My Leadership Style

There are two styles that fit me really well. I am a traformational and a transactional leader. As a transformational leader, I care how my students develop through life. I want to see the development from being a self-centered child to a outward thinking young adult. We do "mommy moments" once a week to discuss life lessons. I connect these to a saying or phrase that we are focusing on for the week. For instance "don't cut off your nose to spite your face." We also do character nominations. We have a theme each month given to us by administration. We are to find positive character traits in others. I have the students write a 50 word paragraph telling me why one of their peers deserve to get that month's award. In this I am teaching them to always look for the good in a person and how to identify specific character traits.

At my school we do what we call PowWow meetings. All of the 4th through 6th grade teachers get together once a week and we discuss specific students and curriculum questions and concerns. We have a upper elementary director that presides over the meetings as well. This is using the transactional leadership approach and it works really well. The lower elementary do the same thing. After these meetings we break into grade specific meetings where that team lead follows up any issues that were specific to the grade in the group meeting and then we move on to specific areas in our grade. I love this approach to PLCs. As the team lead for the 6th grade, I look for input from the other teachers and aides, but I also put in my own input. This is transactional leadership. I am not the all knowing teacher. I need to learn from my peers. I know I have a lot to offer my peers as well. This is why this give and take process works so well.