Leadership: It’s Personal!
In the ‘Transition Decade’ the extent to which a person exhibits ‘Personal Leadership’ may be a critical determinant of career success, in any organization, especially government agencies such as hospitals and schools.
About David Ivers
David Ivers is from Sydney, Australia. He is a qualified Primary and Secondary School Teacher. In total, he has served on school leadership teams for 16 years in senior leadership roles which include: Religious Education Coordinator, Curriculum Coordinator, and Leader of Pedagogy. He is currently a System Leader with Sydney Catholic Schools (Sydney, Australia), where he serves as Specialist: Religious Leadership. With studies in Anthropology / Sociology, Curriculum, Online Learning and Teaching, Information Communications Technology, Religious Education and Theology, Leadership, Communication, Policy Studies, Business, Management, and Educational Administration, he brings a diversity of skills and knowledge to the educational and leadership arena. In 2014 David Ivers completed the program “Improving Schools: The Art of Leadership” at Harvard Graduate School of Education. He has completed a (Graduate Level) Certificate in Executive Leadership from Cornell University and holds a Master of Educational Administration from the University of New South Wales, Australia. David completed the Company Directors’ Course and has since become a Graduate the Australian Institute of Company Directors (GAICD) and is a Fellow of the Institute of Managers and Leaders (Australia and New Zealand) (FIML). He is also a Fellow of the Royal Anthropological Institute (Great Britain and Ireland) (FRAI). A bibliography of his published papers can be found at: https://about.me/david.ivers
Website: https://about.me/david.ivers
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Posts by David Ivers:
It’s About What You Know!
The more the workforce transitions towards a more agile and technologically enhanced entity within society, the more complex the knowledge base will be. If your intent is to be the master of your own destiny, rather than being subservient to whatever destiny picks out for you in terms of a career, then the pursuit of knowledge is the key.
The Transition Decade
The start of a new year is always a wonderful opportunity to stop, do a stock-take of your personal and professional life and begin to plan what that transformation for the new year might look like for you. You may even draw on the ideas in last month’s article by David Ivers entitled “Personal and Professional Transformation. The notion here, of course, is how do you plan to be the best iteration of yourself at home and at work, each and every day of the new year? However, the year is now 2020 and the second decade of the 2000’s has been and gone and a new decade has just begun.
Personal and Professional Transformation
As the last month of the calendar year finally arrives and we collectively celebrate the end of one year and the start of a new year, Raymond Carver’s question is so pertinent. As you look over the year that has been, ask yourself: “Was it the year that should have been?” In other words, when you go back to your wish list of dreams on 1 January of this year, “did you get what you wanted from this life, even so?” It is a wonderful question and turns our focus to purposeful self-reflection and to personal and professional transformation.
You Need Culture
A lot of discussion happens when the question of Culture comes up. There are a number of reasons for this. Firstly, we all claim to live within a ‘culture’ and that must mean that we, therefore, understand what culture is and how it works. This is similar to the notion that most people have visited a hospital, either to see a loved one or due to personal illness or injury and thus we all know how hospitals work, don’t we? The same is true of schools.
Your Reflection
In the United States, Halloween is a significant celebration. Derived, at least in part, from the ‘Feast of All Hallows (All Saints)’ which falls on November 1 each year, the quote from Lolly Daskal is pertinent. The Saints all had one thing in common, they learned how to develop an interior life that allowed them to ‘lead from within’.
Intentional Leadership
In the United States of America, September 17, 1787 is etched in the memory of its citizens as the day that 38 delegates signed a new ‘Constitution’ that would bring into existence the United States of America with a central, federal government. Through the echoes of history, such an event stands as a great achievement and the words of Stephen. R. Covey ring true. If the founding fathers were not focused, consciously committed to the task of creating a new ‘Constitution’, they would have, according to Covey, been committed to something else less important and thus history may well have taken a different course.
Relational Leadership and MAD Leadership Matter!
Let us turn now to the question, how much are you worth to your Government agency? Assuming the job you do has been well designed and that you interact with members of the public on a regular basis (thus have a professional relationship with the public), or that you support those that do, then you are immensely valuable to your Government agency.
Strategy and Culture
July in the United States of America is best thought of as the month in which Independence Day is celebrated. Independence for the United States of America was born out of conflict. By its very nature, that conflict was won and independence declared because of a strategy based on solid information and knowledge of the area in which the conflict was being fought and an equally good working knowledge of the capacity and capabilities of the soldiers involved. However, George Washington would not have proven himself to be the great military leader and indeed the great President of the United States that he was, if he were not also ‘attuned’ to the culture within the military he led and as President, within the newly formed union of the United States of America.
Wishing Upon Your Stars?
It makes sense that when an organization such as a Government agency is looking to create a ‘wonderful’ workplace, it needs more than just a ‘political’ restructure to make it happen. Some may even suggest that the notion of a Government agency being the most ‘wonderful’ place on earth to work, is the antithesis of the reality of working in a Government organization.