One of the best parts of last Friday’s Student Leadership Development Masterclass was hearing educators reflect on their own processes and wrestle with the big questions around authentic leadership.
There was lots of discussion around:
Nomination forms and selection criteria
How selection criteria can continue through the entire voting process
The difference between voting, preferencing and endorsing
Whether we simply count votes… or use voting as one useful data point to help a selection panel make strong decisions
One of the strongest reflections from the session was this:
“Does our leadership process actually align with what we say we believe about leadership as a school?”
That question sparked a lot of really thoughtful conversation.
Some of the other key takeaways shared by educators included:
“We need to continue to work with children to intentionally build their leadership skills.”
“It was very useful walking through the steps to see the big-picture process.”
“We’re considering slight changes to our election/voting process and how teacher votes are used.”
“It helped me think through our processes and what I need to focus on now.”
“The idea of leadership being like water bottle fillers for others really resonated.”
There was a strong sense across the session that schools are wanting leadership to become:
Less tokenistic
Less popularity-driven
More values-based
More developmental
More action-oriented
And honestly… that’s exciting.
If you’d like to continue refining your school’s leadership journey, our Schools of Leadership Excellence framework is designed to help schools work through all 10 steps of authentic student leadership development with clarity, structure and support. You can find out more here:
Thanks again to everyone who joined us last Friday and contributed so openly to the discussion.