Parallel Session Proceedings »
2.4.8 Gifted Leadership in a "Leader in Me" World
Leadership is a recognized as a category of giftedness and is defined as “possessing either potential or demonstrated ability to perform at an exceptionally high level in social skills and interpersonal qualities such as poise, effective oral and written expression, managerial and the ability, or vision, to set goals and organize others to successfully reach those goals” (KAR, 2018). Although, a part of gifted education since 1972, it is a category that could easily go unnoticed and leave emerging leaders without development and support. Enter Leader in Me. Leader in Me is a school improvement model that focuses on leadership and life-skills needed for success in the 21st century. Leader in Me is being implemented by thousands of schools in over 50 countries. Leader in Me researchers posit that schools are developing the “mindsets, behaviors, and skills to be effective lifelong leaders” (LIM, 2018). With these evidence-based results, along with the increased focus on this initiative in schools, it is essential that the impact of the Leader in Me on students identified gifted in leadership be examined. The research to be presented is a study of the impact of the Leader in Me program on the identification of students for gifted and talented programs, specifically in the leadership domain, in a school district in southeastern region of the United States. The school district has been implementing the model since the 2010-2011 school year and currently has multiple Lighthouse Schools within the district, a designation reserved for schools that ubiquitously implement the LIM program. Session participants will have the opportunity to explore tenets of gifted leadership and how the Leader in Me program can support and develop leadership qualities in students identified as gifted in this area. Conversely, the participants will examine how the increased focus on the Leader in Me might bring about the decreased number of students identified as gifted in leadership and result in a lack of individualized enrichment opportunities. As Julia Roberts (2004) asserted, “Please remember that leadership is important for all children and that is a ‘must’ for children who are gifted and talented.”