Being in the education field for 20+ years I have been around a lot of excellent leaders, be they administrators, counselors, librarians, coaches, or students and I think that has helped me tremendously in my leadership capacity. 

My Early Experiences with Leadership

When I was younger, I was fine with letting others take the reigns and lead the way. My first leadership experiences were as the “Team Captain” of my youth and high school baseball teams. My leadership style was to lead by example, to get the first hit off a tough pitcher, or make a great play on defense, or come up with a clutch hit. I was a very quiet leader though, and as I got older this became a liability to any type of real leadership. My weakness was that I tended to go it alone on my leadership expeditions, leading to a lone wolf mentality that was very performance based.

Leadership as a Young Adult

I worked in the restaurant business for a seven years as I pursued by college degrees and they taught me some basic communication skills, management skills, etc., but I still was a average leader at best. It was not until I became a teacher and coach that my skills began to catch up with my aspirations. Nowadays after 18 years of teaching, I feel very comfortable as a leader, small or large groups, adults or kids, and it is a pretty cool feeling. Adults look to me for leadership on different projects. My students enjoy my leadership style. In general, I feel like I am hitting my stride as a more complete obvious leader.

What is Great Leadership

Great Leadership requires the ability to lose oneself and truly see the needs of one’s followers, understand their actions, their wants, their needs, and tireless preparation to help them reach their goals, along with feedback and support. Great leadership is quite exhausting when done properly and toxic if done poorly. A strong leader makes or breaks a team, end of story. 

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Thanks for reading The Lifelong Learning and Education Blog Check out some of my other recent articles! What are your thoughts on leadership? Do you enjoy being a leader or not so much?