My Personal Leadership Philosophy

My Personal Leadership Philosophy

The greatest thing that any person or a leader, for that matter, can do in his existence is his being good and upright. I believe that the goodness that we radiate to all the living beings around us counts above all. In any given situation, the paramount mark that we can offer and leave to the people around us must be the touch of goodness and kindness. This is the greatest capital that we can invest as persons and as leaders. However, we should understand that men as we are, we are capable to commit mistakes and that, there are circumstances that along the path of exercising our responsibilities at home and in our workplaces, we offend our family members, our fellowmen and even our co-workers. What we just need to remember is that, every failure or mistake is good as long as it doesn’t become a habit (Michael Eisner (1942 - )) with the hope that we learn lessons in the mistakes that we do. Moreover, Cardinal de Retz (1613-1679) in one of his speeches said, “The man who can own up to his error is greater than he who merely knows how to avoid making it.” What’s important here is that we are doing our tasks and responsibilities with good and fine intentions. Peter Abelard, a French theologian and philosopher in his article, the Abelard’s Ethics as published by J. Ramsey MaCallum wrote, “We call the intention good which is right in itself, but the action is good not because it contains within it some good, but because it issued from a good intention.” Furthermore, we must be motivated to do good because we were promised by Him to prosper and flourish if we do so. Psalms 92:12 says, “The righteous shall flourish like the palm tree: he shall grow like a cedar in Lebanon.”
This belief leads me to employ a kind of leadership that must be anchored towards the worth of every employee or teacher as a person. I believe that the best asset that an organization possesses is its human resources. Boosting the morale of every employee in an organization may mean boosting the morale of the organization. Peter Drucker (1909-2005), an Austrian-born American management expert made a theory that stated “Employees were a resource rather than a cost and that guaranteed employment was important to industrial success (Microsoft ® Encarta ® 2007. © 1993-2006 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.).
At Alfonso B. Dagani Elementary School, we employ the Group-based (GII) type of decision making. Decision making in our school mostly are obtained through brainstorming during the staff conferences. At times, we also apply the autocratic and consultative decision procedures when the situations call for them. We are so happy to have observed that our teachers are positively responding to the style of leadership that we are employing. For instance, in one of our staff meetings, we have agreed to do mural paintings for our classrooms. After two months, all classrooms at Alfonso B. Dagani Elementary School including the Office of the Principal were already with mural paintings. All financed from the resourcefulness of the teachers. Last December, the school head proposed to conduct a caroling activity. We did the caroling activity and we were able to raise the total amount of P6,500 which we utilized for the labor expenses for the construction of our School Heroes’ Park. Here at Alfonso B. Dagani Elementary School, we feel that everybody is committed to work for our school and our school children because we believe that the concerns and the affairs of the school is everybody’s business and that all that is going to happen must be a public knowledge and concern. The implementation of the School-Based Management (SBM) Program by the Department of Education has helped us a lot because it implements the decentralization of decision-making. As a result, our school was able to organize our School Governing Council (SGC) which serves as our giant partner in implementing the best programs for our school. We pledge to maintain or enhance further these best practices.