Chapters 1 and 2

While reading Chapter One I found the part when Bennis discuss the "whole sale adoption of best Japanese practices by our own firms". (Bennis p. 9) The connection that I make with this is the ability for leaders to collaborate with other leaders. There are schools out there that are doing fantastic things, but often times principals/leaders want to figure out the secret to success on their own. Instead of using these thriving schools as a partner, learning what is working for them. What works for one school may not work for another but education is changing everyday and I feel that collaboration with other principals/leaders is just another tool that we can use to improve achievement within our educational systems. I have seen this collaboration in action when working with my site supervisor. She has been in the district for a long time and has used that time to make strong connections with her colleagues. These connections allow her to ask others for advice and also to become the one others look to for advise. Because of this cooperation with other principals/leaders she is able to keep up on the newest innovations in education and quickly gage how they may work in her school setting. In a way it is using others successes to help you thrive as a leader as well.

Another thing that jumped out at me while reading Chapter 1 was the idea of what Bennis refers to as "cocooning". I find the reference to this phenomenon extremely interesting. I'm looking at it from the standpoint of, how does this effect the way we educate students? Social norms are changing because of it and what impact does that have on education? That is something that I would like to take a look at in my reflective journal.

Chapter 2 was very easy to follow with the way in which Bennis broke leadership down into "ingredients". The first basic ingredient is also the main focus of this class, vision. I find it interesting that I have had the opportunity to take this class as the culminating class instead of the introductory class as many do. I know that before completing my other courses I would have had a difficult time developing my vision, but now I feel that I have learned a great deal about my leadership style, beliefs, and goals. As a result of this self awareness I feel that I can develop my vision, but knowing how to follow through with it is something that I will constantly need to be working on. One of my favorite parts of this chapter is when Bennis says "Leaders never lie to themselves, especially about themselves, know their faults as well as their assets, and deal with them directly. You are your own raw material." (Bennis, p. 32). This brings me to one of the journal questions that Professor Ogden asked us to think about while reading; Does what I'm reading describe me? I feel that in some aspect it does, but in other it does not. For instance in our last class on ethics we needed to come up with the CPSELs that we felt were are strong points and which were are weaknesses. I had a much easier time identifying my weaknesses then I did my strengths. After sitting back and reflecting on that assignment I realized that I was focusing on the negative and totally missing the positive. I was trying to show that I have things I need to work on to grown and completely overlooking what leadership qualities I already have developed.