Leadership when your not in charge: Exploring who you are

I am currently working on reading the book "How to Lead When Your're Not In Charge" by Clay Scroggins. The premise of the book is how to harness your leadership potential and skills even when you are not what the author refers to as "in charge." I can relate to a lot of what he is talking about as it fits with my type of leadership. I tend to want to lead from within a group and help move it in a particular direction rather than be the figure head or standard barer. I have worked for 9 different principles and 3 to 4 directors in my life and I found that I got frustrated from time to time with the direction they were going. Part of that struggle are the lessons I learned as a child, working as a teenager & and college; one always respects their boss (and those over them) and does not criticize them and does what they ask within reason. Once I started in education as a para-educator I started to experience the sometimes contentious relationship between staff and principles & other administrators.

I know that a lot of us teachers out there feel this contentious relationship between admin and ourselves. I know I felt it for years, that us vs. them attitude. Admin is the dark side that can't be trusted and doesn't know or remember what it is like to be in the trenches of the classroom with 25 to 30+ kids a day. One thing I did to help with this was I took the advice of a principle and got my admin credentials a while back. It was one of the best things I ever did for my teaching. I learned a lot about being an admin and what it is like being a principle. I have filled in for both my vice principle and principle as well as other principles within the district I work. I found that those in that job have the same frustrations that we as teachers do in our classroom. Best way to describe it is that they are teachers of teaches not necessarily the "boss" we see them as in a sense. They have a vision just as we do and they have to move it along with a group of people who may have their own vision. However I digress back to the point I started with about my thoughts and lesson from the book mentioned above.

 I sought out this book at first as possibly a humorous read that might have some ideas on how to work with leaders who I don't agree or get along with. However as I get more into the book I am finding that it fits well with my leadership style of leading from within. While I am still reading the book I thought I would share some of the lessons I have learned so far regarding leadership when you are not in charge with the hopes of helping you grow that leader inside of you.

One of the first things you need to do is figure out who you are as a person or as the author says your "self-in-relationships". The first step is to analyze your past. To do this you need to look at more than just your past experiences in life. You need to look at where you come from and how your family is as well as where they come from. Explore your social-economic status as well as your ethnicity, gender, and citizenship. The goal is to be able to "see yourself in time" as the author says, see who you are truly. One of the best ways to do this is to create a timeline of 5 highs and lows in your life and list them out chronologically. I did this and found it wasn't as easy as I thought it would be. I found that as I picked events to put on my timeline I would think of others that overshadowed ones I initially thought of initially and it was very hard to limit myself to just my top five. Which I feel is the point of the exercise to really explore who you are and how your past has shaped you today.

The second part is to explore the people you choose to surround yourself with in life or as the author says your "self-interior". To do this you need to look at who you are associating with both your friends and co-workers. Are they good supportive people who you can count on or are they overly critical of you and everything else. Are they what the Author refers to as toxic people or do they support you as you grow and evolve. I will say I have done this over the past couple of years even before reading this book and it has been helpful. I have found that it is powerful to look at and think about who you surround yourself with. You may find that your list may change over time and people you saw as supportive are not "toxic" and vice versa. That is OK in my opinion as long as your recognize it.

The third part is looking at what they author calls "self-interior". This is who you are as a person and your personality. This we have millions of times when we take those funny online "personality quizzes" on social media or when we do a personality test. I know that after going through my psychology degree I became rather skeptical of personality tests but I am now beginning to see the power in them when trying to figure out my personality. I have come to think of personality as more amoebic in nature than set in stone. I think it shifts and morphs in shape to fit the situation/needs of the situation yet still having a core belief that we pull from. I say this because I am by nature a very introverted person but at work and in some social situations I can be very extroverted, yet when I get home I am exhausted.   

The fourth part is to look at your purpose. For some of us who are more spiritual in nature it may be easier to answer this question. However it is deeper than that as I have found (as I am not overly spiritual in the modern sense). Figuring out your purpose is more about "Why [you are] here?" & "What [you] uniquely contribute to this world?". The author refers to this as your "self-agency". I am still trying to figure this one out on a deeper level but I feel that I am close when I say that I think I am here to help others grow, hence my work on this blog and as a teacher. However I think it might be more than that.

The fifth and last part is to examine your priorities in life and what drives/motivates you or your "self determination".. It is not so much about, as the author says, how you prioritize your life around friends, work, family, etc. It is more about the truths that shape your identity. This could be your spirituality in a sense. I see is as looking at what motivates and drives you to be who you are today. What principles do you use to guide you through life. What are the rules you live by is another way to view this. An example for those you like me who may not be overly religious are "Gibbs rules" from the show NCIS. For those not familiar with the show Gibbs is a grizzled Marine who is a member of the the Navel Criminal Investigative Service who has a set of rules he lives by both personally and professionally.

This is just  taste of the book and I will be adding future posts as I delve deeper into the book to help synthesize what I have learned and hopefully give you examples of how I am using/applying my reading from this book. I would love to hear your thoughts and opinions on the above as well as how you use them to find out more about who you are as a leader.

As always Go forth and do great things!