Being Your Own Best Advocate

How can you grow professionally in your leadership journey? This article from Principal Magazine can help guide you as you wrap up the year and look forward to next.

• Consider your personal leadership vision and purpose. How does your vision integrate with and align to your principal’s? What impact do you want to have on the building you serve? What did that look like this year? How do you want it to be different next year?
• Be a learner. As you design your IAPDP for 2023-24, work with your principal to identify learning goals and experiences that will help you grow to achieve them. Listen. Listen. Listen. Listening is learning. Notice what patterns you see as you listen to colleagues and staff members. Recognize the little lessons you learn along the way—take time to reflect on a difficult conversation or moment and what you gained from that experience.
• Welcome and invite feedback. Ask your teachers about your performance. Ask your principal. Invite others to help you see yourself more fully so you can learn and grow. (You might consider adapting this feedback survey and to use with your staff—collaborate with your principal).
• Check your progress. Use the Iowa Building Level Leader Progressions to help you gauge your growth. Reflect with your principal.
• Grow your professional network. Attend SAI events! Identify leaders with growth goals like yours or models of what you’d like to accomplish and make it a point to connect with them. Spend time socially as well!

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