Professional and Ethical Leadership Class

Dr. Timothy MitchellRapid City Area Schools

9/26/13

Systems That Learn“Leadership is about going

somewhere. If you and your people don’t know

where you are going, your leadership doesn’t matter.”

Ken Blanchard

The Three C’s of Community BuildingConfront the Brutal Facts

Communication (Effective)

Collaboration

RCAS Mission

Building a community of life

long learners, one student at a

time.

RCAS Vision

All Rapid City Area School students will

achieve to their full potential.

My Personal Vision

To embrace learning rather than teaching as a school’s mission, to work

collaboratively to help all students learn, to focus on results to foster continuous improvement and to

assume individual responsibility to take steps to create such a school.

My Sentence

I provide the leadership to create a purposeful learning community that creates high quality learning experiences for all community members.

Community SupportCommunity InvolvementCommunity Trust

What is essential!!

Systems That LearnOverarching Theory

When a school systems learns, continuous improvement

enables educators to close achievement gaps and

ensures that all students grow and develop as learners.

Systems That LearnIn order to disagree, learn from mistakes, successfully manage conflict, and continually learn, the systems needs sufficient:

TrustCapacity Building for ALL educatorsCollaboration in All directionsLeadership at all levels

Trust

*Provide a safety net for taking risks

*It is necessary for the system to achieve beyond capacity

*Need to pay attention to the needs of all the stakeholders

Function of two things:

◦Integrity

◦Competence

Developing Trust

Integrity◦ Honesty-telling the truth & leaving the right

impression

◦ Congruence-no gaps between intent and behavior “walk your talk”

◦ Humility-recognize principles before yourself

◦ Courage-do the right thing-even when hard

Developing Trust

Competence

◦ Your capabilities◦ Your skills◦ Your results◦ Your track record

◦ They are both vital-one without the other will not work

Developing Trust

Speed of Trust-Behavior #9

Clarify Expectations-to create shared vision and

agreement about what is to be done up front

Speed of Trust-Behavior #10

Practice Accountability-Hold yourself accountable. Hold others

accountable. Take responsibility for results. Be clear on how you’ll communicate how you’re doing and how others are doing. Don’t avoid or shirk responsibility. Don’t

blame others or point fingers when things go wrong.

Capacity Building

*Quality teaching has a positive impact on student learning

*Teaching competencies can be taught*Professional learning can increase teacher competencies in ways that will result in increased student learning

Collaboration

The knowledge about effective practice becomes more widely available and accessible on a

daily basis

Working together generates commitment

Leaders at ALL Levels“It is no longer sufficient to have one person

learning for the organization. It’s just not possible any longer to figure it out from the top. The organizations that will truly excel in the future will be the organizations that discover how to tap people’s commitment and capacity to learn at all levels of the

organization”Peter Senge

Leaders at ALL Levels

*Good ideas can come from anywhere

*Include as many people as they can in key decisions

What Do I Want You to Feel? Autonomy-the desire to direct your own life

◦ This does not mean condoning and allowing people to do “whatever they want”

◦ The “How” of the things we do-Supportive Limits Mastery-the urge to get better and better at

something that matters◦ Your ability is not finite

Purpose-the yearning to do what we do as a service of something larger than ourselves

What must we have to provide a high quality

education for all students of the RCAS?

Control the Conversation

“A man who doesn’t trust himself can never truly

trust anyone else.”-Cardinal de Retz

Developing Trust