There are many variations of leadership styles and approaches. Leaders find themselves utilizing parts and pieces of methods to design their personalized style. The bottom line is to integrate what works into an existing management structure to accomplish the desired goals.
How do you describe your leadership to others? What is your style? I have foundational pieces of my leadership style and approach that never vary. They have been consistent in every position I have held.
Let me first explain a little about the solution-focused leadership I utilize. When you first think about solution-focused, you believe the leader is working to create problem-free environments. A place where having an issue, making a mistake, or identifying a problem is not the focus. We are only interested in the solution. It does not work like that at all.
Solution-focused provides leaders with opportunities to increase their team members’ or employees’ decision-making, judgments, and motivation. This process focuses on what is working, how it is working, and how to keep it going. The mindset is always to be quick to look at the positives and to increase them! Our minds should not always go right to the problem without first recognizing the work of the positive results. If we see problems only, we will fail to get to a mindset of growth. We will be in a deficit mindset always if our focus is on problems.
You can be the most effective leader around, but….. Yes, there will always be a but! You and your team or staff will have problems, issues, mistakes, and things we cannot imagine today will happen (COVID-19). It will be fine if we prepare with a solution-focused leadership mindset.
How can you foster solution-focused mindset?
- Keeping a forward-thinking focus. “What is the end result desired?”
- Pause. Approach problems from the right direction and with a clear lens.
- Ask for feedback. Identify problems you may have as a leader you cannot see. (Can’t find a solution to a problem you cannot identify.)
- Technology is a key to be used to unlock doors to learning, training, discovery, innovation, and more.
- “Education is something we do with children, not to them.” Provide choices about how to learn, goal setting, and displaying what they are learning. Bring the joy of learning to your classrooms.
- Social-Emotional learning is not a stand-alone curriculum or program scheduled daily. It needs to be a piece of fabric weaved into all aspects of the learning environment and culture.
I describe my leadership as a solution-focused leader with a service heart. My goals are to be a resource for others, provide opportunities for continued growth, a guide like a compass as travelers choose their direction, and inspire daily. As a leader, I have recognized the importance of consistency, authenticity, clear communication, trust, organization, and modeling. I have consistently stated my “two rules” for the past two decades. Children have embraced these rules young and old. They are easy to understand and apply.
You can choose to be part of the problem or part of the solution; the choice is always yours to make. Thank you for being the solution daily! We all have so much we can do each day!