Review on my Professional Development on Leadership

One of the key inspirations of the people development module is that the middle managers developed a professional network that shares a commitment to the growth of people, in my case teachers. I personally valued the local knowledge of fellow middle managers, who supported and provided common and contextualized understanding of leadership issues within schools and our organization. I find that the mutual support among the middle managers was accepted readily as we listened to fellow peers who offered realistic advice for problems and issues raised, thus addressing the sense of isolation, felt by new middle manager.

It was also interesting to note many middle managers expressing a desire to continue their collaborations beyond the course, we exchanged contacts and emails and even the instructor provided us his contacts. And if this is to be able to sustain beyond the life of the 3 days course, I will feel an added sense of security and empowerment, knowing that there will always be help available to provide perspectives of critical aspect of leadership. I also suspect that as the middle managers are from different schools and zones, there is less constraint and so are more inclined to raise thorny professional issues.

The instructor also played a key role in this “community of learners”. He brought an experienced perspective to the theoretical aspect of leadership – illustrating the five levels of leadership by John C. Maxwell with real examples, help raise important issues on communication skills, exemplify leadership attributes and act as a source of validation. He bring credibility to the course which enable building of trust and relationships through quality conversations and with ground facilitation (being himself a former vice-principal) which met the needs of new middle managers, and his presence is highly valued.

I personally also find it reassuring to hear that my experienced instructor still grapple with some difficult issues with teachers, and they sometimes too have anxieties and concerns. I hope to develop additional skills to operate as facilitator, process supporter, co-learner and coach, leveraging on the core theory of success to create a high performance team, as well as to develop insight to know when each of these different roles are appropriate. In doing this, I hope to derive much practical experience from this course’s learning – both in terms of theory and practice.