My Leadership Philosophy

Leadership is a priority if we want to see success in an organisation. This applies to school as well since its function is similar to an organisation, comprises of leaders and staff. With an increased in school autonomy and a greater focus on holistic education of the students and the ‘can’t run away’ emphasis on school results, all these factors have made it essential to reconsider the role of school leaders and their middle managers. There is always room for improvement to professionalise school leadership so as to meet the challenges of current and future times.
One of the ways to professionalise school leadership can be through the adoption of the Five Learning Organisation (LO) disciplines. The 5 disciplines are Personal Mastery, Mental
At this junction, I do not have a good answer to how I am going to do it but I can only share that for the common good of my school and students. I need to put aside my underlying beliefs and assumptions that may not always be right. I will ‘deploy’ empathy to help me challenge my mental models so that I can see things from another perspectives since empathy is a universal team value that promotes high commitment and cooperation in the workplace. It is also the ability to understand another person's perspective or circumstance whether you agree with this person or not. During difficult or challenging moments, empathy can also help me to understand my ‘enemy’ better. This group of ‘enemy’ refers to colleagues who do not buy in the idea or new initiative that I have implemented or would like to introduce to the school as they are worried of the implications of the change. Some equate change to more work and thus, are resistant to change. I hope to challenge the mental models of this group of my colleagues so that change can happen with new learning. ‘Enemy’ also refers to the group of parents who insist to have their way at the expense of the school or the other stakeholders. Whether we like it or not, we have to agree that some overly protective parents are doing more harm than good to their children. They are undoing what we are doing in school especially when values inculcation is concerned. For whatsoever reasons, for a start, because of my mental models, I will view them as being wrong and I am always right as I could not understand their resistance or the way they want things to be done. When empathy is put into practise in such situations, I will or might see things from another perspectives and understand them better. This group of ‘enemy’ will help me grow in my planning,