Leadership Matters

I came to Greene County under a somewhat strange set of circumstances. I had always lived and worked in Pitt County and while I had gone back to school to be an administrator, I was somewhat disillusioned with education at the time. I was sitting in a conference room in Chapel Hill, listing to guest speakers talk to us about school leadership and the job that we were about to embark upon when I met Patrick Miller. He caught my attention with what he said to us and I remember thinking, "this is a guy I can work for." When he finished speaking, he had to leave to get to another appointment. I stepped out of the room after him, pretending to go towards the restroom, and followed him into the parking lot of the Friday Center. I introduced myself and told him I was interested in coming to see Greene County Schools. That introduction didn't immediately lead to me working in Greene County, but it did lead me back here a few years later, and I'm thankful.

Having a presence of leadership, whether you're the superintendent, the principal or the classroom teacher, is all the same thing. And let me be clear, being in charge is not the same thing as leadership. Leadership envokes people to get behind you and the mission of your group or organization. In a school district, that means working toward lofty goals that take years to come to fruition, but in a classroom, it can mean getting through a lesson or unit. Either way, the objective is met by having someone that inspires and guides the group to do their best. In both roles, you can demand certain actions and berate failure, but true leaders get the most out of others through encouragement, coaching, modeling, and patience.

Students screw up, teachers sometimes fail, and principals sometimes lose sight of the big picture. But it is leadership that puts all of us back on the right track and causes us to regain sight of why we are all here. I'm thankful to work in Greene County and for North Carolina's State Superintendent of the Year, Dr. Patrick Miller. Working here and with him literally kept me in the field of education. But I'm also thankful for the dozens of classroom leaders that I work with every day. Leadership matters at every level.