Personal Development, then Professional Development

I’m learning that as a leader, professional development often means personal development.

It’s a unique role to be in. You are always on show to those that follow you; your strengths and your weaknesses.  As an educational leader, I’ve tried to grow by reading, viewing webinars and using twitter.
But, when I hear people talk about leaders, they rarely speak about job-specific functions or knoweldge; most feedback or discussions are about personality traits.

This week alone, I had someone mention that I’m shy, along with another person commenting that I am open-minded. Both are somewhat unrelated to my instructional knowledge or even my leadership abilities.

I made a list of the first few traits that came to mind about my past school leaders. Warm. Indecisive.  Funny.  Caring.  Inefficient.  These aren’t “education” terms – they are personality traits.

Sometimes, the best professional development we can give ourselves is personal development.  When I think about the most powerful best books I read this year – most are about becoming a better person. (see that list here).

School leaders need to be instructionally sound – keeping up with recent research and practices. But we can’t ignore the fact that personal development makes us better leaders; more suited to take on the challenges that instructional leadership brings.

I believe a next step is fostering this sense of personal development in others.  I’ll be thinking about how to do that in the coming years, and welcome suggestions.