Leadership skills require people to look inward and find self-confidence that will not only guide them toward successes but focus them through failures—an inevitable part of all leadership positions.
Educational leadership is a career wrought with deep stress, pressure, and expectations. It’s a challenge for the healthiest and most experienced of administrators. But in the 21st century, as the stigma of mental illness begins to fade and we see the incidents of illness among our students rise, so too do the rates of illness among ourselves and our staff.
The Anxiety and Depression Association of America estimates that 40 million adults in the United States over the age of 18, or just over 18 percent of the population, are suffering from a clinical anxiety disorder. With anxiety being so common for so many people, we can no longer support educational leaders with general lists of characteristics and skills necessary for success. Rather we must angle our guidelines in a direction that considers the personal challenges of our 21st-century leaders in the face of an increasingly more anxiety-inducing profession.…Read More