A great deal of recent leadership training seems more
interested in creating leader-clones rather than working with diverse and
talented teachers to develop them into leaders. Rather than exploiting
differences and individual personalities there appears to be a belief than
every leader can be shoe-horned into a one-size-fits-all model of leadership.
Whilst we emphasise the importance of personalised learning for our pupils in
light of the fact they are all different we appear to be in a world in which we
do the opposite with school leaders. Lists of standards and competencies
attempt to distil school leadership into a set of tasks and behaviours that
anyone can do irrespective of personality. This is clearly errant nonsense!
Just as learners are all so different, so are leaders and we must develop being
highly self-aware of our own personalities if we are to be successful.
Over the years I have worked with many colleagues aspiring
to various levels of leadership; where they have been successful they have made
leadership work for them through the lens of their own personality rather than
blindly following standards and competencies. My current leadership team are
diverse, we are all very different and often approach situations in very
different ways, not because we haven’t got a clue but because we are different
people. Consider the “under-performing teacher”; there is no doubt a
coping-by-numbers approach to this but in that your personality and the
relationship you already have will not be mentioned. It will tell you to state
the issue clearly and concisely before moving on to another impersonal
statement. That’s not for me! I need to approach the situation differently,
treating every teacher as an individual and approaching issues in a way that I
know are likely to succeed. With some it is a case of stating the fact that
things aren’t going well and I’m not happy, whereas with others there is a more
reflective approach. Ultimately each interaction is different and that ensures
that issues are resolved, relationships are maintained and children benefit.
The way I go about this is unique, as is the approach of every decent school
leader, because they all know that they have to do it their way, with their
personality and through their relationships.
By the time you get to headship the chances are that you’ve
been in leadership for some time and so should have a very good idea about your
own personality and how you operate. However if you are just starting out on
the leadership path then this is unlikely to be the case and you need to do
something about it. If you don’t you’ll be found out quickly and will struggle
to gain the respect you need to have the authority required to do your job.
I’ve got two routes to suggest, the first is simple, read a few books on leadership.
Don’t just read one book or else you stand a chance of becoming the
one-dimensional leader that I have bemoaned above. Get different perspectives
on leadership from different authors, but at all times ask yourself how it will
work for you. The second is quicker than ploughing through texts, and
potentially more profound. We have all been led and no doubt moaned about those
who have done the leading; this is where I start.
Try this exercise. Firstly make a list of those who have led
you and in what capacity. For me it would contain heads of department, pastoral
heads, senior leaders and some heads. Primary colleagues possibly see the
leadership of their heads more than secondary colleagues. I’ve worked in some
very large secondary schools where I rarely saw the head, even more rarely
spoke to him or her and often had little idea of what they did or how they led.
Now for each one lists the positive and negative traits that influenced your
relationship with that leader and how they led. You may experience a little
conflict here as you may not have liked the leader personally but they may have
been successful (personality versus process). When you’ve done this put
together the positive traits which you feel you possess, the positive traits
you need to develop and then the traits which had a negative impact. There’s
your starting point for leadership, not a list of tasks but a list of traits.
No one ever won over a body of staff with a CV and a list of competencies!
In a coming article I will give you a couple of examples
from my own career and reflect on how these have changed the way I lead.
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