10 Reasons Helping Professionals Like Educators Are Natural Leaders—Whether They Know It or Not
It’s been a long-held assumption in
the U.S. workplace that you’re either a service-oriented professional or a
business-minded professional—either a “do-gooder” dedicated to social causes or
someone more interested in earning a good living as you climb the corporate
ladder. I don’t buy into that assumption, not only because my own career
trajectory disproves it, but because some of the most talented and effectual
leaders I’ve seen have started out as boots-on-the-ground helping professionals
who later took their particular aptitudes and abilities and applied them to the
highest tiers of leadership in the organizations they serve.
In the case of educators, the “highest-tier” positions would include school principals, district superintendents, university deans and presidents, chief academic officers, state Department of Education heads, and, heck—why not?—even the U.S. Secretary of Education. Teachers are uniquely suited to ascend to such roles because they have inherent traits that equip them to adeptly manage the tasks and functions leadership positions in educational institutions demand and they possess a skillset that comes naturally to them and is only reinforced by their on-the-job training and experience.
But the thing is, teachers don’t always see this potential in themselves—they’re so devoted to their students that they often don’t believe their qualities and competencies qualify them to advance … and advance high, if they want to. But they do have this capacity, they are wonderfully qualified to lead both people and systems. If you’re an educator, here are 10 reasons why you were born to lead.