Know this: leadership is important in any organization, corporation, or group. While you might have several successful heavy hitters with unique qualities and talents, a leader’s necessary to help guide those qualities and talents in the right direction.
New Jersey follows the right plan of importance when it comes to leadership development. Namely this remarkable organization:
The New Jersey Leaders to Leaders
Better known as NJ-L2L, know that if you’re in the area and need development in your corporate status as a manager, CEO, owner, or President of a company, entering this program is completely necessary. The NJ-L2L is a State-approved mentors program with comprehensive instruction and development guidelines fostering the birth of quality school leaders. Working consecutively with the State-required 2-year Residency for Standard Principal Certification, success is always an option.
The Design
The program follows a standard essential to the New Jersey Professional Standards for School Leaders and the national Technology Standards for School Administrators (TSSA). The emphasis is experience in this program — not instruction. By following the guidelines of the NJ-L2L program, a new leader in the educational field can achieve the highest in corporate performance through the detailed use of mentoring and field training.
Mentors working within the organization are chosen not only by their skills, but by their ‘qualifications.’ That simply means they have the proof that they can successfully teach others about what it means to be a leader and how to be a leader. More importantly, mentors are State-approved for quality in the education industry, proving to schools that the state of New Jersey does indeed care.
Residency for one year in the program actually requires a minimum of 45 mentor contact hours involving such tasks as school visits, observations, one-on-one conferences, and Peer Support Group meetings with a strong gear toward teamwork on the mentor front. Upon hitting the second year, a minimum of 30 contact hours are required. By the end of two years, if Residents have successfully completed all requirements specified by the program, they become eligible for recommendation by the program mentors toward the Standard Principal Certification, meeting all State criteria.
Essentially, the NJ-L2L program ensures quality in the educational field — the result is schools all over benefit tremendously including the whole student body attending.
The Outcome
This is the basic shaping of minds here — not simply a classroom. Rather, the NJ-L2L program focuses in an experience leading to a discovery of gifts and talents that were already there. The program simply brought them out. Mentoring is important for today’s leaders. It’s how leadership is truly born. The belief is clear: this program founded in New Jersey specifically believes that leaders are, in fact, born. You absolutely cannot ‘train’ a leader for success. That success must already be within, in the right individual.