Week 1- Reflect on what you consider a good leader to be like. Are you a thought leader, would you want to be?

A good leader...... My opinion of what a good leader is has changed somewhat over the last couple of years, as there has been significant changes in the leadership structures at my school. If I had to make a list of attributes as to what a good leader is, these would be some of the most fundamental ones (in my very humble opinion!)

A good leader:

• is attentive; listens to the needs and issues that others have
• is reflective; consistently reflects on their pedagogy, how they work, and how to best lead others
• is reliable; a good leader is someone who can be relied upon. 
• is professional; someone you know you can talk to in a professional capacity, regardless of their personal feelings.

These are a few of the things that speak to me about being a good leader. However I think we view leadership (at least in schools) as just our management team. I have been reflecting on this since our Mindlab session last night and I realised I don't often see myself as a leader, even though that is what I do for a living; I lead. So then I look back at that list and think "how many of my own leadership wishlist do I tick off? I would hope them all. Considering those are the features I believe are imperative to a leader in our field! I hold them dear in my philosophy of what I believe a good teacher is... are those two things one in the same? To teach is to lead? And leading isn't necessarily always done from the front, which is how I would automatically perceive it, but rather the analogy of the tango dancers fits in beautifully here, that leadership and followership go hand in hand..... Questions, questions....

Whilst reading a blog about thought leadership, By Tom Whitby, I came across these two paragraphs:

"Today’s thought leaders come to us from many different paths. Technology and social media has connected educators in ways and in numbers that were never before available to us. Educators are reaching out through social media and sharing their experiences and their ideas with other educators for examination, as well as their own reflection. The ideas of individuals are the focus of the collaboration, and not the titles or credentials of the contributors.

The author process for many educator thought leaders now often comes in reverse. After sharing ideas and gaining acceptance on a large scale through social media these educators are encouraged to become authors. It is now the masses of the social media that bestow the mantle of education thought leader. Technology can put up, for any individual brave enough to share it, an entire education philosophy in the form of a blog. It enables person-to-person contact for more in depth scrutiny. It has increased the number of education thought leaders, as well as the audience of educators they may affect."

-https://tomwhitby.wordpress.com/2013/06/10/whats-an-education-thought-leader/

My reflection from reading that is, will being a thought leader be more work? Because I am all out of time!