Page 10 - Leadership Platform

Building an Educational

Leadership Platform

During Links, participants are invited to reflect critically on their
leadership potential and capabilities in order to review and make
explicit their leadership platform.

To understand a personal educational leadership platform, think about a
politician’s platform. This is a set of values and beliefs framed by slogans,
promises and policies that supposedly enable the voter to predict how
the politician will behave and act if elected. This is different from an ICT
platform, which is a software programme that enables digital systems to be
created. It is also different from a transport platform. These are hubs, each
a place in time and space where passengers can connect routes and link
journeys.

A leadership platform can be seen as a combination of these concepts. It is
at the same time a starting point, a hub and a point of reference by which
informed leadership practice can be understood. Most importantly it
provides a stable (though certainly not static) foundation from which leaders
can readily make decisions, evaluate issues and embark on an inquiry into
change and improvement. The leader’s platform is what guides leadership
action, informs decision making and enables others to know their leader
and what they stand for. As such, leaders explicitly share and actively
communicate their platforms.

A serious word of warning here, no matter how fancy, high-sounding or
pretty, if not lived through your actions, it is meaningless. In fact, if you
hold up a platform but do act in line with the espoused beliefs, you will
quickly lose the trust and respect of those we attempt to lead. Leadership is
something others give you, not simply something you get with a formal
position.

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