CIS Vision: Daring to Lead
Canadian International School of Guangzhou
2023-09-30
Daring leadership is ultimately about serving other people, not ourselves. That’s why we choose courage.
——Brene Brown
One of my favorite authors on leadership is Brene Brown. In her book Dare to Lead, she speaks about being able to “rumble with vulnerability” which means being open and being vulnerable as a person and as a leader. This is not always easy and it comes with risk. That is a risk worth taking and we do that by showing up for our staff, living one’s values, being able to trust, and learning to rise up when the first plan does not work (Brown, Dare to Lead). Knowing that we can make mistakes is risky, but serving our students with courage and conviction makes it worth any risk.
With this in mind, our entire CIS leadership team was privileged to be able to attend a Hive Leadership Conference in Chiang Mai, Thailand, between September 22-24. Together with our fellow Alberta Accredited International Schools like CIS Phnom Penh, TIS Macao, as well as our CIEO schools BIS Guangzhou, and our host school Lanna International, we engaged in open, honest and professional conversation about leading our schools in a time of change. Our Thai hosts warmly welcomed us and heard from wonderful speakers who challenged us, encouraged us, and made us deeply aware of the power of our international schools, as we march towards shared success.
During the leadership conference, we were also able to take some valuable and important time to work together as a CIS team and develop some action plans to help build our communication plans with parents, students and with our teachers. As we grow in our understanding of what it means to lead, we must always remember that leading is a courageous action with challenges, but also many rewards. If our decisions help to promote student learning and our students grow into confident and creative learners then getting our decisions correct becomes very important. We often seek feedback from our parents, our teaching staff and that allows to be able to make the best decisions possible.
Tom Peters, an American business writer best known for his book In Search of Excellence, created the following quote which has a direct connection to us here at CIS. He said, “Leaders don’t create followers, they create more leaders.” As leaders of CIS, it is our goal to give every teacher the opportunity to be leaders in their classrooms. Those teachers in turn, inspire our students to be able to “learn today” so they can “lead tomorrow”.
We are looking forward to a wonderful 2023-2024 school year.
Gary Rehman
Principal of CISGZ
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