What I Learned In The First Leadership Course And Adult Learning

After reading the chapter about goal setting last week, I thought back to what I learned in the first leadership course and adult learning. Motivation and building capacity are the two aspects that came to mind as I was reading this section. I know how important it is for school leaders to establish a purpose, or vision and set goals; however, it is equally important for teachers to believe in the vision. Additionally, they must be motivated and have the capacity to achieve the goals. Without a commitment and the competence to succeed, the vision is meaningless. Motivating others has to be one of the most challenging concepts of leadership. As I get more involved in leadership roles at my school, what I am realizing is that you have to start with the willing first and you must always communicate the why. When setting goals, they should be limited to three to four specific goals, rather than six or more. Robinson (2011) contends, “too many goals defeat

Robinson (2011) explains, “commitment and capacity are highly interdependent because people will not commit to goals that they believe they cannot achieve” (pp. 51-52). This reminded me of the instructional priorities leadership meeting that I attended last week, as we looked at our short and long-term goals. Our literacy coach expressed a concern about adding additional goals to our priorities for this year as teachers were already feeling overwhelmed. As a school, we are still in the learning phase with the concept of professional learning communities. Although we started the process a couple of years ago, there were some misconceptions. This year, there are about twelve new teachers; consequently, we have a wide range of adult learners. Drago-Severson (2009) states, “supporting adult growth in schools is important both for its own sake as well as for the contributions it can make toward improving student achievement (Guskey, 1999)” (p.