Small "l" and Big "L" Leadership

I've been thinking about formal leadership lately.

I've been reflecting on the situations I have put myself in - and the experiences that have come from those situations - and how they have assisted me with the leadership skills and attitudes that I have and that I am working on. I have had some great conversations with my Principal and Vice Principal as of late and they have got me thinking more about leadership and what it currently looks like for me. The valuable conversations that I have been engaging in are helping facilitate my thinking, particularly around my strengths and what I need to work on.

I've landed on a couple of things that I want to work through in this blog post.

1) You don't always have to take on a huge initiative as the "leader" in order to be a "leader".
2) Real collaboration will allow you to "lead" with your strengths and allow you to learn new things (what you don't know or what you need to work on) from other "leaders".

I'm going to use a fairly recent school experience that will help me illustrate the two points I have stated above.

My school recently purchased a home reading program for our primary students. We purchased close to 700 texts that needed to be stamped, organized, and tracked. We needed to figure out and prepare a presentation for an evening information session for families to introduce and explain the program. There were a lot of pieces to this puzzle and someone had to take the lead.

No one jumped at the opportunity - like me - many were happy to help but no one wanted to be responsible to "lead" this initiative. At a primary division meeting the team talked about it and a couple of people chimed in and stated what they would be willing to take on. This was all that was needed in order for others to step up and take on a piece of this 'project'.

I spoke up and explained what I was going to do. I was very clear about the role I would play, when I would start, and when my portion would be done. I also let everyone know that I was happy to help out in any other ways where I could be of use. With respect to the first point I made above, I didn't feel like I had to take on the entire initiative as the leader of it in order to actually provide leadership. I also stated that because we were all together talking about the initiative that we should take the opportunity to define who would do what. Fortunately, enough people volunteered to help and the work was divvied up. Each person who took on a piece of the initiative would "lead" in their particular area in order for the parts to be put together into an awesome whole that would get this initiative off the ground. We didn't have anyone take on the initiative as "leader" but each person who volunteered to help would "lead" in their own way with their part of the program preparation.

The division leader would be the one that we would report to with respect to what we were responsible for but she wasn't going to micro manage the project and chase us for our parts. This is where I would like to address the second point I made above. Each of the people involved were going to work on their part in order for this program to be ready for the students and the parent presentation to be ready for the information session.

The division leader's part of the project involved putting together a slide deck for the information session. Once she started working on her portion of the initiative she realized that she didn't know how to do some of the things that she wanted done for the slide deck. She came to me and asked for help with something that she knows I am fluent with. Not a problem - I used my strengths in that particular area to help her get her portion of the work done. I took the lead there and she learned something from me. I found myself struggling with the portion of the work that I took on so I leaned on another staff member to teach me how to be more effective and efficient and she was happy to do so. She "lead" me with her strengths and I learned from her.

Those are just two examples of how a group of us truly collaborated in order to get this home reading program ready. We leaned on each other's strengths in order to learn from each other and get things done. It is something I won't soon forget - especially now that I have decided to blog about it. :)

Leadership doesn't always mean big "L" leadership. Sometimes, and I am willing to generalize that most of the time, small "l" leadership is what is needed to get things done. Of course big "L" leadership is required to ensure that things are happening and that people and situations are moving in the right direction - but - without the small "l" leadership work things (details) won't be taken care of. From my perspective, I believe that people preparing for formal leadership positions need to have big "L" leadership and small "l" leadership experiences. I believe it is important to see things from a macro level and to be part of the inner working micro level. I also believe that I have been walking the walk and talking the talk of when it comes to the balancing act of taking on small "l" and big "L" leadership opportunities.

With respect to the Ontario Catholic Leadership Framework, what I wrote about easily fits under the 'Building Relationships and Developing People' and the 'Developing the Organization to Support Desired Practices' pillars.

Building Relationships and Developing People
As we worked together we were supporting and demonstrating consideration to each other. We acknowledged and celebrated our accomplishment(s), took each others opinions into consideration, built upon and responded to each others unique needs and expertise, and did all of the above in a caring way.

Developing the Organization to Support Desired Practices
Our work was collaborative and involved a distribution of leadership. Collaboration was modeled in our work, mutual respect and trust was involved, we developed clear goals and roles related to our work, and it culminated with an event where parents were welcomed, respected, and valued as partners in their children's learning.

I was not "leading" this initiative but my role was integral in its success. In fact, each of us played a pivotal role in getting the program ready for the students and putting together a quality presentation for the families when they came in to learn more about how we are helping their children and what they can do to help as well.

Now that this blog post is complete, I need to get to my email to send a quick message to each of the teachers that took a "lead" with this project to thank them and tell them how grateful I am to be able to work and learn with them!