A Personal Leadership Assessment

One note before the reader continues… fulfilling a leadership assessment when I’m not actually a principal is very difficult for me to do because for the most part, I’m unwilling to accept any meaning from something I haven’t actually done. As such, I go into this thinking that I can’t believe any of the results because I’m being asked to pretend and that goes against everything But I also love to learn more about me so onwards.

In the first part of the assignment, I examined each of the 21 Responsibilities of the School Leader (Marzano, 2005). In framing this self-evaluation, I thought of how I acted in various leadership capacities (school or otherwise). This self-assessment was easier to answer because the scale registered our answers as weak (1) to strong (5) – qualities I could easily relate to. I easily answered the questions by listing a 1 or 2 for the areas that I did not connect with personally. My weakest areas were in curriculum and monitoring – evidence of my lack of experience in education. On the other hand, I’m always willing to buck the tide and change things so these areas were easy to register as a 4 or 5. In general, those without a strong connection received a 3 indicating that I viewed it as important but couldn’t authentically recall any personal experience that would lead me to judge it otherwise, I left it in the middle. This process for evaluation was the same with my completion of the balanced leadership profile.

Turning to the second part of the assignment, I completed the balanced leadership profile “pretending” to be a principal at my school but I submitted an accurate school improvement initiative that I plan to pursue in the upcoming year, “Implement a comprehensive technology integration and assessment plan using the NETS for students and develop technology integration skills in staff using the NETS for teachers.” The tug-of-war between pretending and experience constantly got in the way as I completed the survey. I connected to many of the questions in the context of myself as a leader instigating change according to my initiative, but struggled and failed to be able to connect to what I thought on many of the points. Since I have a very poor view of our current school leadership, I couldn’t differentiate between what was actually happening at the school and me “pretending” to be the head of the school so while some of the results show accurate trends, others are not fully formed.

Looking now at the data, there is a strong correlation between most of the numbers in my self-assessment versus the balanced leadership assessment. Where there are changes of 1.0 or more, the change reflects confusion of how I perceive myself as a leader. The largest differentiation in the numbers was in Involvement in Curriculum, Instruction and Assessment (rated 2.0 on the weakness scale and 3.67 on balanced leadership assessment). While I believe to be weak in this area, I have been actively involved in subject curriculum to help from a technology point of view and I did a lot of research on helping to develop units last year. In this case, the balanced leadership score is more accurate than my self-assessment.

Here is the list of my top 7 strengths:
1. Optimize (4.75)
2. 2. Visibility (4.33)
3. Change Agent (4.0)
4. Communication (4.0)
5. Flexibility (4.0)
6. Involvement in Curriculum, Instruction and Assessment (3.67)
7. Ideals/beliefs (3.5)
In looking again at the description of what these responsibilities entail, I believe these accurately represent what I am best at now as well as historically in different life or career roles. I was quite surprised by the accuracy. In looking at these top strengths to Marzano’s (2005) correlation with student achievement, most of them fall towards the lower end with the exception of Flexibility and Change Agent.

Here is my list of top 7 weaknesses (well really top 11 because 5 – 11 is a tie):
1. Knowledge of Curriculum, Instruction and Assessment (1.25
2. Monitor/evaluate (2.25)
3. Discipline (2.25)
4. Situational Awareness (2.80)
5. Contingent Rewards (3.0)
6. Focus (3.0)
7. Intellectual Stimulation (3.0)
8. Order (3.0)
9. Outreach (3.0)
10. Relationships (3.0)
11. Resources (3.0)
This list is more difficult to interpret because some of the responsibilities account for a lack of experience so I can’t reflect on its importance in an authentic manner (#1-3 in particular). Several others (#5, 6, 7, 9, 11) are quite important to me, but I must have doubted my responses because I couldn’t connect to a personal experience. Many of these responsibilities on this list correlate highly on Marzano’s scale especially Situational Awareness, Discipline and Outreach with a .27 to .33 correlation.

This exercise highlights my weaknesses in terms of experience in the field of education and shows my overall strengths at being a force for change. While many responsibilities I have strengths in are towards the lower end of correlation for student achievement (Marzano, 2005), I believe I have the capacity and interest in developing these areas while continuing to develop my ability to think forward.

I know who I am and how I work because I have spent a significant amount of time over the past 20 years analyzing almost everything in my life. What I know if that I’m a deep thinker and need to consider theories and ideas for a long time before internalizing them and finding true meaning. What is important about this exercise for me is that it has started this process.

Click on the image below to see the chart larger.

Marzano, R., Waters, T., & Eaker, R. (2005). School leadership that works: From research to results. San Francisco:ASCD.