This is TheSchoolHouse302’s monthly #reviewandreflect, wrapping up our focus on Four Often Overlooked Strategies to Learn as a Leader.
Our Review and Reflect series embraces the powerful sentiment from Soren Kierkegaard: “Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.” Throughout this post, we take a deep dive into our leadership content so that you can develop the skills you need to lead better and grow faster.
Key Model to Help Guide the Learning of a Leader
#1. Be Vulnerable — Always think like a novice, never overestimate your own expertise.
#2. Be Curious — Don’t assume that you know something in depth when you may only have a very cursory knowledge of the subject.
#3. Be Versatile — Expand your willingness to use multiple modalities as a learner.
#4. Be Open-Minded — Often there are multiple perspectives that must be explored and considered.
Great Leaders Are Avid Readers
Review: In our #readthisseries we featured practical books that offer actionable information to improve your goal-getting.
Our first recommendation is Focus: Elevating the Essentials to Radically Improve Student Learning by Mike Schmoker
Our third recommendation is Brain Rules by John Medina
What does an expert have to say?
Who better to ask then Dr. Richard Elmore on this topic. His on-line HarvardX course, Leaders of Learning, has been taken by more than 100,000 learners internationally since its inception in 2014. From 1995 to 2014, his research and consulting practice focused on building instructional improvement capabilities of teachers and administrators through direct observation and analysis of classroom practice.
Listen to the entire podcast on iTunes. One major takeaway from our conversation with Richard is his insistent focus on the beginner’s mindset. His description of how this frames our thinking to improve our learning is powerful.
Listen to the entire podcast on iTunes, One Thing Series, and please rate and like (it helps).
Please let us know how our leadership posts are working for you, what you are reading to improve yourself, and your thoughts on leadership and growth here on our blog and Twitter. Follow our #onethingseries podcast on iTunes and our #readthisseries on YouTube.