A r c h i v e d  I n f o r m a t i o n

Group Exercises in Self-Assessment

In virtually every session, participants expressed the opinion that the forums themselves were instructive. Being asked to identify the dimensions of leadership confirmed as essential by their own experience caused them to reflect and analyze. Each item on the list added to the groups' understanding of how demanding their work was. Writing and then telling stories to illustrate their points about leadership helped them clarify their own thinking. In addition, it revealed two insights about competence in leadership: (1) different skills and knowledge apply in different circumstances and (2) most principles and programs require adaptation to accommodate local situations. Brainstorming self-assessment strategies revealed how others fed the hunger for feedback without endangering their self-esteem. A survey was not a popularity contest, some found; keeping a journal was not only a meditation exercise. There were good ways to gather opinions without being overtaken by others' agendas. Most participants expressed appreciation for the way the forum's structure left them feeling both like experts with valuable knowledge and learners in a peer group possessed of great collective wisdom.

Several groups added their own activity plans to the pool of ideas. In Philadelphia, some participants were members of collegial networks that used journaling as a way to focus discussion on leadership development. Seasoned professionals, these leaders recorded important incidents in their personal journals and met regularly to share. They renewed their commitment to reform and traded insights about how to persist and succeed by means of reading journal entries aloud to each other and discussing what could have been or should have been or, thanks to professional development, was done.

Participants in the Georgia forum suggested the following comprehensive professional development plan that centers on self-assessment:

1. Each trainee generates a list of key dimensions of leadership for sustained reform, based on experience and study.

2. In a group, trainees compare lists and each chooses the dimensions on which he or she wishes to concentrate.

3. Trainees acquire the desired skills and knowledge through such strategies as shadowing expert practitioners, observations, and discussions.

4. Trainees keep "diagnostic journals" in which they log descriptions of learning experiences and evidence of developing competence.

5. A special team of mentors, chosen from the wider community on the grounds of their expertise in particular areas of leadership targeted by trainees, meets periodically with the novices to provide feedback on progress and help structure action plans to promote further growth.

Although participants emphasized that the learners in this case retained control of the assessment process and could use it to achieve self-selected goals, they also pointed out that it provided a structure that could serve generally as an apprenticeship for new leaders.

Forum participants in San Francisco and Seattle independently recommended processes that grew out of a particular set of beliefs. They suggested that the skills of sustaining leadership are acquired through making one's own meaning from experiences in which one has had a chance to influence events and reflect on the consequences. They advocated a learning process that encouraged choosing a leadership development goal, examining case studies that have this goal as a central focus, writing case studies from their own experience to explore the meaning of the goal, and sharing their cases with colleagues. The menu of potentially useful activities they identified included working with a mentor, convening a study group of peers, observing the leadership activities of others and debriefing those experiences, creating a portfolio containing evidence of leadership development, and using electronic networks to extend discussion and analysis.
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[Individual Exercises in Assessment]

[Tailor-made Rubrics]