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Building Bridges....


Upon reflection of the most recent Concordia Symposium as presented by Dr. David Miyashiro and Ed Hidalgo, it made me stop and think that I have never really understood why there is such a large gap between teachers and staff, and administrators. It truly is puzzling to me because we are all on the same team, the team in which student well-being and learning is the goal. In my school, we strive for the mission of placing “value and supporting the whole child in the learning process. We value high academic achievement. We value a connected, caring school community” (Emerson Junior High School). Still, somehow the goals we strive for can get lost along the way in the cavernous gap of the day to day grind. Shouldn’t the goal of our school be to “have happy employees and students while we build relationships and create a great place to work” (2021 Concordia Symposium)? How can we find a way at “school to create an educational environment where we all strive to be happy and healthy”(Logan LaPlant)? I want to create an environment in which we are all learning to rejoice in the joy of life and the process of reaching our full potential. In order to do that, I must focus on being a servant leader to increase employee engagement, keeping my internal customers (students and staff) happy, and continually working to make others opinions count through being consistently available, being authentic and honest, and caring about others (2021 Concordia Symposium).


The Symposium helped me to learn how to strive to bridge the gap to increase employee engagement and helping to keep my internal customers happy through the use of The Gallup Q12 Index. This index, crafted by Gallup, whose work is based on more than 30 years of behavioral economic research involving more than 17 million employees to facilitate employee engagement. Through rigorous research, Gallup has identified 12 core elements called the Q12 Index that powerfully link to crucial business outcomes. These 12 statements emerged as those that best predict employee and workgroup performance (The Gallup Q12 Index).

My favorite questions on the Gallup Index are numbers 7 and 10. Specifically, they ask, when at work, do your opinions seem to count, and do you have a best friend at work (The Gallup Q12 Index). These questions may seem simple, but they really can be very telling and touch on critical aspects of a person’s life. More specifically, these questions can help determine if a person enjoys their workplace because of their connection with a friend and if they feel that they have a voice or are being heard while at work. People spend an incredible amount of time at work. Considering, “how we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives. For many of us, a large portion of our days are spent at work; in fact, the average person will spend 90,000 hours at work over a lifetime” (Naber, A.). It is in all of our best interests to make our time at work enjoyable and meaningful through the building of relationships and finding happiness in our journey that is life. By using the Q12 as a guide in telling us where there are potential weaknesses, where we can improve, and where we are succeeding, it allows for us to point our energies in the right direction to improve our overall school starting with our staff first.


When we create an environment where people feel that they are a part of the staff and their opinion is being heard, you are helping that person to build confidence, increase engagement, and feel like they are essential. Finding a way to encourage participation in a place where all feel comfortable allows for this freedom of expression and speech to help everyone feel like a team. One of the ways that I can do this is through our regular meeting norms, which spill over from traditional meeting setting to casual discussions. Likewise, having a best friend at work makes going to work so much more enjoyable. According to Gallop, creating friendships at work is extremely important. “People who have a best friend at work are seven times more likely to be engaged in their job, are better at engaging with customers, produce a higher-quality of work, have a greater sense of well-being, and are less likely to become injured on the job” (Business News Daily Editor). Some other benefits to having a best friend in the workplace as described by the Business Daily News are, increased productivity, increased job satisfaction, and lower employee turnover (Business News Daily Editor).

By consistently being available to my staff, being authentic and honest through my interactions and communications with them, and showing them that I care about the people that I work with through my actions will allow for the supplies needed to build the bridge to a happy and healthy workplace. Ideally, it is essential to me as a leader to create an excellent place for my team to work with my goal being to bridge the gap from” the division between two groups into the bridge that joins or connects us” (Merriam Webster Dictionary) in order to create a great place to work where we strive to be happy in our life and learn “how to live in the process of making a living” by being a servant leader (2021 Concordia Symposium). We can do this as leaders that become the “server of experiences” on the road to deep and meaningful happiness as we build the bridge together piece by piece (2021 Concordia Symposium).

References

Business News Daily Editor (2020, May 22). Business News Daily. Why It’s Good To Have a BFF at work. https://www.businessnewsdaily.com/6759-friends-at-work.html#:~:text=According%20to%20Gallup%2C%20those%20who,get%20injured%20on%20the%20job.

Emerson Junior High School. https://emerson.djusd.net/

Hidalgo, E. & Miyashiro, D. (2021, February). Unpresidented: Escaping the Ghost of

Education Past Symposium via live stream, Concordia University Irvine, Irvine CA.

 
 
 

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