Leadership 3

 Leadership 3

I really enjoyed our last Leadership Meets for this term. All the leaders were invited by email and a phone call or text. Again, it was nice to make contact with whānau. Three students came on the calls. 

We discussed their leadership 'Leading Self' challenges. When we reviewed the "Levels of Leadership" model, these leaders were starting to recognise the progressions. 

For me, one of the great takeaways of these Meets was our discussions about next term. I asked the students for input into our Friday hui, activities and sport. As we had a korero, they were able to add suggestions of activities they would like to lead. K wants to lead dancing (Born to Move) on wet days. L is willing to lead the actions for kapa haka at our hui. 'A' was able to think of other students who would be good leaders for activities and kapa haka and wanted to start recruiting before we even got off the call! He is going to work with a friend to lead a drum group. We discussed possible problems and how we would solve them. 

This discussion made me think about leadership succession. I briefly mentioned this to the L and A in our Meet. Soon they are going to be moving onto Intermediate. The leadership skills they have learned will really help them there. Also, they can start to train up leaders for next year. 'A' was already thinking about this, involving others who he had identified as having leadership skills (and who were also his friends). 

This would be a great next step for myself and our leaders going into Term 4. Together we can start to include others, training them up, sharing what we know, inviting them to watch and have a go leading. This might be leading kapa haka actions, leading an activity on a wet day or even coming out with us to help Harakeke with their sports. Perhaps, in this way, our 2021 leaders could help to identify and train our 2022 leaders. That would be a beautiful gift to our school. 

Comments

  1. Alida1 October 2021 at 11:01

    Thank you for taking this group during lockdown. I am sure they gained valuable tools to add to their kete. I think it's a great idea to start looking ahead and how we can support our new leaders for next year. But part of that I think it would be good to think of how we will choose our leaders. I know the ultimate decision lies with the teachers and management, but would it not be great if our akonga could have a say in who the leaders should be. New leaders could apply by submitting a CV perhaps, or a voting system. Keeping in mind that we choose leaders in their house colours. What do you think?

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    Replies
    1. Simon Cossey1 October 2021 at 11:15

      Yes, i think having our akonga have a say is really important. I wonder what is the best way of empowering them to do that, in a culturally responsive way?? Collective decision making is really important in some of our school's cultures. Also, is it common in some cultures that leaders are nominated - asked to lead by those around them?? Often it's those who are already serving and helping others (leading) who make really good leaders.

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