ISTE Standards for Coaches Standard 1: Visionary Leadership

The last chat session on Twitter with #isedcoach was on the ISTE Standards for Coaches; specifically it was about Standard 1: Visionary Leadership. After reflecting on the chat for a few days, I wanted to revisit the topic of visionary leadership.

• What is visionary leadership?
• How does one become a visionary leader? 

After re-reading all the tweets, I have come to the conclusion that visionary leadership is a very large task and to aspire to be a visionary leader is no small aspiration to reach toward. It requires constant work with networking and reading. This standard alone is enough to be a full-time endeavor for a normal person and it is only the first of six standards. It seems overwhelming, but that is what makes the perfect challenge for each of us. With the rapid rate of change currently existing in the world, staying a visionary leader is difficult. No one can do it alone. So the actual requirement to continue to remain visionary is collaboration. Coaches must work with others; we must network and read and challenge each other to be better, work harder, and continue to be visionary leaders. If you are a department of one (like me) you will need to use networking with people outside of your institution in order to grow. It cannot happen in isolation and it cannot happen in a comfort zone. It requires collaboration and discomfort. The discomfort of knowing that to fall behind is not an option in this job. I take my job as a coach very seriously even though I have a playful personality. Visionary leadership is a difficult standard, but with help from other coaches, I think I can manage it.