A WEEK IN DUNEDIN...


Before heading off down to our Leadership Course in Dunedin, we were warned. “It’s going to be a very intense week”, people told us. Once we were in Dunedin, on our first workshop day, we heard that sentence again. They were not wrong in the slightest! 

Our week in Dunedin challenged me in ways I didn’t think possible, but the learning and knowledge gained was invaluable. Before going into the leadership course, I viewed leadership as something I didn’t want at all. Me? A leader? No way, not in a million years. I had the misconception that I didn’t have the skills or knowledge to be a leader, especially where science was involved. 

I very quickly learnt that there wasn’t just a ‘one way fits all’ way to lead, and there are different types of leading to suit different people, personality types, needs, skills, etc. Some of the biggest things that stuck out to me during this course was to “not worry about other people’s expectations of you/how something will go”, give and take feedback with the idea of ‘this is not personal, it’s professional’, and to lead with empathy, understanding, and a little bit of vulnerability. Each of these struck a chord with me, as they hit home in different ways – I find myself constantly worrying about meeting expectations, I do tend to take feedback personally, and I had seen too many examples of leading while being seemingly detached from emotion. When it came to the MBTI test, I wasn’t too surprised by my results as I had done them in the past – getting both INFP and ENFP results on separate occasions. This test secured me as INFP, although when we were doing a ‘self’ test before our official results, I felt I leaned more into ENFP. When looking into the breakdown of the official results, it was very interesting to see that I was right in the middle of introverted and extraverted, which explained the flip-flopping between the two. 


I found the LPI to be really interesting, as it gave me an insight into how others see me, not just how I see myself (as per the MBTI). Many of my strengths fall under ‘Model the Way’ and ‘Enable Others to act’ groups. I found these results quite surprising, as I had scored myself quite low in comparison – particularly under ‘Model the Way’. As I haven’t taken on any leadership type roles, I wonder if that contributes to these being within my strengths, as I find myself supporting my colleagues a lot and working alongside them to create a shared outcome/vision. These strengths support my philosophy of building relationships first and foremost to create that initial connection that I can then build upon.


Behaviours that I intend to strengthen and develop to help my leadership are:

→ Experiments and take risks: Although I feel like I experiment and take risks, these may not be as obvious or intentional to others around me, or it could seem like a ‘risk’ or ‘experiment’ to myself, but entirely normal to those around me. I would like to lean more into the experimental and risk-taking side of myself that I know is there, hopefully then encouraging those around me – peers and students – to do the same.


→ Is clear about their philosophy of leadership: In order to feel more confident about stepping into a leadership role, I need to ensure I have this clarity – especially if I want to be a good leader and have others take me seriously as a leader. The leadership course helped me with the foundations of this, but more introspection and confidence-building is needed, something I will create a Leadership Development Plan around.


→ Ensures that people grow in their jobs: I am always wanting to grow myself in my job, but I know to be a good leader, I need to be extending this outwards. I would like to ensure that people grow in their jobs specifically around science by building their confidence just like STLP has done for me, and ignite their love or fascination for science. Teachers who love teaching science will grow learners who love learning about science.

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