1. Personal Reflection on Human Resource Leadership Tawanda C. Smallwood NELA Cohort III DLP #2 Assignment 2.3

2. What is a Leader? A leader is an individual who significantly affects the thoughts, feelings, and/or behaviors of a significant number of individuals Howard Gardner

3. Top 10 Qualities of a Great Leader (2012). Top 10 qualities of a great leader. Forbes. Retrieved from http://www.forbes.com/sites/tanyaprive/2012/12/19/top-10-qualities-that-make-a-great-leader/

4. Standard 4: Human Resource Leadership

5. a. Professional Development/ Learning Communities The principal ensures that the school is a professional learning community. In order to improve learning and teaching, teachers must be involved in professional development within the school. As a leader, I need to recognize what types of professional development is needed for my teachers. I need to look at test results, the NC Teacher Working Condition Survey, their Professional Development Plans, mentor records, and beginning teacher feedback. These are just of few things among many others that could be used to provide the best and accurate professional development for my school. I also know that all staff dont need the same professional development. I could offer choices for professional development or use feedback from surveys to drive my decisions about what professional development to offer.

6. b. Recruiting, Hiring, Placing and Mentoring of Staff The school executive establishes processes and systems in order to ensure a highquality, high performing staff. As a leader, I recognize the need to put people where they will have the greatest impact on student achievement based on their strengths. I also know that before I can change anything, I need the data to support any decision that will be made. I have to take time to get to know the new staff beyond the interview process in order to take advantage of their strengths as well. Recognizing potential leaders and providing them support to grow is also essential to retaining effective staff. A good leader is able to build even better leaders. Building a support system with colleges and universities is key to recruiting qualified personnel. I need to advertise what is going on at the school so that others will want to join this phenomenal team. Sometimes you have to toot your own horn.

7. c. Teacher and Staff Evaluation The principal evaluates teachers and other staff in a fair and equitable manner with the focus on improving performance and, thus, student achievement. Using data to drive professional development is one way to improve the overall achievement of the school. As a leader, I recognize the need to use the evaluation as a growth model for teachers. My goal is to get them to recognize the need to improve in their own area. I know that providing feedback is essential to the growth of a teacher. I want my teacher to become reflective practitioners, thus, improving themselves. All of this would have a direct, positive impact on student achievement. All of the feedback from the evaluations will give me the opportunity to provide specialized and individualized professional development for teachers and staff. I also recognize the importance of support staff such as counselors, nurses, and social workers. They are vital to the operation of a school and thus should be provided opportunities to grow as well.

8. Moving from Good to Great! In order to advance my current leadership knowledge, I need to know what I should be doing to get distinguished on this particular standard. I need to ask as many school leaders as possible how they improve on this standard. I need to know what types of things they are doing in their schools and is it working. I need to pay attention to the school improvement plan, NC Teacher Working Conditions Survey, student achievement and testing data, teacher retention data, NBCT, and teacher professional growth plans. I need to make sure the master schedule has time in it for teacher collaboration. I need to support the countys mentor and beginning teachers program by being visible in meetings and checking in with mentors and teachers.