Interview with My Favourite Leader

I had a wonderful interview with my Edu-tech leader, Mdm Nicole. who has been an inspiring leader for me. Here are some questions that was asked in the interview:

Click here for the Interview script

1. What is your leaderships style

2. How do you manage your team?

3. What are some challenges you face as a leader?

4. How do you set priorities as a leader?

5. What was the time where you had a significant on a team or project?

Picture 1: Interview from video

Picture 2: Images from the interview video

After watching the interview back again, here are three pointers that I have learned and reflected based on what has been share by Nicole.

When Nicole mentioned about transformational leadership, I think it is quite relatable and true to me that she practice as me being part of her team member. She shared about sharing the similar vision and goals. I think it is important to have similar goals in a team. As a transformational leader, she did inspire, encourage and motivate her team members to create goals that are meaningful to make changes. According to new research (Khan et al., 2020) states that transformational leaders inspire the follower to have shared vision of targeted goals and standard of performance defined by the organization and also facilitate them achieve it. She also is very well verse with the idea that students need is the main goal for teachers even herself as an Edu-technology leader. She advocate it to her team members and management as well. She also shared that she does not necessary follow by the book leader as she is more focused teachers because that is the level she want's to work with. This shows that she shows inspirational motivation to enhanced confidence of her team to bring good outcome and enable the team members to critical think whether it benefits the students.

Besides that, I noticed that she mentioned about the lack of communication is one of her main challenge as a leader. There could be a lot of assumptions and misunderstanding regarding what she does as an educational technology leader. The time factor is what I noticed can be a main role play of how leaders may not have the better flow of communication in terms of building working relationship with others. This can be quite a matter that I may experience as a leader myself. It is a tough spot as a leader to juggle between the importance of clarifying matters but at the same time explaining the process. It is a tough spot. Another matter that caught my attention was the balancing act between the top down strategies. She struggles to be the middle leadership position where she needs to present herself as a teacher and management perspective.

Last but not least, they way she set her priorities is tremendously impressive. She shared her experience as to have a positive attitude in growth. She believes in the desire to push herself to see beyond the current position even during her early days as a teacher. Other than that she also mentioned about the importance to be present in respective areas. This let me reflect on the importance of being fully present in respective areas of our life once step at a time. Not forgetting, she also emphasize the importance is the individual well-being during managing our time between work and personal life. She also present attitude of questioning ourselves in order to bring reflection into our plannings and management in life. Overall, this interview has become such a helpful reflection and advisable resource to help me as a leader to grow and shape myself into a transformational leader. Some challenges can be scary, however, to not forget my intentions just like what Nicole shared, can potentially keep me on my feet to see greater opportunities for my team and as a leader myself.