Reflecting on my learning and growth throughout my career life pushes me to think of “What is next?”. Looking at the big picture, I think to myself, what are the goals and areas that keep appearing in my way and I just care so much about? Whether it is a chat with a colleague or a planning meeting with my department, there are certain areas I had identified that are so crucial for me to master. Not only to advance in my career but more importantly, to bring about change. Because change is the only constant. The areas on my wish-list to acquire are: Leadership, Change Management, and Training for Growth-mindset.
Leadership is a stretchable term. It involves purpose, vision, mission, strategy, and more. Throughout my career and my study, I constantly reflect on my leadership skills. I try to identify my strengths and weaknesses to keep growing. The magic word is feedback. I also believe in reflection, not only on the feedback I receive but also on my performance. Therefore, I have identified some areas that I need to focus on as a short-term goal. First, I want to learn more about Strategy and Strategical Thinking. I will start by reading about the topic in-depth. On my list, I have a book: How to Think Strategically and Act Tactically, and an article: Strategic thinking skills. Second, since leadership is a set of skills, I also want to keep myself aware of what it takes. I like to keep a list of reading always in my “want to read”. At the moment I have Better: A Surgeon’s Notes on Performance: Gawande, Atul: 9780312427658. Third and last, I want to keep enhancing my collaboration skills. Leadership takes place with people, not in isolation, therefore, I care to build better collaboration skills. On my reading list for this goal: HBR: Eight Ways to Build Collaborative Teams and 6 crucial collaboration skills (and how to foster them)
Manage Change is a trait we need, not only to work effectively in our institutes but to expand our circle of influence. My priority is to start from my school, but I aim to impact students in my country, then by region, and the world. Anyone who ever worked in a governmental school knows what “change” means. Therefore, I want to have a realistic view of what really is a boundary and what we could work around and manage effectively. I plan to read Tools and Tactics for Changing Your Organization and the World. Managing change involves dealing with risks, that is where conflict resolution comes in handy. I will work on improving my problem-solving muscle to enable me to approach conflicts more comfortably. On my reading list, I have: How to Train Your Brain to Think Fast and Think Smart.
Grow Educators’ Mindset. This goal comes twofold. First, working on my own growth mindset. It is not enough to say “I have a growth mindset”. Instead, it is a continuous goal that also grows. There can be practices that help with growing our view of our abilities, such as: Diversifying our Networks. I plan to start attending events and get connected with a diverse network from a variety of startups, companies, and communities. Here is a local events organizer venture that will help me with just that. I also realize that I might end up looking for events that I am already interested in, so I will have to Network beyond my bias. The Second sub-goal here is to become an advocate of a growth mindset within my network of educators. For instance, I want to learn more about the Influence of managers’ mindset on leadership behavior and Creating New Opportunities With Open-Minded Leadership. Most importantly, I want to have the skills of Developing a Growth Mindset in Teachers and Staff. I might not be in a managerial position at the moment, but I believe that anyone can be a leader regardless of the position.
While reading and learning more about the goals I anticipate, I plan to apply what I learn to identify exactly how can I improve, and if I already have the skills and just need to be reminded of using them. Along the way, I will use my journal notebook to reflect and evaluate my performance. I realize that it is a learning process, so I will be humble to acknowledge my failures as well as my success, and enjoy the journey!
Hanan Alshikh 