1. Personal Reflection on Human Resource Leadership Tawanda C.
Smallwood NELA Cohort III DLP #2 Assignment 2.3
2. What is a Leader? A leader is an individual who
significantly affects the thoughts, feelings, and/or behaviors of a
significant number of individuals Howard Gardner
3. Top 10 Qualities of a Great Leader (2012). Top 10 qualities
of a great leader. Forbes. Retrieved from
http://www.forbes.com/sites/tanyaprive/2012/12/19/top-10-qualities-that-make-a-great-leader/
4. Standard 4: Human Resource Leadership
5. a. Professional Development/ Learning Communities The
principal ensures that the school is a professional learning
community. In order to improve learning and teaching, teachers must
be involved in professional development within the school. As a
leader, I need to recognize what types of professional development
is needed for my teachers. I need to look at test results, the NC
Teacher Working Condition Survey, their Professional Development
Plans, mentor records, and beginning teacher feedback. These are
just of few things among many others that could be used to provide
the best and accurate professional development for my school. I
also know that all staff dont need the same professional
development. I could offer choices for professional development or
use feedback from surveys to drive my decisions about what
professional development to offer.
6. b. Recruiting, Hiring, Placing and Mentoring of Staff The
school executive establishes processes and systems in order to
ensure a highquality, high performing staff. As a leader, I
recognize the need to put people where they will have the greatest
impact on student achievement based on their strengths. I also know
that before I can change anything, I need the data to support any
decision that will be made. I have to take time to get to know the
new staff beyond the interview process in order to take advantage
of their strengths as well. Recognizing potential leaders and
providing them support to grow is also essential to retaining
effective staff. A good leader is able to build even better
leaders. Building a support system with colleges and universities
is key to recruiting qualified personnel. I need to advertise what
is going on at the school so that others will want to join this
phenomenal team. Sometimes you have to toot your own horn.
7. c. Teacher and Staff Evaluation The principal evaluates
teachers and other staff in a fair and equitable manner with the
focus on improving performance and, thus, student achievement.
Using data to drive professional development is one way to improve
the overall achievement of the school. As a leader, I recognize the
need to use the evaluation as a growth model for teachers. My goal
is to get them to recognize the need to improve in their own area.
I know that providing feedback is essential to the growth of a
teacher. I want my teacher to become reflective practitioners,
thus, improving themselves. All of this would have a direct,
positive impact on student achievement. All of the feedback from
the evaluations will give me the opportunity to provide specialized
and individualized professional development for teachers and staff.
I also recognize the importance of support staff such as
counselors, nurses, and social workers. They are vital to the
operation of a school and thus should be provided opportunities to
grow as well.
8. Moving from Good to Great! In order to advance my current
leadership knowledge, I need to know what I should be doing to get
distinguished on this particular standard. I need to ask as many
school leaders as possible how they improve on this standard. I
need to know what types of things they are doing in their schools
and is it working. I need to pay attention to the school
improvement plan, NC Teacher Working Conditions Survey, student
achievement and testing data, teacher retention data, NBCT, and
teacher professional growth plans. I need to make sure the master
schedule has time in it for teacher collaboration. I need to
support the countys mentor and beginning teachers program by being
visible in meetings and checking in with mentors and teachers.