This week I had the privilege of having a conversation with Ryan and learning about him personally and his role as a principal at a Christian school in Chilliwack.<\/p>\n
Ryan became a principal fairly young in his career, about 10 years ago and he mentioned it took him some time to really feel “legitimate” as a leader and learn to own his “leadership hat.” Ryan really enjoyed being in the classroom and directly teaching, so when he was asked to be the principal he knew it would mean significantly less classroom time. However, he responded to the challenge and through the role has developed as a leader and the school has grown in size as well!<\/p>\n
I asked Ryan the following three questions and summarized his responses below:<\/span><\/p>\n Ryan has seen he is at his best when faced with challenges and needing to problem-solve. Though he admitted it is not always the most comfortable place to be in, he is thankful for the lessons he has learned and the growth he has experienced in those challenges.<\/p>\n One significant challenge Ryan faced two years ago, where he saw himself perform well, was when his school was undergoing a lot of drastic changes. They had moved to a new building and a staff member had to step away, which resulted in a vacant classroom with no one to fill it. He had no vice principal, so Ryan really had to learn to “own his position” and step up as a leader. At first Ryan could not see a way through, but then he pulled some key teachers together and problem solved. They put their heads together and with Ryan’s leadership came up with a brilliant solution for the circumstances! There were four aspects to the solution:<\/p>\n 1) Ryan would increase his teaching time by 70%, along with some more limited principal duties.<\/p>\n 2) They would hire some people for temporary positions to fill in the gaps.<\/p>\n 3) They decided to merge their grade 6, 7, 8 and 9 classrooms into a cross-curricular\/cross-grade program, that lasted 3 months.<\/p>\n 4) Ryan, as he was more absent as a leader, due to having to teach so much more, made sure his communication was regular and clear. He communicated via email, through after school meetings, and impromptu meetings when necessary.<\/p>\n This experience caused Ryan to take a more daily and active leadership role. It was a difficult time, but it was a positive step. Ryan wisely stated that, “if we aren’t being challenged, we can settle into status quo.”<\/p>\n 2. Where do you want to be in five years from now?\u00a0<\/span><\/strong>Describe your idealize future as it were already happening.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n Ryan sees himself building a team of “lead teachers” at his school. He has discovered how much he loves working with and leading a team of leaders! He really wants to be able to work through teams. One thing he misses about not teaching students directly, since being a principal, is that he does not get to see their growth and development.<\/p>\n Ryan wants to start to see the teachers he oversees as “his students” and work towards developing their leadership. Ryan believes that he will be able to grow the school even more and have more impact, through building a team of “lead teachers.”<\/p>\n 3. How can you get there? What are you ideas\/action steps for realizing this preferred future?<\/strong><\/p>\n Ryan had some solid ideas for steps he would take to get to his idealized future. One thing he mentioned was the reality of a huge lack of teachers at this time in B.C., so he recognized this could be a limiting factor for a time. He also recognized that in order for this future to happen, the school itself would have to grow in student and staff intake. Ryan thinks that as the school grows in size that positions of leadership will become a necessity.<\/p>\n In the meantime, he wants to strategically recognize some of his current staff who he sees leadership potential in and groom them. Also going forward he wants to hire people with this idea of “lead teachers” in mind. Lastly, Ryan wants to help by shifting the current culture and mindset of staff to being more of a “team mentality.”<\/p>\n Ryan also recognizes, that according to his Birkman, he struggles to delegate. Therefore, he knows in order for this all to happen, he need to learn to grow in delegation. Ryan knows that delegating is very important for working through teams and he wants to grow in learning to step back and trust the leaders he has set in place.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" This week I had the privilege of having a conversation with Ryan and learning about him personally and his role as a principal at a Christian school in Chilliwack. Ryan became a principal fairly young in his career, about 10 years ago and he mentioned it took him some time to really feel “legitimate” as […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":445,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-218","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ldrs500","category-unit-6","post-preview"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/create.twu.ca\/monicagrace\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/218","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/create.twu.ca\/monicagrace\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/create.twu.ca\/monicagrace\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/create.twu.ca\/monicagrace\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/445"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/create.twu.ca\/monicagrace\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=218"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/create.twu.ca\/monicagrace\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/218\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":273,"href":"https:\/\/create.twu.ca\/monicagrace\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/218\/revisions\/273"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/create.twu.ca\/monicagrace\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=218"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/create.twu.ca\/monicagrace\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=218"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/create.twu.ca\/monicagrace\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=218"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n