Mike Ewton: Recognizing outstanding leaders

Published 5:00 pm Sunday, November 6, 2022

Throughout my career I have had the honor of working with some of the best leaders anywhere. Great leaders have the ability to positively influence others by building trust and demonstrating what it means to do the right thing. A common misconception about leadership is that a person needs to have a title in order to lead. In fact, some of the most influential leaders I have known do not hold the top ranking position in their organizations, and many have no leadership title at all. They simply lead from where they are.

Whitfield County Schools has some of the most outstanding administrators anywhere. We also have a multitude of faculty and staff who display high levels of leadership on a regular basis for the benefit of the whole school community. For us, it’s not about a title; instead, leadership is about positively influencing others.

Leaders model technical expertise in their respective areas. More importantly, good leaders model what it means to lead by example. Sometimes, the smiling face of a school bus driver, school nutrition worker or the teacher may make all the difference in a child’s ability to learn that day. This is leadership.

Leaders build capacity by continuously improving instruction and operational functions, but they also build people up. We often say that leaders build people and people build teams. For example, our instructional coaches provide innovative professional development for teachers to continuously improve their instructional practices. This directly benefits students, and this is leadership.

Leaders inspire others through their selfless actions and dedication to doing whatever it takes to help our kids succeed. After-school programs like “Read and Feed” are developed and sustained by dedicated teachers and paraprofessionals who care about supporting families as children learn to read. This is leadership.

Leaders provide support in many ways. They often go above and beyond expectations to help find innovative solutions. From writing grants to increase dairy consumption, to developing a First Responder’s Academy that allows students to graduate as certified firefighters, emergency medical technicians or corrections officers, we have great people who work to fill community needs in innovative ways. This is leadership.

In order to recognize displays of great leadership throughout our school district, we have adapted an old military tradition. The challenge coin is a metallic token customized with the logo and heraldry of a particular military unit or commander. They are commonly given to military personnel by senior ranking service members in recognition of their participation in certain missions, membership in particular military units, or as an acknowledgement for a job well done.

Our leadership challenge coin has the One Whitfield logo on front, which includes the school colors of our three traditional high schools and their respective feeder elementary and middle schools. The One Whitfield logo symbolizes our unity of purpose throughout the school system. The flip side of the coin features the lamp of knowledge, surrounded by the words of our leadership pillars:

Model, Build, Inspire, Support.” Principals, directors and other school system administrators are provided with one coin per month to award to individual members of the school community who exemplify these traits.

It is always uplifting to witness or hear of the accomplishments of our leadership challenge coin recipients.

Although the coin itself is of little monetary value, we hope that by recognizing some of the inspiring acts of leadership in our school community, our leaders (with or without formal leadership titles) at every level will know how much they are valued.