Leadership Interview Paper

The leadership interview assignment led me to two women from different education backgrounds and career paths. The information shared from these women on leadership was insightful and provided similar yet different responses to how they lead. I chose to interview Nanci Dauwen, a teacher leader (i.e. teacher of the year) at Sheyenne High School and a friend Heather Brandt, a social worker who holds the position of program director at Centre Inc. The first interview I conducted was on September 26th with Nanci Dauwen. Nanci has been an influential leader in my career in education and continually shows leadership for all teaches and staff at Sheyenne High School. Nanci is a math teacher at Sheyenne. She was chosen as the teacher of the year

Both Nanci and Heather say that a good leader builds relationships with those they work with, they are good at supporting those individuals and being available to help when needed. It is also evident that each one of these leaders feel a good leader know how to communicate well with others. It was also obvious that both of these leaders know and understand their organizations vision and mission statement, as well as, can see how each plays an important role in their work. Both Nanci and Heather shared that the vision is what is overall always being strived for, but the mission is the day to day work that is being

To improve my own professional learning environment I need to use my strengths of developer, empathy and communication as these appear as a continuing theme from both interviewees. As a developer, I strive to help people be successful and look for signs of growth and ways you can support them to grow. Empathy, I try to see things like others see them. I don’t necessarily agree, but I do am understanding and consider the situations. Finally communication, I like to explain and make the words interesting and understandable. These strengths fit well with the themes I found in the interviews of relationship building, support and communication. My other strengths can be important to leading as well, however they play a role in different situations depending on what decisions need to be made. I hope to take my strengths and continue to build on them and use them to better my roles both personally and