Leadership Responsibilities - Self-Assessment

In self assessing my own strengths and weakness against the leadership responsibilities in the Marzano reading, I found that I do some things very well and have other responsibility areas to work on. Some of the definitions of the various responsibility areas differed from my own definitions, which provide a deeper opportunity for reflection in these areas. The correlation with student achievement was also an interesting perspective to explore and provided insight in how I define my role within the school. This perspective also helped me explore how I can have a greater impact on student achievement though the intentional development of these leadership responsibilities.

The improvement areas, as highlighted in the self-assessment were “change agent”, “monitor/evaluate”, “order”, “flexibility”, “visibility”, “situational awareness”, and “discipline”. Some of these areas I could have predicted before taking the self-assessment. For example, I know that I need to work on being more visible during the school day. I easily get caught up in the barrage of emails I get on a daily basis, and days seem to slip by while I work in my office on various projects. As Marzano, describes, interactions with students, teachers and parents throughout the school day are extremely valuable in conveying a message of engagement and involvement in the school. Much of my communication with these groups is electronic. My goal for this school year is to be much more visable in the hallways, classroom and school events. This will naturally lead to informal data gathering to inform my work.

The leadership responsibility definition of flexibility was different than my initial definition. I have always thought of myself as a flexible school administrator. I adapt my work to the meet the needs various stakeholders and I allow my perspective to change with additional information. According to Marzano (2005) flexibility is described as “the extend to which leaders adapt their leadership behavior to the needs of the current situation and are comfortable with dissent” (Chapter 4, Section 7, para 1). This comfort with dissent is a weakness of mine, therefore I found the responsibility of flexibility to be an area of improvement. Flexibility had a higher correlation to student achievement (.28) than other areas, so I do realize the importance of the this leadership responsibility and will work on improving this area of my work.

My strength areas included the areas of “outreach” and “culture among others. Both of these areas had higher correlations to student achievement, .27 and .25 respectively. Outreach, as defined by Marzano, includes the extent to with an administrator advocates for the school, to a variety of individuals and groups. As the director of technology, a large part of my role is advocating for funds for technology to enhance and differentiate student learning. This can be challenging, but also a very rewarding component of my job.

Marzano, R., Waters, T., & McNulty, B. (2005). School leadership that works: From research to results. [Kindle Version] Alexandria, VA: ASCD.

Transformational Leadership

Transformational leadership supports a “leader of leaders” model within a school. This type of leadership works to create a positive school culture, set a school-wide vision and build capacity in other members of the learning community. Transformational leadership can flourish in a learning environment because it because it focuses on the needs of the students, teachers and community through the lens of large systemic change. This view not only addresses these needs through “big picture” goals but also taps into the strengths of others. As Leithwood (2007) discusses in the Jossey-Bass Reader on Educational Leadership, this type of leadership, driven by shared values and high expectations, fosters a positive culture with a dedicated and inspired staff.

Transactional leadership, driven by the accountability movement, is a model of leadership found in many schools. This type of leadership is characterized by a strong school leader that is focused on the teaching and learning in their school. They use various control measures and extrinsic rewards to motivate staff members. Transformational leadership can impact the way an administrator leads a school, because it changes the focus of the leader. The focus becomes a broader, value-based leadership based on building leadership in may ways, by many people, with intrinsic rewards and shared school goals. This type of leadership may be harder to witness and pin point because it is so tightly interwoven with the school culture. Administrators may spend less time managing the teaching environment and more time building leadership capacity from within the school.

The transformational theory can positively impact school goals when applied by an administrator in leading technology integrated instruction. This application includes empowering teachers to use technologies to engage, motivate and teach their students, without the dictation of pecific tools. The administrator would build leadership skills in technology teacher leaders to support colleagues and the school vision. Technology professional development would focus on the overarching themes of student learning, engagement and 21st century skill development.


Leithwood, K. (2007). Chapter thirreen. In The Jossey-Bass Reader on Educational Leadership
(2nd ed.). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Orientation Reflection

My expectations for this program are to acquire additional administrative and leadership skills that will help me to be successful in my role as the director of technology. I also hope to gain new insights on myself as a learner and leader as well as the online learning process as a whole. I hope to be able to directly apply my new learning to benefit the students and staff in my school. I have taken online courses in the past, but these courses seem to have a larger variety of activities and requirements. This will be more engaging and challenging as I work through the program. With a busy job and two small children, I have found that I need to block out chunks of time in our family calendar, hole up in my bedroom and plug through the work so that I can meet deadlines. I am not great at multitasking for meaningful tasks, so this scheduled time is a must for me as a learner. I am still getting the hang of the online learning environment. There are a lot of components, and things are posted in multiple locations. This is helpful but also confusing. I believe that once I am enrolled in an actual course, and have more time to navigate the environment, this will start to make more sense.