Dr. Joe Sanfelippo LEAD FROM WHERE YOU ARE Building Intention, Connection, and Direction in Our Schools
Dr. Joe Sanfelippo had me in the first few pages of his book, Lead From Where You Are. He shared, “I started to lose the joy of leading and helping people move forward.” After leading through the COVID19 global pandemic, nothing could have been a greater truth for me. I needed to get back to my joy of leading a school community.
Sanfelippo recommends three principles for a school leader: intention, connection, and direction. These components should be embedded in building your leadership capacity and the leadership capacity of those around you. He compels the reader through personal and shared experiences of the day-to-day purposeful actions and interactions a school leader's impact can have on a school community, considering
Why is it meaningful?
What does it look like in education?
How do you do it? (p.10)
Lead With Intention: Why is it meaningful?
Lead With Connection: What does it look like in education?
Lead With Direction: How do you do it?
Moving Forward Together: Collective Efficacy
“When we live in the mess, there has to be a way to tease out the amazing moments that happen in your pace on a day-to-day basis. When we are intentional about identifying these moments, find a way to connect them to someone who wasn’t there, and build momentum through direction about what is going well, we begin to see the impact we can have, and that is what brings us back tomorrow” (p. 141).
Moments matter for our students, staff, and community. They matter to school leaders too. It’s how we intentionally connect moments to the direction we aspire to move our school community towards for equitable outcomes and experiences for each of us that matter.
