Summary of Growth

Summary of Growth By Karen Philips
Early Childhood Leadership: Leading for Change
Summary of Growth
The Leadership Credential has enhanced my leadership skills by helping me define the difference between leadership and management. Leadership is the action of leading a group or organization. Leadership is a process that persuades people to do the right thing for a better future. Management is to direct or control. When I take a retrospective look at my career, the positions I held were in supervisory or management roles. Even though I was serving in management positions I believed I was in leadership positions. I felt this way because I was in charge of people and had the authority and power to enforce the agencies rules and policies. As, Nolan, 1996; states managers are given authority through formal job descriptions. I was given a handbook, some guidelines and agency goals and was told to make sure the staff I supervised completed their assigned jobs and achieved the desired goals and benchmarks. At no point did I take part in building the agencies environment, vision or direction, I just did what I was instructed to do. When I entered the field of child care I still had the management mind set and style of interacting with my staff. I rarely dealt with issues without my employee handbook nearby. The decisions I made were dictated by the guidelines of the handbook. Nolan states; managers make decisions within the power and purview of the organization and within a legal context within the organization is functioning. In other words managers influence others by using rewards and punishments.
Learning about and understanding authenticity has helped me grow by leaps and bounds as a leader. Authentic leaders acknowledge limits in themselves and in their job related knowledge; seek out professional and performance development feedback and display the ability to be flexible in their decision making abilities with limited knowledge, (Diddams, 5). As a leader I learned that leaders need to acknowledge that they dont know everything and they must be willing to seek out assistance, ask questions and seek input from others when necessary. As administrator of a child care center I had to evaluate my knowledge and skills in order to enroll children with special health care needs and challenging behaviors. After assessing my skills and knowledge, I had to admit that I had very little knowledge in this area, so I had to be honest with myself, prospective parents and my staff. To help increase my knowledge in this area I enrolled in classes and workshops that increased my knowledge. The classes opened my eyes to many unfounded fears and misconceptions about working with children with special health care needs. All of my fears and concerns have been erased; because of this I can help my teaching staff evaluate their own attitudes, reactions and what behaviors causes them to become frustrated because I have learned to recognize my own. By completing classes and attending in services I was able to do an accurate self-assessment by acknowledging my limitation, and by taking the steps to learn what was needed to improve. Self-confidence was also demonstrated because I welcomed the task of completing the classes. Goleman (p.254) states, Knowing their abilities with accuracy allows leaders to play on their strengths. Self-confident leaders welcome a difficult assignment. The task was difficult, but I didnt complain because I was doing something that I believe in. I believe that children of all abilities should have access to and participate in meaningful educational and community
experiences, and I wanted our center to be a place that provides those opportunities to families and children that exhibit special health care needs and challenging behaviors. By assessing my strengths and weakness and my ability to openly admit my lack of knowledge in this area I was able to show my staff that admitting lack of knowledge is not a bad thing. I feel the knowledge I gained has made an impact in the community because the center currently has four children that are autistic, one that has cerebral palsy, five children with ADHA and one infant that is on a feeding tube. This may not seem like a lot but it has made it easier for the parents of these children go to work and school. The way I have shown leadership outside of my program is the initiative I took to talk to my instructor at UWM about bringing college courses to the community. While attending a WMELS training I heard so many individuals talking about their fears of attending college. From those conversations and discussions with my instructor; UWM will offering the new Program Development Credential in a face to face format. The classes will be held at my center, hopefully starting this summer semester. The program will be offered one evening per week and on Saturday afternoons, with free child care. After completing the Leadership Credential I plan to continue researching how to develop and implement a mentoring program within the city of Milwaukee. I will continue researching doctoral programs in order to earn my PhD in educational administration. The goal I hope to accomplish first is getting Kiddie Lane accredited and to encourage my staff to continue working towards earning their degrees in early childhood education.
References Goleman, D. (2000). Primal Leadership. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press. Nolan, T. (2000). The Leadership Handbook. New Berlin, WI: Nolan Communication

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Summary of Growth By Karen Philips

Early Childhood Leadership: Leading for Change

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