For this book review, I chose to read the book Great Leaders GROW: Becoming a Leader for
Life, by Ken Blanchard and Mark Miller.
This book was about how to become a great leader, not only in the work
place, but also in your everyday life. I
thought this book had a great approach to getting the message of leadership
across. The book had a real life story
line. It was about this young guy,
Blake, who had just lost his father, was close to graduating college, and was
in search of a job. He was able to get
in contact with Debbie, who ends up being his mentor. Now, Blake’s dad mentored Debbie, and she
teaches Blake everything that his dad had taught her. This was a very inspirational book because Debbie
is able to help Blake find a job and help him on his way to becoming a great
leader and she is able to teach Blake many things about his dad that he didn’t
know. By the end of the book, Blake
comes into contact with many people whose lives his dad touched in some way. This book does a good job of explaining how
growing as a leader and as a human being are intricately linked. Being able to grow personally is something
that I continually work on, and having personal growth increases the chances of
being an effective leader. When someone
is trying to become a better leader, it is important to learn from others, and
The Knowledge Loom Model is about educators sharing and learning together.
The authors of this book use the word GROW as an
acronym. Here is what each letter stands
for:
G: Gain knowledge-about yourself, others, the industry and
leadership
R: Reach out to Others-formally and informally
O: Open your world-at work and outside of work
W: Walk toward wisdom: self-evaluation, feedback, wisdom, and
time
G: Gain Knowledge
Gaining knowledge about yourself means asking yourself some
tough questions. Knowing what your
strengths and weaknesses are, your learning styles and how you prefer to lead
is a great start to gaining knowledge about yourself. If you know these attributes about yourself,
that is a good starting point to becoming a great leader. Knowing these things about others is helpful
as well. Getting to know the people you
work with will help shape you into the leader you want to become. What goals do others have for their
career? What is their personality
type? What is their family like? Would they rather prefer public recognition
or are they more shy and prefer private recognition. The better you know someone, the more you can
serve him or her. Figuring out the past,
present and future of your industry will give you direction as a leader. Speaking of education, it would be essential
to think about how education has changed over the last 10 years when it comes
to technology. One could also consider
what their district’s goals might be with technology and what their strengths
and weaknesses are when it comes to implementing technology. The last piece of gaining knowledge would be
in the area of leadership. What skills
do you have that you can capitalize on, which skills need improving? Are there best practices or skills you can
acquire? Is there someone available to
become your mentor?
R: Reach out to
Others
In this book, it states that one of the best ways to learn
is to teach. Reaching out to others is a
great way of teaching. There are two
ways this teaching can happen-formally and informally. For example, if you are at some professional
development meeting and are taking notes, often times we don’t look back at
those notes. This book suggests that
after the professional development, go back and highlight the things we thought
were important and then rewrite the notes in neat handwriting. Then, in a few days, gather a group of
co-workers and go over those notes so you can teach others about what you
learned. Teaching others is a great way
to retain what we have learned and it also helps us reach out to others. Reaching out to others informally happens on
a day-to-day basis. It’s when we find
those teachable moments. Teaching isn’t
just about collaboration and sharing information; the important thing is when
more learning can stem from what you have taught.
O: Open your World
Opening your world helps you become a better leader because
you have more life experiences. You will
be able to relate to more people and grow as a leader. The book compares this to a painter’s paint
palette. Most of the time, we only get
to see the finished painting; we don’t take notice of the many steps and hard
work that went into creating the masterpiece.
An artist uses a palette to hold different colors of paint that can be
used separately or mixed together to create more colors. Opening your world to many different
experiences is like a paint palette. The
more opportunities you have or create for yourself, the more effective of a
leader you will become. This book lists
many ways to open your world at work, here are a few: have lunch with a
different person each day, talk with recent retirees, attend any professional
development that is offered, lead as much as you can with groups, meetings,
etc. Ways to open your world outside of
work include: travel, volunteer, participate in many hobbies, and reading
widely. These types of experiences will
give us many opportunities to grow as a leader because we will have had the
chance to learn from others and have our eyes opened to different practices.
W: Walk Toward
Wisdom
Wisdom is more than just knowledge. Wisdom is the ability to apply what you know
to make good choices when the answer is not so obvious. Growing in wisdom can be broken down into
four elements: self-evaluation, feedback, counsel from others and time. Within self-evaluation, you must self-reflect
and tell the truth. Being honest with
yourself about your strengths, weaknesses, and what you can improve on will
only help you grow as a leader. Getting
feedback from others will also help with this journey. If you are unable to get feedback on how you
are doing from a supervisor, then ask your co-workers to help. Find out from them what you should be doing
to improve, get ideas from them about what they are working on. Feedback leads into counsel. Counsel from others is talking about what you
can do in the future. Time is where
wisdom happens. Wisdom is not something
that comes to you over night. Wisdom is
accumulated throughout your career; it takes days, months and even years.
I can relate this book to the Knowledge Loom model in many
ways. The book, Great Leaders Grow, is about how to become a leader not only in
what you do for a job every day, but it is about becoming a leader for
life. The Knowledge Loom model has nine
principles that I am going to relate to the book that I read.
Vision- Having a
shared vision is essential for anyone or anything to succeed. When you are in a position of leadership it
is important to be open to any and all ideas shared by the parties involved in
order for the plan to be effective. I
believe that all four aspects of the GROW model can apply to having a shared
vision. Making yourself available to
learning all you can, going that extra step to be involved in the community,
being able to accept feedback from others and allow for self-reflection are all
good attributes of a great leader that will have a clearer vision of the end
goal.
Planning- It
takes a lot of planning to figure out how to become the best leader possible. When it comes to using technology you should
be prepared in case of technical difficulties.
Taking the steps to plan ahead can save time and frustration, and being
prepared is just one positive trait of a good leader. Tying planning into the GROW model is
simple. One must plan to attend
professional development and then make time to share that information with
others. It is also important to plan on
making time to spend with co-workers to get to know them better in order to implement
strategies effectively.
Access- I think
all four aspects of the GROW model apply here as well. The Knowledge Loom suggests that leaders have
access to materials in order to support instructional goals. With the model presented in this book, the four
ways to grow as a leader will give you great access to information you would
need in order to be that great leader and therefore meet those instructional
goals.
Integration-When
I think of integration, I think of getting involved. This would match up perfectly with gaining
knowledge. When you have to learn as
much as you can about as much as you can, the only way to be successful at that
would be to get involved, or participate in activities that would allow you to
know more about the company and the people you work with.
Assessment and
Evaluation- Gaining knowledge and walking toward wisdom are the two areas
of the book that relate here. Assessing
situations by gaining knowledge about yourself and others helps to make
informed decisions. The self-evaluation
piece of walking toward wisdom helps with ensuring that you have continuous
growth with teaching and learning.
Support- As with
any career, there must be a support system that you can rely on when you need
it. The second step of reaching out to
others is a great way to formulate that support system. As you are getting to know others, you will
have more of an idea of the type of leader you want and need to become.
Professional
Development- Within this four-step model, it suggests that in order to grow
as a leader, you should attend as many professional development sessions as
possible. This is discussed in the step
of open your world. Having these
opportunities of professional growth should be relevant and ongoing. The Knowledge Loom suggests that the leader
should provide some of this professional development.
Community
Relationships- Having good relationships within the community are
beneficial to becoming a great leader.
The open your world area of the leadership model relates here because it
is necessary to open yourself up to developing relationships that promote
collaboration in order to teach and lead successfully.
Ethical and Legal
Issues- Within any company or business, it is imperative for leaders to
show and encourage a knowledge of ethical and legal issues. Gaining knowledge about your company and their
use of technology in the past will help gauge where they might be heading in
the future with these issues. A strong
leader will make certain that the company’s values are upheld.
I would recommend the book Great Leaders GROW: Becoming a Leader for Life, by Ken Blanchard
and Mark Miller to anyone who may be interested in becoming a more effective
leader. It was a fairly easy read, I
think in part because although it gave guidance on what it takes to become a
great leader, it was told through a real life story. I could see how some readers could relate to
Blake in the book, because he was going through some real life struggles as he
was trying to find a career he could be successful in. I believe that with Blake having a great
mentor in Debbie, he was well on his way of following in his father’s
footsteps.
