The 12 week Leadership in Coaching and Mentoring course taught me a lot about three major aspects: leadership, coaching and mentoring. Throughout the duration of the program, leaders from the school leadership community shared their thoughts about leadership. They discussed what being a leader meant for them, identifying specific skills that one must hone in order to be a good leader, their journey as leaders and specific instances when they struggled as leaders themselves.

The most successful bit in the entire course has been the role play that was executed in Part three of the module. Not only did that give me a first hand experience of how a coach or a mentor is supposed to be but it also helped me understand how some of the key skills mentioned by the leaders visibly make a difference.

The updating of google classrooms with resources regularly helped me continue my learning between two face-to-face sessions. The structure of the course also helped us pace our learning alongside our busy work schedules. The once a week, face-to-face sessions were the most productive as they gave me an opportunity to interact with other members of the course, build connections while also making room for some productive conversations.

Each module in the course has had some takeaways for me. The design of the modules starting from self to the institution played a huge role in helping me understand how to envision my journey as a leader. Some of my key takeaways have already been mentioned in the My Learning Journey tab. I shall, however, mention some ideologies and thoughts shared by our mentors that have stayed with me:

1. 360 vision - As mentioned by Col. Gopal, a leader must always have a 360 vision. It not only helps the leader understand the situation at hand but aids them in taking a decision that keeps the best interest of the team and the institution in mind

2. Be like water - Ms. Shashi Banerjee, during her session, spoke to us about the nature of water in detail. Referring to a leader as accommodating and versatile like water, she said that a leader must always be present and mindful of the situation they are in. To step into the necessary role( taking the shape of the container) while keeping our individuality( structural integrity) intact is a very important skill of being a good leader

3. The 15 pieces of jigsaw puzzle - During our session with Mr. Matthew, we learnt that there were 15 points to keep in mind while performing the role of a leader. The 15 pieces included vision statement, clear description of each person's role, delegation of power, role models, transparency, personal well being to name a few.

The course proved to be extremely effective and useful in helping us understand the expansive role that a leader plays in any institution. It was well paced, well structured and the content matter was also manageable.

The breakdown of the course into four modules (with a week long break in between each module) proved to be extremely helpful as it gave us the necessary breathing space to catch up with our homework or any other reading that we wished to do. The structure of the course, starting from self to the team and the institution helped me identify my role and my expectations in the grander scheme of things.

The face-to-face sessions, in my opinion, were the anchor points of the entire course. While some of the sessions were content heavy, the opportunity and scope for interaction and participation made the sessions engaging and proved to be powerful tools of learning. 

The use of the drama tool of role playing as employed by both Payal ma'am and, Paul and Priya, helped me gain a lot of insight on how to be a good coach or mentor. It also made it easy for me to take up this role in real life as the fear and hesitation towards stepping into these roles was brought down.

The possibility of performing action research post the course also gives me the opportunity to put some of my learning into action to bring some systemic changes at the team or institution level.