ODCTE Leadership Academy

For the past several months 20 of my fellow co-workers and I have been involved in the ODCTE Leadership Academy. The Leadership Academy was developed to enhance the skills of those interested in agency supervisory leadership positions and Class II will last from October to April. One of the most exciting parts of the academy is that it includes numerous opportunities to learn about our vast system.

Our first class focused on building teams and relationships. Many of us knew each other so the traditional forming, storming, norming and performing stages of group dynamics did not really take place. We almost went straight to performing! During our sessions we learned about work style differences, group dynamics and managing change.The session was good and it included a colors assessment. (I am green, orange, gold, blue.)  It was interesting to see the different personalities and begin to understand more about how they interact together.

The second session concentrated on our delivery arms. We toured the Skills Center at Lexington Correctional Facility, Moore-Norman Technology Center and we visited with Norman Public Schools at the middle school and high school. An opportunity to see what happens inside our Skills Centers should not be passed up and it is amazing what the instructors do to help students become successful when they have served their time. The link between technology center and secondary education is great to see first hand and it is impressive to see what students in the middle schools are able to do in the STEM areas with some of our programs.

Our most recent session covered effective meeting and presentation skills. We had the opportunity to learn from Rhett Laubach, a CareerTech product who now trains others on how to be effective leaders. Rhett shared many of the notes from our two-day session on the Authenticity Rules Blog in a Big List of Tips.
I am excited to use some of the tips that we learned, escpecially about adopting the DRI, or direct responsible individual, when meeting with others.

The academy so far has been great. We have had the opportunity to learn a lot of new information that we will be able to use in future leadership positions. Our future sessions include opportunities to lean how the legislative process works, about our state board, coaching, communications, marketing and more.

I look forward to sharing more as we move forward.