Running Head: PHILOSOPHY 1

Personal Philosophy of Leadership

Shirley Olivares

University of St. Thomas

Dr. Lachanda Nicole Landry

EDUC 6331 Administrative Internship

Fall 2017
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Personal Philosophy of Leadership

I believe that leadership is a privilege. It is a privilege that carries with it the

responsibility of inspiring others and sharing our vision and goals. Being a leader is governing a

school by expanding the number of people involved in making important decisions related to the

schools organization, operation, and academics. Therefore, I promise to lead a school that will

embrace lifelong learning, promote the development of positive relationships among students,

faculty, staff, and administrators, foster academic achievement, embrace diversity and respect for

one another, adaptability and life success. In guiding my school, I will make sure to exercise a

shared and participatory leadership style, where mutual making and collaboration is.

In addition to this, I believe in creating an inspiring vision and mission statement that

exhibits our schools community values. A shared vision will serve to empower others to do

great things. I will be a moral leader who is genuine, kind, and understanding. I will represent

my community and our beliefs. It is my goal to create a vision that describes where we are now,

where we see it in the future and how we are going to get there. My vision will be a mutual and

shared vision, among every school community member.

I believe in creating an environment where teachers and other staff members are

motivated through recognition, challenges, personal and professional growth. It is important to

have a positive school climate and culture through incorporating positive personnel relations, and

having respect and appreciation for every member of the school community. My goal is to be the

type of leader that encourages others and gains respect and trust. I hope to inspire others to look

to the future, want to do good for the world, and move to a positive social change. At the heart of

the school community is the people who make up the organization, our school staff members.

They are the most important pieces to the success of a school. I will not be a perfect leader, I will
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make mistakes, but I will stay true to my values and beliefs. I will always strive to do what is

best for our school, and school community.

During the past years working as High School teacher, I had the privilege to work with

both, male and female school leaders such as, Mrs. Maldar. She has been an assistant principal

for ten years at Harmony Public Schools. One of the leadership characteristics that she exhibited

during her term as an assistant principal and that I admire, is her passion to help others. As the

only person in the ESL (English as a second language) department, she tried to do her best to

support and help me meet the needs of our students. I would meet with her every week to go over

the academic progress of our students. She would give me ideas on the resources I could use to

help our newcomers attain the basic English language skills. Mrs. Maldar would visit my

classroom at least once every two weeks to ensure that the students were being supported. She

was very passionate about her job and responsibilities with the special departments. Another

quality that I admire is her positiveness. In March, when we have the STAAR test and TELPAS

occurring at the same time, she would always give me suggestions on how to handle certain

tasks, while also teaching. She would tell that there would be times where things would get

difficult. However, if we remained calm and took care of what was urgent first, everything would

come along easily. Another characteristic that I admired of her was her integrity. The quality of

being honest and having strong moral principles is something that I will never forget about her.

Since we had to work together for trainings, she would always make sure that were were doing

things correctly and that we were clear to teachers about their responsibilities. As I think about

my aspiration of becoming a school leader, I hope to attain these qualities that will allow me to

become a well-rounded principal.

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In these years, I also had the opportunity work with a male school leader, Mr. Subas our

school principal. Having worked with both, a female and a male school leader made me realize

that a persons leadership style is different depending on their gender. One of the characteristics

that I admire about Mr. Subas is his decisiveness. During our weekly coordinators meeting, he

would ask for our opinion and suggestion on certain issues. After hearing our comments and

suggestions, he would decide what actions he would take and what each staff member would be

responsible for. He expected to hear about our progress on the next meeting. Another quality

that I admire is his persuasiveness. He would influence change, improvement and

performance. He always had high expectations for all his staff members. One of those

expectations was for them to go beyond their responsibilities. Mr. Subas was also very strategic

in selecting the correct person for every task. Ultimately, having worked with two excellent

school leaders taught me that one should be a well-rounded school leader. Neither to be too

dominant or too passive, but balanced. It is important to have high expectations about others and

to push them to do their best, while also being supportive and understanding.