Everyone has their thing on which he or she goes. That thing that gives you energy. For me that is Education, Personal Leadership and Innovation. Where education has the task of teaching students to think and wonder themselves, personal leadership brings with it the curiosity of your own behaviour and actions in relation to that of the teaching task and others, and innovation the unexpected with the chance of new value creation.

This is how personal leadership and an excellent learning education innovation came to my path years ago. “Jacqueline, this is for you, my employer at the time said.” Huh? I have an excellent course? Can I do that? I have a tendency to judge myself lower than others. I've always experienced 999 people looking one way and I look the other way. Then you get comments: Don't be so complicated. Stop asking. Can't you just get involved. Do is not so chaotic. It would be a lot easier if you just...

I think top-down, at school the fabric is explained bottom-up. If you don't know you're a top down thinker, you feel so stupid. Then you go on your whole life thinking you're stupid and you can't do anything. Because what you can do, you won't be standardised for it or tested for it. In the course I discovered the value of personal leadership and got to know myself better. I discovered how to see my infinite curiosity, my top-down thinking no longer as something different or stupid, but a power that I could feed and apply, and share by focusing on innovation and #persoonlijkleiderschap .

Education, in my opinion, has been approached as a closed system for far too long. It's about linear processes for years. Interventions are being made to produce a certain effect. These interventions often have a short-term effect or no effect at all. Education is not a closed system. There are so many variables that affect the system that you have to speak of an open system. I want to do something about that!

Education is an open system and is permanently susceptible to many different influences and factors are subject to interpretation. Actually, only the snapshot applies. Education is made over and over again, in the interaction between people in varying contexts. Education is human work. What works for one doesn't work for the other. What is appropriate at one moment does not fit at another time.

People work in education and they differ from each other. And we need to embrace those differences. Different perspectives can lead to innovation. People in education want to create education together, open, in dialogue, in continuous connection with the needs of the student. Education processes are unpredictable and easily impressionable. This requires a skill in which you guide yourself and give direction to your own influence on the teaching task,. It calls for a highly developed innovative ability of individuals to make education together over and over again.

Knowing yourself, knowing what your core values are, how you learn and think, knowing what your inner motivation is, is the determining factor in the value creation of you as a person, partner, parent, teacher. If you pay attention to your inner strength, you can be the teacher who manages to tempt students to be curious. Your teacher-driven knowledge transfer to students precedes an inquisitive attitude of yours. Only if you know this attitude can you stimulate that inquisitive attitude among students by asking questions that appeal to students' curiosity. Without knowledge transfer, students would not be able to go into the depth of the wonder phase, and without your personal leadership you cannot encourage them to enter that phase.

How you are inside will transform you outward. That is why I have been pioneering the need for personal leadership for everyone who works with students for a number of years and I myself organise personal leadership conversations with education professionals and give them insight into their own motives and resistance.

For you, I'll list the 10 reasons why investing in personal leadership in education can add value to education professionals:

You get more done with students because you have insight into what you can and can't influence.
You experience less stress, you have insight into what drives you and where your resistance is and can act accordingly.
You can better and more targeted share your leadership in the classroom, ask curious questions and dare to let students look for solutions themselves. You share knowledge that is needed.
It's better to present and express yourself in the team.
You know how and in which you can grow and look for knowledge more specifically.
You can defend your boundaries.
You can act faster and more decisively in stressful situations
It's better to stay connected with parents and students, with whom you would otherwise get out of touch.
You can think in win-win situations.
You can deal more flexibly with change, you dare to deviate from beaten track.
Do you want to help me give personal leadership a place in education? Then share this blog on your timeline with your relationships on LinkedIn, who feel the same way. I really appreciate that and thank you very much!

And feel free to add me to your network.

Pioneering greet,

Jacqueline Blaak

10 reasons to invest in personal leadership in education.