ed 5630 assignmnet 2

Assignment 2
John Lobo
The Nature of Effective IT Leaders: Characteristics and Outcomes

Effective IT leaders must be able to demonstrate characteristics of effective leadership. It is their knowledge and skills in technology related areas that make them part of the educational organization team, where their skills can be used to maximal benefit for student learning. .
I have the benefit of observing numerous leaders in my career. Currently I work with variety of leaders at the division office. All of us, educators and non educators, are primarily focused on maximizing student learning. We do not directly affect the student learning, as we are not in the classroom, however we do have an effect on teachers, so our leadership has an effect on students , one step removed.
I have been working in a collaborative environment. There is support by the other leaders of the team. Once you, through your actions, show you are committed to the collective goal of student achievement, you have the complete support of the upper administration. The Leadership team has “the other person’s back”, so it allows for risk taking in a safe environment.
“The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable by Patrick Lencioni is a book I have studied with my division Leadership team. A critical statement from this book is ”The key, of course, is to define our goals, our results, in a way that is simple enough to grasp easily, an d specific enough to be actionable.”(Lencioni, pg 78) Many times as IT leaders we get really consumed in the IT jargon and details, and forget to put ideas, goals and actions into simple actionable terms. We often end up confusing people, especially non technical people.
The foundation of real teamwork is trust and therefore the first dysfunction is the Absense of Trust. (Lenconi Pg 43) As an IT leader, it is imperative that the team has trust in your words and actions. You also have to gain the trust of others in your team. IT is an expensive component of the educational enterprise. IT leaders are called on moving the education agenda forward using tools that many people in education rarely understand, but need to work seamlessly. Overcoming this absence of Trust develops when leaders develop a sense of Vunerability. This vunerability is difficult for Many IT leaders as they relish that they are the “go to” people with the right tool to solve the problem. Being vunerable is not in many people’s nature and often is seen as a sign of weakness.
Successful leaders have to be able to “tame their fears, and when faced with the fear,not freeze. ” pg 7 Warner and Schmincke 2009. To overcome this fear they have to “embrace death and focus not on personal agendas but strategic goals.” Pg 23, Warner and Schmincke 2009.
IT leaders have to show the commitment to their teams , develop trust in team members and be able to take risks to implement the effective technologies that support teachers and students.

References
1) Lencioni, Patrick, (2002). The five dysfunctions of a team: A leadership fable, San Francisco :Jossey Bass
2) Schmincke, D and Warner, C, (2009) High altitude leadership: What the world’s most forbidding peaks teach us about success. San Francisco: Jossey Bass 2009