Growth & Learning

The question: If you were to tell me the most important thing that you think I need to get better at either at work or in my personal life or in both, what would that be?

What others told me, Individual Style Profile, and Leadership Orientations...

"I would share that you need to devote more time to smell the roses. You dedicate so much of your being to others, professionally, working long hours and taking on additional tasks, that you fail to realize your health and peace of mind matter. The world will not fall apart if you cut out a day early to spend time with family and/or friends. There are others to share the wealth at work!"

"A work-life balance. It's important to have someone that shares your joys and pains with you."

"Your family can be loved and supported even if you’re not in the same state."

"You need a personal life. It helps you gain perspective from people who are not in your industry."

SpencerStuart Individual Style Profile

SpencerStuart ranks 8 personal styles. Here are my ranked styles.

"You prioritize authentic connections and empowering other people. You are considerate and try to be helpful and supportive. You also have a passion for learning and personal growth.

With this combined orientation toward caring and learning, you will be driven to help other people and think up new possibilities. These styles are complementary and will tend to play well off of each other."

Leadership Orientations:

I'm more of a Symbolic and Human Resource leader and significantly less of a Structural or Political Leader.

Symbolic leaders "believe that the essential task of management is to provide vision and inspiration."

Human resource leaders "emphasize the importance of people."

Structural leaders "emphasize rationality, analysis, logic, facts and data."

Political leaders "believe that managers and leaders live in a world of conflict and scarce resources."

myGiide Culturally Agility and Cross-Cultural Competencies Report

My Strengths: Tolerance of Ambiguity, Cultural Curiosity, Cultural Humility, and Perspective-Taking

Areas of improvement: Resilience, Relationship Building

Reflection

Those closest to me believe I work too much and don't take enough time to develop relationships outside of work. Their comments were supported by the findings of three leadership style profile services. I am passionate about doing vision work, being a part of a team, leading with care, inspiring others, learning more about my profession, helping others, and being part of something greater than myself. While that has proven to be very beneficial to my professional career, it comes at the cost of not taking time to take care of myself and building relationships with people outside my profession.

So how do I plan on addressing my growth edges?

The leadership profiles suggest that I am less focused on data, results, and order. To give more context to this trait, I enjoy collecting, analyzing, and understanding the trends within a system. I am, however, a firm believer in making data-informed decisions rather than data-driven decisions. As my graduate school professor once said, "data don't drive!" Data helps tell the story and inform how we may move forward as an institution, but I will not allow data to overshadow or negatively impact the human experience.

My love and appreciation for people is evident in my career and within these leadership profiles. My growth edges are expanding my circle, building relationships with people outside of education, and having fun.

Something I learned from my leadership calls was the value of showing up or attending professional conferences in industries other than education. I would love to attend conferences like SXSW or AfroTech. These conferences will provide me opportunities to connect with like-minded professionals from other walks of life while providing me with opportunities to continue thinking about the future of education. Outside of the professional space, I must commit to taking my vacation time, reconnecting with friends I haven't spoken to in a while, and actually scheduling a vacation.

Reflecting on resilience, I have to think about my top stressor in recent years: slow progress. As someone that thrives off creativity, moving beyond the status quo, and providing access to populations not typically represented in independent schools, I've found that many spaces in independent schools are slow to all the things I value. To cope with slow progress, I've learned that "you can't eat the entire meal at once. You have to decide what to bite first" and celebrate the small wins!

Something not overtly expressed in my findings and conversations, but is underlying in the results, is my need to be present and be thankful for what I have accomplished. Being present will allow me to put everything into perspective, appreciate how far I've come, and find peace in the moment. The best way for me to be present is by writing in my journal, meditating regularly, cook more often, exploring my surroundings, and spending time on a large body of water (whale watching is a personal favorite of mine).