school counselors in areas of professional practice and ethical behavior. The standards are intended to define the training of school counselors and ensure school counselors are prepared to implement school counseling programs and advocate on behalf of the profession.

Standards in Practice
Election Conversations: The School Counselor's Role (11/20)
School Reentry: The School Counselor's Role (8/20)
Eliminating Racism and Bias in Schools: The School Counselor's Role (8/20)

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Standards | American School Counselor Association (ASCA)

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School Counseling Standards Four sets of school counseling standards define the school counseling profession. These standards help school counselors develop, implement and assess their school counseling program to improve student outcomes.

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School Counselors Are School Leaders - American School Counselor Association (ASCA)

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School counselors and school leaders may seem mutually incompatible in nature and on opposite ends of the spectrum. School leaders are determined, focused and task oriented. School counselors are relationship oriented and most counselors are drawn into the profession because of their strong personal…

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leadership philosophy statement fallb 22 - weatherford

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Women start careers in business and other professions with the same level of intelligence, education, and commitment as men. Yet comparatively few reach the top echelons.

This gap matters not only because the familiar glass ceiling is unfair, but also because the world has an increasingly urgent need for more leaders. All men and women with the brains, the desire, and the perseverance to lead should be encouraged to fulfill their potential and leave their mark.

With all this in mind, the McKinsey Leadership Project-an initiative to help professional women at McKinsey and elsewhere-set out four years ago to learn what drives and sustains successful female leaders. We wanted to help younger women navigate the paths to leadership and, at the same time, to learn how organizations could get the best out of this talented group.

To that end, we have interviewed more than 85 women around the world (and a few good men) who are successful in diverse fields. Some lead 10,000 people or more, others 5 or even fewer. While the specifics of their lives vary, each one shares the goal of making a difference in the wider world. All were willing to discuss their personal experiences and to provide insights into what it takes to stay the leadership course. We have also studied the academic literature; consulted experts in leadership, psychology, organizational behavior, and biology; and sifted through the experiences of hundreds of colleagues at McKinsey.

From the interviews and other research, we have distilled a leadership model comprising five broad and interrelated dimensions (exhibit): meaning, or finding your strengths and putting them to work in the service of an inspiring purpose; managing energy, or knowing where your energy comes from, where it goes, and what you can do to manage it; positive framing, or adopting a more constructive way to view your world, expand your horizons, and gain the resilience to move ahead even when bad things happen; connecting, or identifying who can help you grow, building stronger relationships, and increasing your sense of belonging; and engaging, or finding your voice, becoming self-reliant and confident by accepting opportunities and the inherent risks they bring, and collaborating with others.

We call this model centered leadership. As the name implies, it's about having a well of physical, intellectual, emotional, and spiritual strength that drives personal achievement and, in turn, inspires others to follow. What's particularly exciting is that we are starting to discover ways women can actively build the skills to become more self-confident and effective leaders. Centered leadership also works for men, though we have found that the model resonates particularly well with women because we have built it on a foundation of research into their specific needs and experiences.

Centered leadership emphasizes the role of positive emotions. A few characteristics particularly distinguish women from their male counterparts in the workplace. First, women can more often opt out of it than men can. Second, their double burden-motherhood and management-drains energy in a particularly challenging way. Third, they tend to experience emotional ups and downs more often and more intensely than most men do. Given these potentially negative emotions, centered leadership consciously draws on positive psychology, a discipline that seeks to identify what makes healthy people thrive. Although none of the women we interviewed articulated her ideas in precisely those terms, when we dived into the literature and interviewed leading academics, we found strong echoes of what our female leaders had been telling us.

Meaning

Meaning is the motivation that moves us. It enables people to discover what interests them and to push themselves to the limit. It makes the heart beat faster, provides energy, and inspires passion. Without meaning, work is a slog between weekends. With meaning, any job can become a calling.

It starts with happiness. Positive psychologists (including Tal Ben-Shahar, Jonathan Haidt, and Martin Seligman) have defined a progression of happiness that leads from pleasure to engagement to meaning. Researchers have demonstrated, for example, that an ice cream break provides only short-lived pleasure; in contrast, the satisfaction derived from an act of kindness or gratitude lasts much longer. Katharine Graham, the first female CEO of a Fortune 500 enterprise (the Washington Post Company), famously said, "To love what you do and feel that it matters-how could anything be more fun?"

Why is meaning important for leaders? Studies have shown that among professionals, it translates into greater job satisfaction, higher productivity, lower turnover, and increased loyalty. The benefits also include feelings of transcendence-in other words, contributing to something bigger than yourself generates a deeper sense of meaning, thereby creating a virtuous cycle. Finding meaning in life helped some of the women leaders we interviewed take new paths and accept the personal risks implicit in their goals.

Shelly Lazarus, the chairman and CEO of the advertising firm Ogilvy & Mather Worldwide, described how she "just followed [her] heart, doing the things that [she] loved to do." This sense of meaning inspired her, early in her career, to jump from Clairol to Ogilvy. Lazarus commented that everyone she knew thought that her decision to go from the client side to the agency side was a strategic move. But "it wasn't really like that," she says. "I just loved the interaction with the agency because that was the moment I could see where the ideas came to life."

People seeking to define what is meaningful can start, as one interviewee put it, by "being honest with yourself about what you're good at and what you enjoy doing." Building these signature strengths into everyday activities at work makes you happier, in part by making these activities more meaningful. Although there is no simple formula for matching your strengths to any single industry or function, you can look for patterns in jobs that have and haven't worked out and talk with others about your experiences.

The connection between signature strengths and work can change because priorities do; sometimes, for example, a job is better than a calling, especially for young mothers. Our interviews show that this ebb and flow is natural and that the key to success is being aware of the shifts-and making conscious choices about them-in the context of bigger goals, personal or professional.
To read more on meaning:
Tal Ben-Shahar, Happier: Learn the Secrets to Daily Joy and Lasting Fulfillment, New York: McGraw-Hill, 2007.

Martin E. P. Seligman, Authentic Happiness: Using the New Positive Psychology to Realize Your Potential for Lasting Fulfillment, New York: Free Press, 2004.

Sonja Lyubomirsky, The How of Happiness: A Scientific Approach to Getting the Life You Want, New York: Penguin, 2007.

Managing energy

Actively managing energy levels is crucial to leaders. Today's executives work hard: 60 percent of the senior executives toil more than 50 hours a week, and 10 percent more than 80 hours a week. What's more, many women come home from work only to sign onto a "second shift"-92 percent of them still manage all household tasks, such as meal preparation and child care.

We've found that work-life balance is a myth-so the only hope women have is to balance their energy flows. This means basing your priorities on the activities that energize you, both at work and at home, and actively managing your resources to avoid dipping into reserves. Burnout is a reality for men and women alike, but for women who can opt out, so too is throwing in the towel.

But work doesn't have to be exhausting. Mihály Csíkszentmihályi, a founder of positive psychology, studied thousands of people, from sculptors to factory workers. He found that those who frequently experienced what he called "flow"-a sense of being so engaged by activities that you don't notice the passage of time-were more productive and derived greater satisfaction from their work than those who did not. Further, it energized rather than drained them.

Zia Mody, a top litigator in India, described how she gained energy from a life that most people would see as exhausting. Even when her three daughters were young, she put in 16-hour days to prepare her cases. A woman among thousands of men at court, she lit up as she told us, "I love it! I love winning. I love being in court. . . . It excites me-I cannot tell you how much."

One useful tactic is to identify the conditions and situations that replenish your energy and those that sap it. Self-awareness lets you deliberately incorporate restorative elements into your day. It can also help you to space out your energy-sapping tasks throughout the day, instead of bundling them all into a single morning or afternoon. A particularly useful tip, we have found, is to give yourself time during the day to focus without distractions such as blinking lights and buzzing phones. Your productivity will benefit several times over.
To read more on managing energy:
Mihály Csíkszentmihályi, Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience, New York: HarperPerennial, 1991.

Edy Greenblatt, "Work/Life Balance: Wisdom or Whining," Organizational Dynamics, 2002, Volume 31, Number 2, pp. 177-93.

Jim Loehr and Tony Schwartz, The Power of Full Engagement: Managing Energy, Not Time, Is the Key to High Performance and Personal Renewal, New York: Free Press, 2003.

Positive framing

The frames people use to view the world and process experiences can make a critical difference to professional outcomes. Many studies suggest that optimists see life more realistically than pessimists do, a frame of mind that can be crucial to making the right business decisions. That insight may be particularly critical for women, who are twice as likely to become depressed, according to one study. Optimists, research shows, are not afraid to frame the world as it actually is-they are confident that they can manage its challenges and move their teams quickly to action. By contrast, pessimists are more likely to feel helpless and to get stuck in downward spirals that lead to energy-depleting rumination.

Martin Seligman, a psychologist who was an early proponent of positive psychology, found, for example, that optimists are better able to deal with the news that they have cancer. Confident that they can handle the prognosis, they immediately start to gather facts and dive into treatment plans; pessimists, on the other hand, become paralyzed with fear. Seligman also shows that optimism can be learned-an important insight that underlies positive framing.

Positive framing and positive thinking, we would emphasize, are two different notions. The latter tries to replace adversity with positive beliefs. The former accepts the facts of adversity and counters them with action. Talking yourself into a view contrary to the facts has a temporary effect at best.

The experience of Andrea Jung, the chairman and CEO of Avon, suggests how useful positive framing can be. In late 2005, Jung recalls, she found her company in a decline that temporary factors could not explain. Recognizing that she was the leader who had created the strategies and the team responsible for the downturn, she listened to the counsel of her executive coach and promptly "fired herself" on a Friday night. The following Monday, Andrea showed up at work as the "new" turnaround CEO. She proved herself to be a "glass half full" optimist, and the recovery plan her management team adopted after a quick diagnosis led to a steady improvement and a return to growth.

No matter how pessimistic you are by nature, you can learn to view situations as optimists do. The key is self-awareness. If a meeting goes badly, for example, you should limit your thoughts about it to its temporary and specific impact and keep them impersonal. It helps to talk with trusted colleagues about the reasons for the poor meeting and ways to do better next time. These discussions should take place quickly enough for you to make a specific plan and act on it. You should also undertake some activity that will restore both your energy and your faith in yourself-perhaps having a hard workout, going out with friends, or spending time with your children.
To read more on positive framing:
Jonathan Haidt, The Happiness Hypothesis: Finding Modern Truth in Ancient Wisdom, New York: Basic Books, 2006.

Martin E. P. Seligman, Learned Optimism: How to Change Your Mind and Your Life, New York: Pocket Books, 1998.

Connecting

People with strong networks and good mentors enjoy more promotions, higher pay, and greater career satisfaction. They feel a sense of belonging, which makes their lives meaningful. As Mark Hunter and Herminia Ibarra have noted in the Harvard Business Review, what differentiates a leader from a manager "is the ability to figure out where to go and to enlist the people and groups necessary to get there." Yet not all networks are equal. Roy Baumeister, a social psychologist who studies social belonging and rejection, believes that men tend to build broader, shallower networks than women do and that the networks of men give them a wider range of resources for gaining knowledge and professional opportunities. This theory is a matter of substantial debate among academics. Our experience with hundreds of women at McKinsey, however, offers additional evidence that women's networks tend to be narrower but deeper than men's.

The experience of Dame Stella Rimington, who in the late 1960s joined MI5, the UK's domestic intelligence organization, offers an example of the power of broad networks to get things done. Rimington, later the agency's director general, says that "women were definitely second-class citizens" in those days. They weren't allowed to do fieldwork, for example, yet "many of the women were completely indistinguishable from the men: they had the same kind of education."

She continues: "So we women-there were quite a few of us by then-we sort of ganged up and did a kind of round-robin thing and said, 'Why is it that we have a completely different career than men who are exactly like us?' And for the first time, the powers that be started to scratch their heads because they suddenly had to find an answer. . . . And in the end, of course, they decided that they would have to promote a few women." She later concluded that "no one of us would have asked that question on her own. We were supporting each other, and there was power in the many."

The leaders we interviewed also talked about the importance of having individual relationships with senior colleagues willing to go beyond the role of mentor-someone willing to stick out his or her own neck to create opportunity for or help a protégée. Such a person is what Ruth Porat, a vice chairwoman at Morgan Stanley, called a "sponsor."

A number of studies have shown that women who promote their own interests vigorously are seen as aggressive, uncooperative, and selfish. An equal number of studies show that the failure of women to promote their own interests results in a lack of female leaders. Until one of these conditions changes, sponsors, we believe, are the key to helping women gain access to opportunities they merit and need to develop.

Porat explained how a managing director took a chance on her when she was a second-year associate, asking her to present to a client's board of directors. "The consumer client wanted a woman to be present. I had never been in a boardroom, let alone presented in a boardroom. 'Sink or swim,' he told me. 'You're in.' I still remember to this day a mistake I made and that it was, overall, a good presentation. He took a real chance on me."

One surprising thing we learned as a result of talking with female leaders was that they often fail to reciprocate and find expectations that they should do so distasteful. A senior partner at McKinsey noted that men naturally understand that you must "give before you get," but women don't. This tendency-which other leaders have described to us as well-combined with the sometimes awkward sexual politics, real or perceived, between senior men and younger women, makes it harder for women to find sponsors.

Yet women can learn reciprocity. To start, it's important to assess your comfort level with the people you know through work, as well as how influential they are professionally. Most women we've worked with typically find that the colleagues they are close to are not influential-and vice versa. Explicit planning and some risk taking are needed to change this.

One approach is to provide and ask for help on a regular basis. Finding ways to forge connections through interests outside of work is another. Over and over, we heard, "Make it personal," in the sense that others will get along with you more easily if they see your human side. You can express this in all kinds of ways at work, without inappropriately blending your professional and personal lives. The female leaders we interviewed acted on this insight both to find sponsors and to build networks.
To read more on connecting:
Catalyst, Creating Women's Networks: A How-To Guide for Women and Companies, San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1999.

Monica Higgins and Kathy Kram, "Reconceptualizing Mentoring at Work: A Developmental Network Perspective," Academy of Management Review, 2001, Volume 26, Number 2, pp. 264-68.

Lois J. Zachary, The Mentor's Guide: Facilitating Effective Learning Relationships, San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2000.

Engaging

Many people think that hard work will eventually be noticed and rewarded. That can indeed happen-but usually doesn't. Women, our interviewees repeatedly told us, need to "create their own luck." To engage with opportunities by taking ownership of them, you must first find your own voice, literally. Julie Daum, a prominent Spencer Stuart recruiter who specializes in board placements, told us that even senior women on boards still lose out by not speaking up: they hang back if they think that they have nothing new to say or that their ideas fall short of profound.

One senior woman we interviewed told us how she learned to join in: "Every Monday, we had a senior-management meeting. In the beginning, I just listened. I learned from the guys because they were all there. And after a while I started to speak up. You did the work, so you've got to talk about it. And I did."

Women who want to grow as leaders should also take ownership of their professional development. Mary Ma, Lenovo's former chief financial officer, said that she drew inspiration from using the Japanese auto industry as a metaphor, reshaping herself to become more competitive by identifying what she had to change and then actually changing it. As Ma noted, she didn't complain to her boss or to her colleagues but rather looked inward to see how she could be a more effective leader. Instead of waiting for someone to tell her what to do, she took a systematic approach to self-improvement.

Engagement is equally about risk taking. The women we interviewed accept risk as a part of opportunity. Some have the confidence and courage to dive in; others use analytic problem solving to assess risks and then proceed to action. Psychologist Daniel Gilbert says his research indicates that people who make a choice for risk and work with it, rather than avoid it, report a greater degree of happiness than others do.

Shona Brown, Google's senior vice president of business operations, described how she handles opportunities and the risks that accompany them. "I'll use a skiing analogy because I like to jump off cliffs," she says. "But I generally jump off cliffs from which I'm relatively confident I'm going to land-or if I don't, it's not dangerous." Brown said she enjoys risk. "I like to be at that point where you're about to jump. Your stomach is kind of going 'woo'! It's not so simple that you're sure you'll succeed. But you're not in a life-threatening situation."

Our interviews have shown us that to embrace opportunity, people must often take sharp detours and that the risks of unexpected changes commonly seem more obvious than the benefits. Reaching out to others-not to avoid making decisions yourself but to learn the best outcome from change can often help you see opportunities in the right frame and decide whether to go for them.
To read more on engaging:
Daniel Gilbert, Stumbling On Happiness, New York: Knopf, 2006.

Linda Babcock and Sara Laschever, Women Don't Ask: The High Cost of Avoiding Negotiation-and Positive Strategies for Change, New York: Bantam, 2007.

Marshall Rosenberg, Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life, Encinitas, CA: Puddledancer Press, 2003.

Within McKinsey and in the corporate world, our work on centered leadership continues (see sidebar, "Initial results"). To understand how men and women practice it across tenures, industries, and regions, we are interviewing more female and male leaders and launching large-scale surveys-again, with female and male respondents.

Our research is exploring the hypothesis that today's leaders can become even more effective through the model of centered leadership: a shared purpose with deep meaning for the people involved, explicit awareness and management of energy, positive framing, strong informal and formal networks, and the collaborative creation of opportunities. In time, we hope to help increase the number of female leaders significantly by giving them the tools to build leadership skills for any playing field.

About the author(s)

Joanna Barsh is a director in McKinsey's New York office, where Rebecca Craske is an associate principal; Susie Cranston is a consultant in the San Francisco office.

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Centered leadership: How talented women thrive

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Women start careers in business and other professions with the same level of intelligence, education, and commitment as men. Yet comparatively few reach the top echelons. This gap matters not only because the familiar glass ceiling is unfair, but also because the world has an increasingly urgent need for more leaders.

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Joanna's research summary for TALENT RISING is now available in summary form, with practical recommendations to enable talented women and people of color to advance. For the complete white paper, please contact us.

And if your company would like to join the research for Phase 2 or receive Phase 1's final white paper, please contact us.
Read More Cake and champagne Read More Battling obstacles

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Director Emerita, McKinsey & Company and founder, Centered Leadership

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Districts Need Guidance on Designing Dress Codes That Are Fair to All. It Might Be On the Way

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Districts Need Guidance on Designing Dress Codes That Are Fair to All. It Might Be On the Way

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A federal watchdog agency is calling on the U.S. Department of Education to provide resources that help schools build equitable dress codes, and collect data on how fairly they're being enforced.

But while these guidelines offer a good starting point for districts that have none right now, experts say changing school dress codes is often a broader, much more comprehensive undertaking.

In a report released earlier this week, the Government Accountabily Office concludes that school district dress codes typically unfairly target students of color, LGBTQ students, and girls. They are often more strictly enforced in predominantly Black and Hispanic districts, in contrast with predominantly white districts, which puts students of color on a path of out-of-school punishments and missed learning opportunities.

Nearly 44 percent of districts in the GAO report might be enforcing dress codes by asking students who are in violation of the code to leave the classroom, the report found. This "informal removal" is not documented as a suspension, and hence not recorded as student discipline.

"Without information on the full range of ways children are disciplined-including informal removals and non-exclusionary discipline-[the Education Department's] efforts to provide resources on the equitable enforcement of discipline will have critical gaps," the report says.

To make dress codes equitable, the department should put into place a few guidance tools on designing dress codes and collect data on informal removals at the federal level, according to the GAO report.

These recommendations are based on how much power the department has to dictate dress code policy.

Since 24 states and the District of Columbia allow districts to design their own dress codes, there's not much more at the federal level that the Education Department can do to force districts to overhaul their dress codes, according to the report and Jacqueline Nowicki, the director of GAO's education, workforce, and income security team.

"As with much of K-12 education, the locus of power and the decisionmaking is really at the state and local level. So the federal government doesn't have the authority to direct a state or a district to overhaul its dress code policies," Nowicki said. "What they can do is provide resources and technical assistance and help for districts and states who choose to undertake that kind of effort."

The Education Department responds

The GAO's recommendations urge the secretary of education to "provide resources to help districts and schools design equitable dress codes to promote a supportive and inclusive learning environment."

It says these resources should "include dress code information in existing resources on safe and supportive schools," with examples of model dress code policies that protect students without unfairly targeting particular groups of students.

While the GAO did not provide a model policy to the Education Department in its report, it pointed out some factors that make dress codes less safe for students.

"For example, many dress codes would require an adult to measure clothing or what have you on a student's body. So now you have adults touching kids when that's probably not necessary," Nowicki said. "You can design a dress code that sort of gets the point across and doesn't require adults touching kids."

The recommendations also advise the secretary to provide information for districts on equitable enforcement of dress codes that includes "information that helps states, school districts, and schools address potential disparities and disproportionality in dress code enforcement."

The watchdog agency also calls on the department to collect information on the "prevalence and effects of informal removals and non-exclusionary discipline and disseminate this information to states, school districts, and schools."

In its response, the department said it accepted most of the recommendations and agreed to plan to provide recommended sources for districts.

But the Education Department stopped short of pledging to collect data on the effects of informal removals of students for classrooms. The department said that while it was considering collecting data on informal removals in its next Civil Rights Data Collection process, for the 2025-26 school year, it does not have mechanisms for collecting information on the effects of these practices, according to Nowicki.

Districts must collect their own data to change dress codes

The department recommendations are a good start, but federal data collection won't really provide an incentive for districts and school boards to change dress code policies, said Alyssa Pavlakis, a school administrator from Illinois who has studied school dress codes.

"I don't think that a recommendation is going to cause all schools with dress codes that have issues to change the way that they are operating," she said. "There needs to be an accountability piece if people are actually going to change."

Pavlakis got into researching dress codes after hearing from her students-mostly her Black female students-that the school dress code felt racist and discriminatory.

"They couldn't get away with wearing the same things that, for example, that white girls could get away with wearing," she said the students told her. "Not only did we find that our dress codes sexualized Black girls, but they criminalized Black boys. And so I actually brought that research to my school."

Pavlakis said she was able to make changes in part because her school system was a one-high-school district.

"What got it moving for us was the fact that we had student voices; our students voiced that there was a problem. And then we had somebody who was able to collect data." she said.

"This data is great, that's collected at the national level," Pavlakis added, referencing the GAO report. "But in order for schools to see the issues within their own walls, they need to have their own data."

District dress codes should avoid discriminating based on sex, gender

More than 18 percent of the more than 22,000 LGBTQ students who participated in GLSEN's National School Climate Survey for the 2020-21 school year said they had been prevented from wearing clothes deemed "inappropriate" based on their gender. For example, a student was prevented from wearing a dress because they are a boy, or because staff think they are a boy.

School dress codes can also marginalize transgender, gender nonconforming, and nonbinary students by requiring gendered attire for special events, according to the biennial survey by the LGBTQ advocacy organization.

More than 26 percent of LGBTQ students said that their school required gendered attire for graduation, such as different-colored graduation robes for boys and girls. More than a fourth reported gendered attire for official school photographs, for example, boys having to wear tuxedos and girls having to wear dresses for senior portraits.

"While a public school can require 'formal attire' to be worn at special events, it may not require that girls, and only girls, wear gowns-or that boys, and only boys, wear a suit," an American Civil Liberties Union guidance document about dress codes says.

In the GAO survey, 15 percent of district dress codes outline gendered rules for clothing, accessories, or hairstyles, such as stating that "no fingernail polish or makeup is allowed on male students." None of the 236 dress codes the report reviewed explicitly protected transgender or nonbinary students' right to dress according to their gender identity.

Dress codes that require gendered clothing may be considered to be in violation of federal anti-discrimination laws, according to the ACLU document.

"Schools cannot force students to conform their appearance or behavior based on rigid and discriminatory gender norms and stereotypes," the ACLU guidelines say. "Such dress codes marginalize nonbinary, transgender, and gender-nonconforming students, and ultimately send the message that these students do not belong."

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Districts Need Guidance on Designing Dress Codes That Are Fair to All. It Might Be On the Way

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The Education Department has said it will develop resources, but experts say school districts also need to examine their own policies.

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Undressing Policy:  Critical Analysis - Issues in Dress Codes

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Undressing Policy:  Critical Analysis - Issues in Dress Codes

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Undressing policy a critical analysis of North Carolina dress codes

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Oppressive Curriculum:  Sexist, Racist, Classist, and Homophobic - Issues in Dress Code

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Oppressive Curriculum:  Sexist, Racist, Classist, and Homophobic - Issues in Dress Code

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Oppressive Curriculum Sexist, Racist, Classist, and Homophobic Practice

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Loc'd Faded, Yoga Pants, and Spaghetti Straps - Issues in Dress Codes

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Loc'd Faded, Yoga Pants, and Spaghetti Straps - Issues in Dress Codes

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Have you ever been in a group where someone took control of the situation by conveying a clear vision of the group's goals, a marked passion for the work, and an ability to make the rest of the group feel recharged and energized? This person just might be what is called a transformational leader.

Transformational leadership is a leadership style that can inspire positive changes in those who follow. Transformational leaders are generally energetic, enthusiastic, and passionate. Not only are these leaders concerned and involved in the process; they are also focused on helping every member of the group succeed as well.

Quick Background

The concept of transformational leadership was initially introduced by leadership expert and presidential biographer James MacGregor Burns. According to Burns, transformational leadership can be seen when "leaders and followers make each other to advance to a higher level of moral and motivation."﻿﻿

Later, researcher Bernard M. Bass expanded upon Burns's original ideas to develop what is today referred to as Bass's Transformational Leadership Theory. According to Bass, transformational leadership can be defined based on the impact that it has on followers. Transformational leaders, Bass suggested, garner trust, respect, and admiration from their followers.﻿﻿

Mental Health in the Workplace Webinar

Components

Bass also suggested that there were four different components of transformational leadership.

1. Intellectual Stimulation: Transformational leaders not only challenge the status quo; they also encourage creativity among followers. The leader encourages followers to explore new ways of doing things and new opportunities to learn.

2. Individualized Consideration: Transformational leadership also involves offering support and encouragement to individual followers. In order to foster supportive relationships, transformational leaders keep lines of communication open so that followers feel free to share ideas and so that leaders can offer direct recognition of the unique contributions of each follower.

3. Inspirational Motivation: Transformational leaders have a clear vision that they are able to articulate to followers. These leaders are also able to help followers experience the same passion and motivation to fulfill these goals.

4. Idealized Influence: The transformational leader serve as a role model for followers. Because followers trust and respect the leader, they emulate this individual and internalize his or her ideals.

So what are some typical signs of a transformational leader? Groups led by this type of leader tend to be both successful and loyal. They give a lot to the team and care deeply about the group's ability to accomplish its goals. Turnover tends to be quite low as transformational leaders are able to inspire a great deal of commitment in their followers.

In their classic text, Transformational Leadership, authors Bass and Riggio explained:

"Transformational leaders...are those who stimulate and inspire followers to both achieve extraordinary outcomes and, in the process, develop their own leadership capacity. Transformational leaders help followers grow and develop into leaders by responding to individual followers' needs by empowering them and by aligning the objectives and goals of the individual followers, the leader, the group, and the larger organization."

"Research evidence clearly shows that groups led by transformational leaders have higher levels of performance and satisfaction than groups led by other types of leaders," explained psychologist and leadership expert Ronald E. Riggio in an article for Psychology Today.

The reason, he suggests, is that transformational leaders believe that their followers can do their best, leading members of the group to feel inspired and empowered.

What can you do to become a more transformational leader? Leadership experts suggest that having a strong, positive vision of the future plays a critical role. Not only is it important to believe in this vision yourself; you've also got to inspire others to buy into your vision as well.

Link to Well-Being

According to the results of one study, this style of leadership can also have a positive influence on employee well-being.﻿﻿

The study published in the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine involved surveying workers at several different German information and communication technology companies. Researchers asked participants to answers questions about their employer's leadership style.

A score for transformational leadership was then determined based on qualities such as providing intellectual stimulation, giving positive feedback for good performance, leading by example, and helping employees feel like they were making a contribution toward the goals of the group.

The researchers discovered that employees who identified a higher level of transformational leadership in their employers also had higher reported levels of well-being. The effect stayed significant even after researchers controlled for factors that are linked to well-being such as job strain, education, and age.

"The results of this study suggest that a transformational leadership style, which both conveys a sense of trust and meaningfulness and individually challenges and develops employees, also has a positive effect on employee well-being," the authors summarized.

Real-World Applications

So what impact could such results have for managers and workers?

The study's authors suggest that the results are important and can help companies develop leadership training programs that can be used to teach transformational leadership skills. Acquiring communication skills such as resolving conflicts in the workplace and recognizing the needs of employees are an important part of transformational leadership.

"Such training programs can be seen as another essential component of workplace health promotion and prevention efforts and therefore should receive wide support," explained the study's authors.

A Word From Verywell

The transformational style of leadership can be highly effective when used appropriately, but it might not necessarily be the best choice for every situation. In some cases, groups may require a more managerial or autocratic style that involves closer control and greater direction, particularly in situations where group member are unskilled and need a lot of oversight.

One way to improve your own leadership skills is to assess your own current leadership style and think about ways in which your strengths can benefit the group you are leading. By evaluating your own skills, you will be better able to play to your strengths and work on improving your areas of weakness.

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How Do Transformational Leaders Inspire and Motivate Followers?

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Have you ever been in a group where someone took control of the situation by conveying a clear vision of the group's goals, a marked passion for the work, and an ability to make the rest of the group feel recharged and energized? This person just might be what is called a transformational leader.

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Leadership Traits Every Counselor Schould Have

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Leadership Traits Every Counselor Schould Have

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Far from simply setting up student schedules and administering placement and academic evaluation tests, school counselors are leaders who can have a huge impact on the acceleration and the enhancement of learning. They must possess the ability to negotiate, persuade others their ideas are worthwhile, and collaborate with principals and other school officials.

School counselors have many responsibilities, including counseling students, working with teachers and parents, referring students to outside agencies, participating in student welfare and learning support communities, and evaluating and improving their own school counseling program.

Listening

First and foremost, a school counselor needs to be a good listener. Often, they have several students they work with and may get very few chances to converse with them in a one on one setting. "The most basic of all human needs is the need to understand and be understood," said Ralph G. Nichols. "The best way to understand people is to listen to them."

To listen effectively, counselors must be fully in the moment, not thinking of their "to do" list but rather giving their full attention to the issue at hand. Reflecting back to the person, your perception of what they said helps show understanding, and lets them make corrections. The counselor must also keep an open mind, being careful not to make any judgments until they have heard the entire story. ¹

Being Empathetic

Often a part of listening, putting themselves in the shoes of the person speaking, whether that is a student or another school official, helps counselors truly understand the underlying issues.

"Without the ability to understand what the student is experiencing, a counselor cannot truly do an effective job," says Helen A. Hatridge, past president of the Missouri School Counselor Association. "Empathy leads to good listening and a better ability to help the client come up with solutions. It also helps the student feel more comfortable and willing to open up to a counselor." ²

To be more empathetic, it is essential for a counselor to put aside their viewpoint. At the same time, they need to validate the student's viewpoint, which does not always mean agreement. Instead it means acknowledging their right to have an opinion, and that they have valid reasons for it. Asking how that person thinks a situation should be handled or what they would do opens up an even deeper understanding. ³

Building Relationship

It takes time for a counselor to build a relationship with any student or even their peers. However, through listening and being empathetic, that process can be accelerated.

To feel free to talk to a counselor, a student must often "break the ice," and needs to feel trust, comfort, and acceptance. Students need to accept that the counselor is a professional caregiver, and someone they can turn to without fear of judgement.

A counselor who develops this trusting relationship with students can get a lot more done, An understanding of the kid culture and what they care about can go a long way toward providing that environment of trust and understanding.

Performing Assessments

Assessment skills are essential for any school counselor in a number of areas. From academic and skills assessment to personality testing and career advisement, the ability to discern the intersection of talent and desire is essential to offering good counsel.

Assessment also includes determining if a student has special needs and interpreting test and non-test data to decide where the student should be placed, and what programs will most benefit them.

Regardless of the reason for assessment, the steps often include, but are not limited to the following:

Choosing what tests should be administered and when.

Scheduling, preparing, and administering tests.

Scoring tests or sending them out to be scored.

Advising students, teachers, parents, and other staff on test score interpretation.

Evaluating the testing process, results, and subsequent recommendations.⁴

Assessments involve some testing but must also be combined with listening, empathy, and the relationship that has been built to determine how testing outcomes relate to personality, desires, and the goals of the student.

Coordinating Efforts and Activities

Efforts and activities can fall into a couple of different categories. A counselor will have to coordinate Individualized Education Plans (IEPs) for students, and other student specific plans as well. Along with coordinating individual student plans and interacting with teachers and other school officials, the school counselor often coordinates other activities and projects as well.

In many cases, the school counselor is in charge of parent newsletters, school announcements, managing social media accounts, and other community outreach and event planning efforts.

The ability to coordinate and manage these efforts and activities requires strong leadership and organizational skills. Teaching these skills to students by allowing them to take responsibility for their own educational goals and other efforts enables a counselor to show leadership by example.

Exercising Authority

In order to be able to implement programs, direct student activities and coordinate tasks, a counselor must exercise a certain amount of authority.

This means first of all that the counselor must be granted the authority to handle certain tasks by other school officials such as principals and administrators. The more their authority is validated by their actions, the more the counselor will be perceived as a leader by parents and students alike.

Secondly, the school counselor must be willing to wield the authority they have been granted, taking charge of tasks and situations, setting expectations, and holding those responsible to deadlines.

The counselor must also know in any given situation when to cross the line from friend to professional. If a student is being abusive or abused, a more professional response is ethically and legally mandated. It is the counselor's obligation to take charge and follow through, ensuring that student safety comes first.

Being Flexible

If one thing is certain in the field of education, it is that things will change. Interruptions, schedule changes, new programs, and new responsibilities all interrupt a counselor's daily routine.

Student needs and the needs of the school overall often take priority over scheduled meetings. Parent phone calls, staff concerns, talks in classrooms, and unexpected counseling needs can all be disruptive.

A successful counselor should:

Leave gaps in their day for unscheduled needs.

Use good time management techniques.

Set reasonable boundaries. Know what is worthy of an interruption, and what can wait.

Communicate clearly. Inform students, parents, and faculty of schedules and boundaries.

By remaining flexible, a counselor can better manage the stress inherent in the job and be more responsive when needs arise unexpectedly.

Having a Sense of Humor

Being able to see things from the side of humor has a number of advantages. It lets students see that the counselor is human and can not only laugh at situations but laugh at themselves as well.

This is frequently one of the biggest assets in building student trust and developing a relationship with them. It is often how those students relate to adults, whether through jokes or humorous anecdotes that illustrate a point the counselor is trying to get across.

Humor is also a stress reliever. Being able to see the humorous side of interruptions and other daily situations allows a counselor to relax and keep anxiety from taking over many scenarios.

It takes a combination of many leadership traits to make a school counselor effective. They must use listening skills and offer empathy in order to build relationships. A counselor must also perform assessments and coordinate activities and educational efforts. These duties mean they must remain flexible and exercise authority when appropriate.

Not one of these traits alone is enough, and no one is equally adept in all of them. They are taught and can be learned in a Master of Arts in Counseling with an emphasis in school counseling like the one offered by Wake Forest University. This graduate degree will prepare you for a career as a school counselor in almost any setting.
Sources: 1 2 3 ⁴ American Counseling Association, Assessment Skills for School Counselors Mind Tools, Empathy at Work Education World, School Counselors Reflective On What Makes Them Effective Fast Company, 5 Ways To Improve Your Listening Skills

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Leadership Traits Every Counselor Should Have

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Far from simply setting up student schedules and administering placement and academic evaluation tests, school counselors are leaders who can have a huge impact on the acceleration and the enhancement of learning. They must possess the ability to negotiate, persuade others their ideas are worthwhile, and collaborate with principals and other school officials.

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Educational Leader Portfolio Template 2020 (1)

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Leadership Theory : Cultivating Critical Perspectives by John Dugan

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Leadership Theory : Cultivating Critical Perspectives by John Dugan

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What's Authentic Leadership & How Do You Practice It?

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What's Authentic Leadership & How Do You Practice It?

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Whether you've recently been promoted to a leadership position, or you've been leading your team for years, it can often seem tricky to discern what being a "good" leader actually means.

When you're trying to determine the components of a successful leader, it's easy to fall-back on certain terms we commonly associate with leadership -- words like "assertive", "inspirational", and "confident".

But what about being "authentic"? While the idea of authentic leadership is not a new concept -- it has its roots in Ancient Greek philosophy, which posited that authenticity is an important state of being and enables you to control your own destiny -- it can certainly feel like a novel component of leadership today. I mean, what does "being true to yourself" have to do with anything?

In fact, research has shown authentic leadership serves as the single strongest predictor of an employee's job satisfaction, organizational commitment, and workplace happiness.

To ensure long-term happiness and productivity out of your team, then, it's critical you demonstrate a level of authenticity as a leader.

Authentic leadership

Authentic leadership is a management style in which leaders are genuine, self-aware, and transparent. An authentic leader is able to inspire loyalty and trust in her employees by consistently displaying who she really is as a person, and how she feels about her employees' performance. Authentic leadership is the single strongest predictor of an employee's job satisfaction.

Here, we're going to explore how the Authentic Leadership Theory can help you become a better, more inspiring leader, today.

Authentic Leadership Theory

There are four distinct components to the Authentic Leadership Theory. Let's dive into those, now.

As a leader, it's critical you have a strong sense of self, including your strengths, weaknesses, and values. It's impossible to demonstrate authenticity as a leader if you're unsure of who you are or what you stand for in the first place.

Additionally, by displaying both your strengths and weaknesses to your team, you're able to demonstrate that you have nothing to hide, and don't play games. In this way, you're better equipped to build trust among your team, and when your employee makes a mistake, she'll feel more comfortable admitting her error to you.

Self-awareness is also critical for you to grow as a leader, and strengthen other components of authentic leadership. For instance, perhaps you've noticed you don't do a great job at displaying transparency with your team. By acknowledging this weakness, you can take steps to rectify it.

In Bruce J. Avolio and Tara S. Wernsing's essay Practicing Authentic Leadership, they outline three ways authentic leaders should practice self-awareness:

Seek feedback from the environment

Use self-reflection to better understand your behavior

Practice regular self-observation to stay aware of your feelings at all times

Self-awareness is vital for acting appropriately as a leader, and feeling empathy for how your employees might perceive your feedback. For instance, perhaps you feel a conversation you had with your team was demoralizing -- you'd just received some disappointing news about your team's performance, and you'd spoken out of frustration. It's critical you seek feedback from your environment by asking your team what you can do to help them improve moving forward.

Additionally, perhaps you can mitigate these issues in the future by regularly practicing self-observation, so you're able to notice, in the moment, "I am very frustrated right now, so I will wait until I am calm to have this conversation with my team."

2. Relational Transparency

Passive aggression, subtle messaging, and convoluted feedback have no place in leadership. To truly foster authenticity, it's critical you remain genuine, straightforward, and honest with your team. Let them know where they stand -- if they mess up, tell them.

While it might seem counterintuitive -- "How will I become close to my team if I am often providing constructive rather than positive feedback?" -- it works in your favor in the long-run, as your employees trust that you are not "hiding" your true feelings regarding their performance.

Transparency and honesty must be encouraged from the leadership level if you want your business to be successful. For instance, when Former President and CEO of Ford, Alan Mulally, began working at Ford, he implemented a system in which business leaders would produce color-coded charts at each of their meetings -- green to signify success, red to signify failure.

At the time, Ford was forecast to lose 17 billion that year. At the meeting, however, Mulally noticed every chart was green. He recognized that Ford's culture was one in which leaders hid problems, and avoided transparency out of a fear for job safety.

When one leader, Mark Fields, handed over a chart with red on it -- due to a production issue -- Mulally began clapping. His reaction signified the concept that failure can be seen as an exciting opportunity for growth, and honesty should be always rewarded. The following week, he saw charts varying from green to yellow to red.

The point is, authentic leadership must start with you displaying behavior you hope to see in your employees, as well. If you aren't transparent and honest, how can you expect your employees to come forward with problems when they arise?

3. Balanced Processing

A leader needs to make decisions and stay true to her decision in the face of opposition -- but she must also be capable of receiving and considering alternative viewpoints before choosing a plan of action.

When making major decisions, it's important you ask for alternative opinions and remain open to discussion. While it's important you stick to your values, it's equally critical you seek out opposing viewpoints, which can help you see flaws in your initial course of action, or enable you to strengthen your argument by understanding all points of view.

Additionally, if you want to be an authentic leader, it's critical you create an environment in which employees feel both safe and encouraged to share their opinions. This ties back to self-awareness -- you must be self-aware enough to accept that your opinion, by itself, is likely biased or partial. By collecting outside feedback, you're able to see more potential weaknesses in your decision.

4. Internalized Moral Perspective ("Do the Right Thing")

An authentic leader needs to know when to put the needs of the company and its customers ahead of herself and her team. Ultimately, a leader should be focused on doing the right thing for the long-term success of the business -- not herself.

Additionally, it's critical a leader have strong ethical values and integrity, and exercise these traits even in the face of tempting shortcuts.

For instance, let's say your employee comes to you with a "make money quick" scheme -- his idea is to make it difficult for customers to know how to cancel their subscription, so they are forced to keep paying unless they call up customer support.

As a leader, it's important you recognize the downfall of this type of decision. While it could temporarily help boost your team's numbers, it's not a decision made out of integrity or fairness for your customer, and won't result in lasting loyalty.

Emmy Jonassen, Director of Acquisition at HubSpot, seconds this point, noting the importance of being a leader whose behavior matches up with the values you want to instill in your team:

"Being an authentic leader means leading by example. It's demonstrating through your actions that you practice the same values and behaviors you expect from your team."

She goes on to say, "For example, if you ask your team to come to meetings on time and prepared, you should as well. If you impress upon your team that no task is beneath anyone if it works toward team goals, you should help out with team 'grunt work' every now and again by being the notetaker, cleaning up after a team birthday celebration, and so forth."

By being a leader who emphasizes the importance of doing the right thing, you're better equipped to set up your team for long-term success.

Why Authenticity in Leadership is Difficult to Achieve

Ultimately, the four components of authentic leadership are good jumping-off points, but it's important you remember the true meaning of authenticity -- the ability to express yourself as you truly are.

The meaning of authenticity makes it inherently difficult to prescribe in any one way.

Meghan Keaney Anderson, HubSpot's VP of Marketing, describes it like this -- "It's funny that something so basic as being yourself starts to become harder as you gain responsibility and scope. But the truth is, being authentic as a leader has to be consciously worked at."

"There are too many examples of how other people lead. There are no examples of what's authentic to you until you get there. So, you have to search for it."

She goes on to say, "You have to create touch-points in the course of meetings, presentations, management that remind you of yourself -- who you are and where you're strongest. When I give speeches, I tend to start with a personal story to set the tone for the rest of the talk, because there's no way to tell a personal story without being myself. When I'm out of my depths on something, or need time to think before a decision, I make sure to say so, so that my team knows I don't always have the answers. Authenticity requires touchstones to remind yourself and the people around you that you're human."

Ultimately, authenticity is a leadership skill like any other -- and skills can always be developed (or weakened) over time, depending on your conscious efforts. To ensure you're able to lead your team as well as they deserve, it's critical you remain focused on demonstrating authenticity whenever possible.

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What's Authentic Leadership, & How Do You Practice It

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Whether you've recently been promoted to a leadership position, or you've been leading your team for years, it can often seem tricky to discern what being a "good" leader actually means. When you're trying to determine the components of a successful leader, it's easy to fall-back on certain terms we commonly associate with leadership -- words like "assertive", "inspirational", and "confident".

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Emotional Intelligence School Counselor Trainees

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Emotional Intelligence School Counselor Trainees