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I've had multiple occasions recently to reflect on my own leadership philosophy. Not only have I been asked about it explicitly, but in several conversations with friends and others, the topic of leadership has come up with both positive and negative examples. This got me examining my leadership style and the principles that make up my overall philosophy.

Reflecting on your philosophy can be a surprisingly useful exercise, because we don't often examine many of the underlying tenets that govern our actions. But as we do reflect on it, we can begin to uncover not only our own beliefs and principles, but also the principles we value in our own leaders and managers.

When I think of a philosophy in general, it is the set of principles and beliefs that govern our actions and direction. It is made up of many different pieces that are all intertwined, guiding us through various situations.

So a leadership philosophy is made up of the core principles that govern the actions of a leader. Not only what they do, but the vision that they set and the policies they put in place to guide others.

I often see "philosophy" confused for "style". While style will be influenced by philosophy, they are not the same. Style may be the implementation of philosophy, but it is not equivalent. Additionally, style can be much more determined by situation while the underlying philosophy, though subject to reflection and revision, should not be changing situationally. It should be much more resilient and all-purpose.

Everyone has a philosophy, even if they don't determine explicitly what it is. All of our thoughts and actions, especially when it comes to leadership, govern our direction. So even without determining or reflecting on a leadership philosophy, you have one. You just may not know exactly what it is or how it drives your decisions.

By taking time to reflect (and write out) your philosophy, you can begin to have a much better understanding of the forces driving your decisions and leadership.

Additionally, you can start to measure where your philosophy and implementation may not be aligned. Are there practices you currently have as a leader that don't measure up to where you'd like to be? Determining your philosophy and reflecting on it gives you the perfect opportunity to ensure they are aligned. Or what you may need to do if they aren't aligned.

But what if you aren't currently in a leadership or management role? For product managers reading this, hopefully you already recognize that even without managerial authority, you are in a critical leadership role. For others, I'd likely argue that you too are in positions of leadership, even if it's not readily apparent.

Regardless, most of us likely have managers and leaders in some capacity. By understanding our own leadership philosophy, we can better recognize the underlying principles guiding our managers. This is important for working with managers and fulfilling our responsibilities. But it is also critical in determining where we will work best. If your leaders and managers don't have principles that align with your own, how can you expect to do your best work long-term? Ensuring that we determine our own philosophy and then find leaders who also align with our principles is crucial to our individual success and happiness.

As I was thinking about this topic and fleshing out my own philosophy, I asked myself a series of questions that helped me begin to articulate my own philosophy. Here are some of the topics I used to help me determine my philosophy:

1. How do I currently lead on my team and in my organization? It's helpful to take stock of what you currently do in order to understand why you do it.

2. How would I like to be perceived as a leader? This helps uncover additional principles that you may find important to your philosophy.

3. What gaps are there between what I do and what I would like to do? Are there gaps? If so, why?

4. What leaders do I admire and why? Understanding the philosophy of others and why you admire it will help you uncover your own philosophy. This can be famous leaders, or leaders you know personally.

5. What leaders do I dislike and why? This can also be famous leaders or leaders within your organization. I often find that the best examples for me are the ones that help me understand what not to do.

6. What are my personal principles? Your personal principles should align with your leadership principles and philosophy. This is, of course, your philosophy, so it needs to align with your values.

As I've had the opportunity to reflect on the principles of leadership that I value, I've been able to articulate my overarching philosophy and the underlying principles. I go more in-depth on my own philosophy in my post My Leadership Philosophy & Principles, but I'll summarize it here as well:
Get the right people working on the right thing in the right way - and get everything else out of their way.
The key underlying principles for my philosophy are:

1. Get the right people

2. Establish principles and live them

3. Set the vision

4. Define the framework

5. Give continuous feedback and recognition

6. Get everything else out of the way

Not only is this the way I try and lead, but it is how I want to be led as well. Understanding that and articulating it are critical as I continue to lead various teams and take on more leadership roles, but also in understanding the kinds of leaders I want to work with.

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6 Questions for Determining Your Leadership Philosophy

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I've had multiple occasions recently to reflect on my own leadership philosophy. Not only have I been asked about it explicitly, but in several conversations with friends and others, the topic of leadership has come up with both positive and negative examples. This got me examining my leadership style and the principles that make up my overall philosophy.

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Warning Signs of Student Safety in Distance Learning Setting

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Warning Signs of Student Safety in Distance Learning Setting

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Warning Signs to Student Safety- Distance Learning

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The Global Emotional Intelligence Test uses 40 questions which are derived from, the Global instrument, which contains 158 items. These are based on Goleman's four quadrant Emotional Intelligence Competency Model (2002). Click EI Capability Assessment here for more details. Short EI quizzes such as this are meant to be fun, and to give you a guide to which EI areas you are doing well in and those which perhaps you need to focus on for development.

This Test, is a forced-choice psychological test which requires you to choose Instructions for the FREE EI Test one statement in each pair of statements that describes you best. For each pair of statements, select the statement that best applies to you. Do not over-analyse the questions, or try to think of "exceptions to the rule." Be spontaneous and choose the statement that comes closest to the way you are.

Occasionally there will be questions that ask you to make a close call between two choices. This is because the Test is trying to distinguish between specific areas. If a question is very close and you can't decide which statement applies to you best, you can come back to it after you have completed the other questions.

The Test usually takes about 10 minutes to complete. At the end of the test, click on the Score Test button, and wait for the computer to generate an EI profile of your scores. If you have answered honestly and accurately, your scores will reflect your capability level within each of the EI quadrants.

We cannot guarantee the accuracy of the results of this Test - only that it can help you begin your journey of self-development!

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Emotional Intelligence Test - Global Leadership Foundation

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Free emotional intelligence test developed by Global Leadership Foundation

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What makes a great leader?

Is it someone who takes command with a firm leadership style?

Does it take an ethical leader who seeks to follow their moral compass and embraces the shared values of their employees?

Or is a successful leader one who can transform a company's culture so that it allows each individual to thrive? While also reaching company goals and staying true to each core value of the business?

It is all of these things and many more.

If you're an aspiring leader who is intent on supporting your team, you might be feeling a little overwhelmed at all you need to be. Especially if you're also focusing on transforming and improving organizational culture. And want to be recognized as exhibiting ethical leadership behavior.

Take a breath because we've got your back.

We're going to explore the 13 core values of a leader that you should foster to be the type of leader you dream of.

Let's start, in a typical leadership style, at a high level.

What are leadership values?

Values are the underlying beliefs that guide our decisions and actions and ultimately shape our days and careers.

Leadership values are a subset of those values that positively influence one's ability to lead effectively or be a 'good leader.'

You can foster and develop leadership values with time. However, as with many character traits, you will probably have a tendency toward one specific leadership skill or another.

You can uncover these natural leadership qualities by asking yourself questions such as:

What values guide my personal life?

How do I react in common situations (such as when confronted with change)?

What kind of leaders do I gravitate to (such as a passionate leader or a more strategic leader)?

You should also consider this question: What are the goals, mission, and culture of my company?

The leadership values related to effective leadership at your company will lie at the intersection of your personal values and your company's values.

The importance of a leader with values

Everyone has values, but not everyone exhibits good leadership values.

Anyone in a leadership role should be aware of the values they hold, their strengths, and the areas they can improve on as they grow as a leader.

Why?

Because your values determine how you execute leadership, the team environment you create, and the success of your company. The values you display as a leader will permeate your entire organization and affect its performance.

Leaders who adhere to their values earn respect and commitment from their teams. Value-driven leadership can inspire others not just to follow them but to adopt those values as their own.

By embracing the notion that you can develop leadership qualities, you can also choose leadership values to develop. This is possible both through leadership training and mindful attention and practice.

13 Important values of a leader

Let's review 13 core values that an outstanding leader should demonstrate.

1. Empowerment and development

As a leader, you are in a position of power.

Instead of trying to keep all that power and control for oneself, an effective leader empowers others and amplifies their own impact as a result.

This empowerment can come from formal employee training, ongoing coaching, and workforce development. Mentorship and the delegation of responsibilities can also help.

Empowering others through mentorship and delegation of complex tasks creates a stronger team. With it, you will help build future leaders you can rely on with confidence.

2. Vision

Leaders have the important responsibility of creating and maintaining the organizational vision. What does the company seek to become in the next 5, 10, or 20 years, and what steps are required to realize that goal?

"...As a visionary leader, you should be thinking about more than just the next quarter. You should also be thinking about the next decade, and what your company's reputation and place in the world will be after 40 quarterly results."

Mary Barra, CEO of General Motors

When you center vision as a leadership value, this means you keep the big picture at the forefront of your decision-making.

It also means employing foresight to plan for obstacles. Keep an eye out for anything that may get in the way of your company's vision, and be ready to update the vision as you gain more experience and information.

Successful leadership also includes the leader's ability to communicate that vision to their team members. The message must be shared in a meaningful, actionable, and engaging way.

3. Communication

"Communication and communication strategy is not just part of the game-it is the game."

Oscar Munoz, executive chairman of United Airlines

Communication is the foundation of any relationship.

In a work setting, centering communication as a core leadership value manifests in many ways. It can take the form of conveying context to employees. Or it can be setting clear expectations for individuals and teams. Or even providing and seeking constructive feedback.

A leader may have a clear vision, but unless communication is a driving value, others will not be able to share it.

4. Reinforcement and influence

Positive reinforcement and recognition to your team members are important forms of communication.

"The number one thing that you have to do as a leader: to bolster the confidence of the people you lead."

Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft

When things are busy, it can be all too easy to speed along without making an effort to show that you noticed someone's contribution.

However, positive reinforcement is a huge aspect of improving employee motivation and engagement. Not only that but in lifting your influence as a business leader.

Without recognition, the motivation of team members can lag, and their productivity will grind to a halt.

By demonstrating appreciative behavior, you encourage others to reinforce each other too. This helps boost morale across the organization.

5. Empathy

Empathy is the ability to understand others, see from their point of view, and feel what they are feeling. It is a value that is held in high regard by many senior executives and good business leaders.

The importance of empathy as a leadership value is not simply to be nice or likable. You can build a far stronger team by exercising empathy and understanding each person's motivations with whom you work.

Empathy will help you match people's strengths and skills to roles where they can make the most impact. It will help you build and sustain positive and productive relationships. It will also help you recognize the core values of others on your team.

This is the knowledge that you can harness for the betterment of each individual and the company.

6. Humility

Leaders must constantly be learning. To be in that receptive state of mind requires humility.

Opportunities to build wisdom can easily be lost if you are not willing to recognize and process mistakes. Humility also means knowing when to ask for input from others.

If you have a gap in knowledge in a certain area, seek advice from those with more experience or from coaches. If your strategy is not connecting with your audience, consult the people closest to the work or your customers.

Having a strong sense of emotional intelligence, self-awareness, and humility is a key leadership trait. It prevents leaders from becoming insulated from the outside world. In turn, this allows them to focus on becoming better leaders all-around.

7. Passion and commitment

An extraordinary leader is not only capable of commanding influence or communicating successfully.

They are also:

committed to meeting organizational goals

passionate about the company and their leadership role within it

and demonstrate ferocious resolve when faced with adversity

A leader with this kind of mindset can motivate everyone around them. Their passion and energy are so infectious that it drives and uplifts the entire team.

8. Respect

As a leader, you can demonstrate respect through many of the behaviors already listed here:

Empowering others

Strong communication skills

Recognition of employee abilities

Empathizing with the situations of others

Respect should also move in all directions. Treat upper management, your board, employees, and customers with the respect they deserve to gain respect in return.

It's also important to build a culture where differences are respected and appreciated. Having diverse viewpoints within the organization is a strength, and those who differ from you in opinion should feel as valued as those aligned with you.

9. Patience

Patience is a value that is often learned with time but is an incredibly important skill for those in leadership roles. At its heart, patience is about delayed gratification.

Leaders need to be patient with new hires who aren't up to operating speed yet. They also require patience with existing team members who are working out how to deal with complex issues. This is especially true where the leader may be able to tackle with greater ease.

Patience also benefits leaders who have long-term goals, such as quarterly or annual sales targets. These goals can only be achieved incrementally through perseverance and patience.

10. Resilience

A key nature of business is change, and as a leader, you often take the brunt of big changes - or even initiate them.

You must be able to weather these times, not only for yourself but for your team.

This is not to say you can't have human reactions to challenges, but ultimately your team will respond to how you handle hardship and communicate the outcomes.

Employees look to their leaders for cues during unpredictable phases, and a show of resilience at the top will bolster the entire organization.

Resilience has tangible positive outcomes as well. As BetterUp's study on resilience shows, it increases revenue, encourages innovation, and retains employees.

11. Honesty and transparency

Employees want a coach and leader who is honest and transparent about their performance, business objectives and directives, and internal company politics.

Nobody likes to feel like they are being lied to or deceived.

Transparency does not mean telling everyone everything as soon as you hear it - there is a time and a manner in which to convey information.

You want to be aware of how new information impacts people and impart it with care, utilizing values we've discussed like empathy, communication, and respect.

Take a company reorganization, for example. You don't want to sound the alarm that change is coming before you've worked out the details. Nor do you want to spring the news on people the day before everything shifts.

Valuing transparency, in this case, would mean communicating why there is a reorganization and getting other company leaders on board with how it affects them and their teams. It could also include hosting a Q&A for everyone who will be affected and setting clear expectations for how and when changes will occur.

"Being transparent about our plans enables us to get better feedback."

Shantanu Narayen, chairman, president, and CEO of Adobe Inc.

12. Accountability

One of the values that many employees admire in a leader is accountability.

Accountability means taking responsibility for one's duties and goals and, at times, owning responsibility for the shortcomings of one's team.

However, strong leaders also need to be prepared to hold their employees accountable for the tasks they are responsible for, which helps to promote personal growth with your team.

13. Integrity

Integrity is a character trait that gains respect and trust.

As a leader, integrity means approaching all of your work with consistency and coherency: the way you communicate with others, carry out your organization's mission, and approach new situations.

Integrity means honoring commitments (including to yourself) and doing what you say you will do, as well as approaching challenges in ways that are coherent with other values and beliefs.

Leading with integrity can sound abstract because it encapsulates so much, but you can think of it as integrating all of your core leadership values - the end doesn't justify the means if the means violate our core values.

The people who work for us notice if we only exhibit our values when times are good. By knowing your leadership values, reviewing them, and having them guide your actions, you will be leading with integrity no matter what your company faces.

Core values of a leader make for great leadership

Becoming a great leader is a journey and one which will last your entire career.

Of course, the sooner you start focusing on these leadership values, the faster you'll become the leader you want to be:

1. Empower and development

2. Vision

3. Communication

4. Reinforcement and influence

5. Empathy

6. Humility

7. Passion and commitment

8. Respect

9. Patience

10. Resilience

11. Honesty and transparency

12. Accountability

13. Integrity

Are you looking for a helping hand in developing your leadership skills? Check out how we help leaders grow.

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Leadership values: 13 essential values of a leader

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What makes a great leader? Is it someone who takes command with a firm leadership style? Does it take an ethical leader who seeks to follow their moral compass and embraces the shared values of their employees? Or is a successful leader one who can transform a company's culture so that it allows each individual to thrive?

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Great Man
Trait
Relationship
Behavioral
Contingency
Participative
Situational
Management

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Why Do Some People Become Great Leaders?

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Why do certain people become great leaders? Leadership theories seek to answer this question and usually fit into one of eight basic types.

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Transformational
Transactional
Servant
Autocratic
Democratic
Laissez-Faire
Bureaucratic
Charismatic
Pacesetting
Ethical
Affiliative
Coaching

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12 Leadership Models That Can Define Your Style - University of St. Augustine for Health Sciences

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Discover how leadership models can help you become a better leader and work well with others.

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12 Leadership Models That Can Define Your Style

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Kids miss school every day and always have-often for good reasons. But school leaders around the country say they're struggling with a wave of chronic absenteeism that's worsened over the course of the pandemic.

There are lots of factors, ranging from COVID-specific illness and family disruption to students who have just fallen out of the habit of regular attendance. And while current statistics are scarce, educators say the empty seats don't make it any easier to get schools back to normal.

Here are a few takeaways from recent Education Week reporting that offer perspective on the problem and the challenges schools face.

What is 'chronic absenteeism,' anyway?

As the term suggests, it's more than just missing school for a day or two.

Definitions vary, but the nonprofit advocacy group Attendance Works describes "chronic absenteeism" as missing 10 percent or more of school days, whether it be for excused absences like illness (or quarantine) or for other reasons that could even include suspensions. (By contrast, "satisfactory attendance" is considered to be missing fewer than 5 percent of school days.)

But some kids miss far more days than that simple yardstick might suggest. Some advocates, such as Hedy Chang, of Attendance Works, recommend more-nuanced calibrations that could capture things like "extreme absenteeism"-or having missed half the attendance days or more at any given point.

What did things look like before the pandemic turned schools upside down?

Analysis of U.S. Department of Education data back in 2018 found that 1 in 7 kids were "chronically absent" in the 2015-16 school year. And more than half of those students were in schools where the rates were more than 20 percent.

So where do things stand now, more than two years into the COVID-19 crisis?

It's still a moving target as the school year progresses and data remains spotty. But one intriguing indicator comes from a McKinsey & Co. survey in November 2021, in which 22 percent of respondents said their child had missed at least four days of school at that point in the year. And the trend line didn't look good: If things were to stay on that track for the rest of the year, it would translate into at least 15 days of missed school-"chronic absenteeism" territory.

Data aside, how can schools keep kids coming back?

Build habit, attachment, and family connections, say those working in the school-attendance field.

In some communities, educators work the neighborhoods to know what stresses families are facing that impede their ability to assure kids show up every day. They meet parents where they are, be it in person or online.

Within schools, it pays to build trusting relationships between students and adults; research shows kids are more likely to attend if they feel connected and know their needs will be met.

And look for resources to help, including through the $122 billion in American Recovery Plan funding, which includes federal money for a wide range of needs as schools seek to snap back from the pandemic.

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Where Are All the Kids? 4 Things to Know About the Current Absenteeism Crisis

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Kids miss school every day and always have-often for good reasons. But school leaders around the country say they're struggling with a wave of chronic absenteeism that's worsened over the course of the pandemic. There are lots of factors, ranging from COVID-specific illness and family disruption to students who have just fallen out of the habit of regular attendance.

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The bipartisan omnibus package Congress unveiled Wednesday to keep the government running does not extend child nutrition waivers that have allowed schools to serve free meals to all students and played a major role in curbing child hunger during the pandemic.

The omission comes despite an intense lobbying effort by school administrators and child nutrition experts - one that delivered tens of thousands of emails into congressional inboxes by Tuesday evening - who warned that refusing to allow the U.S. Department of Agriculture to extend the waivers will result in a catastrophic blow to schools' ability to serve meals.

"We urged Congress to include this extension in the omnibus to ensure that USDA can provide critical flexibilities to school meal programs as they continue to face significant supply-chain challenges and increased operating costs, and not disrupt the work they do to keep kids fed as the pandemic wears on," says Noelle Ellerson Ng, the associate executive director of advocacy and governance at AASA, the School Superintendents Association.

The provision they had been pushing to include in the omnibus package - and one that a vast coalition of congressional Democrats supported - would have allowed the USDA to extend the waivers, which were first granted in March 2020 to ensure that schools, local government and nonprofits could continue feeding children when they were forced to shutter at the onset of the pandemic. The waivers are set to expire in June, and the fight over their fate comes at a time of tremendous instability and strain on schools' capacity to provide meals, given the ongoing pandemic, supply-chain issues, inflation making food more expensive, staffing shortages and uncertainty over how Russia's invasion of Ukraine will drive up gas and oil prices.

Editorial Cartoons on Education

But earlier this week, news reports detailed how key Republicans, including Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, opposed extending the waivers as part of the omnibus package, arguing that the waiver was never meant to be permanent and that the $11 billion price tag to extend it for another year wasn't palatable to Republicans concerned about the deficit increasing.

"Whether the opposing Republicans personally opposed or opposed on behalf of the people of their states or opposed on behalf of people in their caucus, at the end of the day this is a no-win move that will hurt kids, leave kids hungry and reverse so much good that started from an overwhelmingly bipartisan policy proposal," Ellerson Ng says.

The superintendents association represents superintendents from the vast majority of the country's 13,000 school districts, including those in rural, suburban and urban areas that operate in communities that embrace varying political and education philosophies.

"I can usually - and have a professional responsibility to - try to see the 'why' or thinking behind a differing opinion," Ellerson Ng says. "That is not the case here. The closest 'why' I can come up with is an unwillingness to acknowledge that the depths of child hunger in the school setting will continue into the 2022-23 school year."

That the waiver was not extended in the omnibus package, despite pressure from Democrats, who control both chambers in Congress, school administrators and child nutrition experts, underscores a new phase of discontinuing pandemic-era aid despite schools still operating during a pandemic.

The funding bill did include $29 billion for child nutrition programs that Biden requested, but school nutrition advocates are worried about a cascade of implications, including a 40% decrease in reimbursement for school meals that will go into effect at the beginning of the school year - from $4.56 to an estimated $2.91.

"That's a really big deal," says Lisa Davis, senior vice president of No Kid Hungry. "Since August, we've been hearing from school districts across the country - urban, suburban and rural, but particularly rural - that because of food price inflation and supply-chain disruptions, they were having food vendors cancel contracts at the last minute. And when they went out to find a new contract, the prices were really, really high. So their costs have gone up exponentially across the board."

Perhaps most acutely, Davis says that she's fielding frantic calls from school districts and community organizations concerned that they won't be able to provide meals this summer at all without the waiver extension.

"We're hearing from school districts and community organizations across the country that if the waivers are not renewed they are going to have to dramatically scale back or even stop their summer meal service," Davis says. "They just won't have the capacity and the funds and the flexibility to keep them going. And we know that summer is the hungriest time of year for a lot of kids when they're out of school and the school meals aren't there. So this is a real problem."

In addition, without the waiver extension schools will no longer be able to substitute certain foods for others or skirt certain nutrition requirements when a particular item isn't available due to supply-chain issues. In fact, they'll now incur financial penalties if they can't meet their vegetable, fruit or whole grain requirements, for example. And without the waivers, schools will also say goodbye to pandemic-friendly ways to serve meals, like grab-and-go stations or classroom distribution of meals, both of which have proven essential during staffing shortages.

Davis says that as school districts begin thinking about supplying meals for the fall of the next academic year that some suppliers are already including new fuel surcharges in their contracts due to rising gas prices.

"We don't expect the supply-chain issues and the food price inflation to disappear over the next couple of months," she says. "The inability to operate because they don't have the funds will really have a severe impact on their ability to run meal programs, so we are very concerned about this."

"Our world has operated under tremendous uncertainty since March of 2020, and we need to err on the side of giving our schools and community organizations all the flexibility that we can so that they can meet those challenges in real time," she says. "Those challenges have evolved from being primarily health-related challenges to being supply-chain and food-price inflation and staffing challenges. They're still really big challenges and they're not abating."

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Congress Set to Cut Funds That Made School Meals Free

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The bipartisan omnibus package Congress unveiled Wednesday to keep the government running does not extend child nutrition waivers that have allowed schools to serve free meals to all students and played a major role in curbing child hunger during the pandemic.

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Interview Questions for School Counselors

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Interview Questions for School Counselors

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Theme: Educational leaders need to move school improvement efforts to a more long lasting approach

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Theme: Viewing leadership from the perspective of women, and learning from their experiences

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Theme: Provides a pathway to reflecting on unconscious and implicit biases

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School counselors must also begin to recognize areas of conflict between personal and professional values. They must clarify their personal core beliefs and values and ensure their values will not be exposed at the expense of students' exploration of their own beliefs.