Administrative Strengths and Qualifications for Leadership

Marshall M. Stewart, Ed.S.

     Each candidate for a leadership position in education will bring a different skillset to offer a school system. As such, finding a candidate who will best fit the system’s needs, is a daunting undertaking. Selection committees will find multiple similarities and often feel as if they are interviewing the same candidate multiple times. The key differences that often make the candidate stand out most often lie in subtle details, details which paint a vivid and clear picture of what the candidate can bring to the table and deliver as the choice. As such a candidate, I am a transformational, servant-leader with four key strengths and qualification that make me an outstanding choice for a leadership role in your school district: a people-person with strong communication skills, teacher driven, historically grounded but forward-looking, and staunchly student-centered.

     Each candidate must be a people-person. As such, a willingness to listen twice as much and speak when necessary is non-negotiable. I enjoy people because each, regardless of age, color, nationality, religious beliefs, or personal creeds, has his or her story to tell. My background as a middle and high school English teacher has allowed me to excel as a strong writer and equally strong speaker. I spend countless hours listening to the needs and concerns of students, teachers, administrators, and parents/caregivers, and learned how to quickly gain their trust and share experiences or offer advice. Such a trust is paramount in today’s world, where the skill of listening seems almost extinct. I enjoy hearing the yarns of our elderly out in the community, in church, or at the corner café. So too do I enjoy it when students share their adventures and life experiences, and watching as their faces light up with joy or frown with sadness at recalling events. I find it second nature to stand and deliver in a crowed of Ruritan Club members or the congregation of a church on a Sunday morning, each common occurrences in my life. Strong interpersonal skills and the ability to listen and know when to speak—or respond through writing—are critical elements in having a leader who gets out of the office to meet with others instead of being one who rarely moves from the comfort of a leather chair and large desk.

     Next, a strength that you will in me find different from other applicants is that I am historically grounded but forward looking. Public education in the United States is still the most incredible deal that all can take advantage of. There are tried and true elements of how students are educated that we must not abandon, while at the same time we must be open to the ever-changing landscape of the students, their needs, their varied experiences, and their evolving dreams. Our schools must maintain an emphasis on mathematics, communication skills (speaking, listening, and writing), history, and science. Our evolving world and the inventions and dreams of tomorrow are premised on skills in math and science. Communication is essential not only in a global society, but—and maybe just as critical—among our own country’s citizens. Look around. Miscommunication, whether accidental or deliberate, has caused a rift among Americans and resulted in either a refusal to listen or misunderstandings that further separate us. Lastly, history is still important. It gives each of us our past, our traditions, recalls our celebrations, and reminds us of our failures. Losing sight of our history, good or bad, results in our repetition of mistakes made and opportunities lost. With these four areas of historical grounding, it must be just as clear that I am forward-looking. All too often we fall into the spell of those who proclaim to “think out of the box.” Such forward-thinking is good, and breeds positive results, only if we remember not to abandon the box. As an educator, and leader, I am constantly reading, listening, and investigating new and effective ways to motivate students, teachers, administrators, work with school board members, involve community stakeholders, reach the low-performing, challenge the advanced, feed and take care of the disadvantaged, are all areas where forward-thinking must occur each day. If someone has a more efficient means of producing positive results, I want to know it. I want to know if the same will work with my district, with my schools. It may, or it may not. A leader must understand that just because the shiny new initiative works in Bismarck, North Dakota, does not mean it will work with the students of Small Town, North Carolina. In short, forward thinking has made us the preeminent nation we are in the world today in medicine, space exploration, and technology. Forward-thinking, while grounded in historical understanding, will produce the most well-rounded graduates of tomorrow.

     I am a teacher-driven leader who believes in giving the classroom teacher every possible tool to reach every child. We can remove the administrators from a school and not miss a beat. The school and teaching will continue; however, we cannot function without the teachers. I believe in providing teachers with the most competitive local supplement to complement the shortcomings of the state pay scale, and I have several ideas of how this can be accomplished. I also believe in being an active administrator, one who uses my past as a master teacher, to assist where needed. I believe that any administrator with a teaching license should be ready and willing to step into a classroom to help students and teachers be successful. I am not above meeting with an English II teacher at a school and planning out one period each week where I would come in and team teach the lower level students in order to make them and their school more successful. This has two ramifications: it builds a stronger sense of unity and morale with the teachers and it keeps my feet—and my professional knowledge—firmly grounded in the reality of the classroom.

     Lastly, and most importantly, I am student driven. Students are what we are in the business for. Motivating them, teaching them, picking them up when they fall short, listening to their concerns and helping them through their fears. I want students to have every key to success available, the support systems that keep them safe, free from bullying, intimidation, and thoughts of suicide, and avenues that will make each one a productive citizen in a global economy that demands each be ready to adjust at a moment’s notice. I became an educator because I believe in the power of a classroom to change a student forever. I am seeking to be your superintendent because I believe I can lead a system in becoming that support that each and every child so desperately needs.

     These qualities are my top four that I bring to the table as a potential leader for your school system. There are many other qualities I possess, but these four serve as my foundation on which others are constructed. Possessing a bedrock of non-negotiable qualities is an essential attribute of leader whose purpose and goals are clear and unwavering. Living and working by these same four qualities as a classroom teacher, site-based administrator, and central office administrator have provided me with a solid educational foundation on which to move to the highest level of school leadership.    Marshall M. Stewart, 2019