Leadership in the field of education requires an extraordinary amount of influence, organization, patience and skill. A school leader must be willing to constantly reflect on their practice as well as work collaboratively with the staff, students and parents of their school to ensure the success of each student under the authority. I have had the opportunity to develop an understanding of the framework by which school leader’s work and lead a team of teachers in an instructional community.
One of my foremost strengths is my leadership abilities. John Maxwell (2003) states that “Leadership is influence.” Through my work in various organizations and in my classwork, I have been able to develop and demonstrate my leadership abilities and positively influence the lives of my students and given them the tools they need to be successful.
Equally strong is my ability to make decisions based on research and pertinent data. I have had an opportunity to practice this skill set through my work on my school data and marketing teams. Being able to make instructional decisions based on data lends itself to making school-wide decisions about curriculum, finances and other areas of administration based on a pool of data and research-based methodology.
I believe that one of my weakest areas my understanding of educational law. My personal ambition is to seek a resource for professional development on the area of educational policies at the federal, state and local levels, especially dealing with use of funds and grants that are provided for school financing. My other area of weakness would be my understanding and application of educational finance, which goes hand in hand with educational law. With improvement in the areas, I believe that I could be a successful and well-rounded administrator.