Earlier this month I completed the Harvard Business School Course, Leading People, which in my role as a school leader, was highly useful.  I share here my key takeaways from this course:

Teachers’ Work Environment

What is good for teachers’ work environment is good for students’ learning environment.

In schools that teachers rate favourably as work environments, students are more successful.

For teachers to work well, they need to be included in addressing their school’s challenges.  Meaningful and lasting improvement is contingent on teachers feeling part of the decision-making process.

Take on the attitude: “It’s never a good idea if it’s just my idea.”

Set up systems for teachers’ voices to be heard.

Make it a point for teachers’ voices to be heard at every step, especially if it’s something that is to be implemented in classrooms.

Ultimately, teachers must feel the agents of change, not objects of change.  

Devise ways to actively engage teachers as partners.

Strive to promote an interdependent school – where teacher collaboration is encouraged and planned for.

Leaders as Architects

 A leader is an architect of the school, designing and implementing targeted interventions to close the school’s gaps.  They do so by carefully aligning all of the school’s building blocks: vision, systems, structures, capabilities and culture.

Ultimately, it is your choice when to make decisions alone and when to include other peoples’ thoughts, ideas and suggestions.

While it is appropriate for leaders to make decisions alone sometimes, they need to make sure they have carefully considered the issues of whether to include others in the process.

Some considerations to include:

• Is team commitment to the decision important?

• Do you have enough information to make the decision on your own?

• Is the problem well-structured?

• If you make the decision yourself, would the team support it?

The demands of the job of being a leader are simply too great to make all the decisions yourself.

Leaders can delegate decision-making by allowing another individual or group to make decisions within specified guidelines.

Another option is for a leader to make a decision after getting advice from others.

Finally, you may choose to facilitate a joint decision using collaborative problem-solving, diagnosis and action planning.  This approach emphasises working towards consensus among team members.  In joint decision-making, the decision is not made until the leader and team members can support it – even if the decision is not everyone’s first choice.

Join-decision making is the right approach in some situations, especially when you need everyone to come together to share information in order to reach the best solution.  

However, a joint decision is inefficient when the leader already has all the information he needs to make a decision.

If a team cannot reach a consensus on a decision, they can become deadlocked.  In such cases, it is the responsibility of the leader to make a consultative or autonomous decision.

Studies suggest joint decision-making works well when you need both the input AND the support of the team AND when you as the leader are laying the groundwork for the process.

Contingency Approach to School Leadership

To be an effective school leader, you must take a contingency approach to school leadership.

As a contingent leader, you choose from a broad toolkit of leadership strategies and effectively apply the appropriate strategy given the context or situation.

Ultimately, the trick is to be tight on ends and loose on means.

Distributed Leadership

Distributed leadership is about recognising that everyone can exercise leadership in his or own.  

It requires high levels of trust along with clear parameters and guidance.

Without systems and structure to scaffold the work of distributed leadership, counting on this form of leadership to naturally function well is risky.

When distributed leadership works well:

1. Individuals feel accountable for their leadership actions.
2. New leadership roles are created and shared.  
3. Collaborative teamwork is the modus operandi.
4. Interdependent work is recognised and highly valued.  

The Authority Matrix: Four levels of team self-management

Setting overall direction

• Establishing collective objectives & goals

Designing the team & its organisational context

• Structuring tasks & deciding who will be involved

Monitoring & managing work & progress

• Collecting & interpreting data 

Executing the team task

•  Accomplishing the work itself

One of the major jobs of a school leader is to get others to lead and contribute to doing their best work.  In this case, for example, established systems and structures should be in place so that teachers can manage their own classroom behaviour issues.  

Collaboration in Teams

The goal with teams is to make sure they feel internally accountable as well as engaged with the work.

When you have too many people, you have a group – and not a team.

Working interdependently is difficult and leaders need to be ready to see tensions as normal.

Facilitating collaboration:

• Emphasise a shared goal.

• Display curiosity about what others think.

• Establish process guidelines that everyone agrees to follow.

Teams ultimately have a “collective responsibility” to promote student wellbeing and learning.

What gets monitored gets done.

• Reminding everyone of norms is important.  You can do this by typing the norms into the header or footer of the agenda template. 

At the end of the meeting assess what worked well and what you would like to change.

Treat the meeting agenda like a lesson plan, preparing in advance assignments for each team member to complete, e.g. asking them to come prepared with a learning resource or activity they would like to discuss.

Leaders play a vital role in cultivating collaboration.

The most effective leaders see their teams as agents of change not objects of change.

Trust is an essential ingredient to any organisation.  Trust forms the basis of all relationships and is earned through actions and interactions.

A leader can demonstrate trust by showing competency, benevolence and integrity.

Leaders earn trust by following through on tasks and initiatives.

Trust makes it possible for people to speak up more often and for the leader to give tough feedback.

When done well, building trust will invite staff to learn and work together.

Trust is foundational for changing belief and practices.

Cognitive Frames

People all have what are called ‘cognitive frames’, seeing reality in a certain way, which is shaped by background expertise.

Cognitive frames are inevitable.

The problem is that people can interpret their cognitive frames as reality rather than a subjective interpretation of reality.

Leaders can help by deliberately reframing a situation.

The good news is that when members of an organisation share a cognitive frame it creates shared meaning, it focuses attention and it motivates action.

Leaders can deliberately frame an issue to help their staff work together, in a productive and learning-oriented way.

Reframing-replacing spontaneous interpretations with more accurate and enabling ones.

The leader has to applaud and celebrate vigilance and learning.

The leader must deliberately reframe deviations improvement opportunities.

Frame problems as valuable input to improvements.  

Shifting peoples’ frames determines how effectively we achieve desired results.

Any time you have a problem that lacks an obvious solution you have to consciously and formally move into the learning frame.

Leaders must be skilful and discerning in deciding which frame to use.

Leaders must float consciously from and between a learning frame and an executive frame.

An execution frame works well when the tasks are completely routine, and the coordination entirely programmed.

A learning frame works well when the work will involve solving new or long-standing complex unsolved problems.

Four Iterative Steps of Learning Frames

• Enrollment – emphasise the important contribution each teacher brings to the table.  Teachers feel a shared responsibility.  

• Preparation – teachers come together to learn as a team.

• Trail – implementing the intervention and collecting data.  

• Reflection – teachers coming together again.  

Reinforce a learning frame:

• Be explicit – we are all learning.
• Model the interpersonal behaviours and collaborative behaviours – e.g. asking questions, showing respect for others’ ideas, actively listening.
• Explain behaviour in practical terms – e.g. please let me know if you see a mistake or opportunity.

The most critical strategy to fostering acceptance of a learning frame is to practice it openly yourself with your staff.

Be open with others about what you are trying to achieve, allowing them to understand, give feedback and experiment.

Psychological Safety

Psychological safety is the belief that one will not be punished or humiliated for speaking up with ideas, questions, concerns or mistakes.

Beliefs of psychological safety:

• Encourages speaking up
• Supports productive conflict

The ‘Learning Zone’ is where optimal performance is achieved – people collaborate and learn from one another here. 

Psychological safety also enables clarity of thought, mitigates failure and promotes innovation.

Tips for fostering psychological safety:

• Be accessible and approachable
• Acknowledge the limitations of your current knowledge
• Invite participation
• Highlight failures as learning opportunities
• Hold people accountable

Signs that a workplace os psychologically safe

• People feel respected and confront each other if there is an issue
• People talk about mistakes and problems, not just successes
• The workplace is conducive to humour and laughter

As a leader, it is critically important that you understand the operations taking place within your organisation and where they fall on the process-knowledge spectrum.

Execution-as-learning means operating in a way that allows organisations to learn as they go.

As a leader, in collaboration with your team, you can frame your organisation for learning.

That means:

• Create a psychologically safe environment
• Learn from failure
• Execute through the iterative cycles of action and reflection

This cultivates the conditions for people to speak up, learn from each other and experiment safely.

Fostering understanding and conviction

Share our individual stories around experiences – this helps you get to know staff at a different level, to see shared aspirations, hopes and dreams.

From there you can springboard to implementing strategies as part of a shared vision.

As leaders, we often assume that others have the same information and context as we do.  The problem is that once we know something we find it hard to imagine not knowing it and therefore have problems sharing it with others.

By unpacking an important matter, e.g. race, and tapping into teachers’ personal experience with race, you can create a shared why behind the work.

For changes you want to implement, consider the why behind that change and how you would ensure others see the need for that improvement.

Listening and being inquisitive are important because, as a leader, it can be hard to learn the truth behind your organisation.

After listening it is important to take the critical step of taking action to show that you have listened.

Role Modelling

Role modelling is one of the most effective yet under-utilised tools for driving change.  

As a leader, your behaviour constantly has influence.

Summary of strategies:

• Be explicit about goals and espouse values
• Involve all stakeholders including students
• Change behaviour, e.g. through poster competitions for students
• Get everyone invested
• Present raw data and have tough conversations
• Find leaders to model the initiatives

Four Elements of Mindset & Behaviour Shifts

Managing communication is an important part of the leader’s role.  

Facts, context and details really matter (e.g. when racist language has been used, for example).

Managing a crisis

In a crisis, there is a tradeoff you make as a leader between waiting for all the information and acting on the information.

What might help in your decision making is to realise that uncertainty itself can also be communicated.  

Acknowledge to your audience that uncertainty is difficult, and that, as information comes in, you will communicate in a timely and transparent manner.  This will underscore your credibility as a communicator and leader.  

Best Practices for Communication During a Crisis:

1. Identify the stake
2. holders.  If it is appropriate, express regret or remorse.
3. Create a SOCO:

Single

Overriding

Communications

Objective

This is the one message or action that you want your stakeholders to take away from your letter.

1. Communicate completely and honestly.

Speaking up early and accurately empowers your community.  You gain control over the narrative by being honest and transparent.

Your role as a leader is to turn a collection of people into a collective.

Motivate People

One of the best ways to motivate people is by giving them psychic value.  This includes verbal recognition or more responsibility, which gets people excited about their work.

Self-care is particularly important as a leader.

Information-Rich Hiring  

A hiring process that ensures a rich exchange of information between the candidate and the school’s administrators and teachers.

It is important that the teacher population should be diverse to reflect the student population as this helps to dispel stereotypes.

• Research from several fields – education, psychology, economics – has consistently shown the benefits of having a diverse workforce.  
• Teacher teams are more successful in providing induction support for new teachers than conventional 1: 1 mentoring programs.  

Feedback for teachers

The ideal evaluation process is one that leads to “no surprises” between a school leader and a teacher when they need to meet for appraisal.  This is because course correction and honest feedback should be happening throughout the year.  This is only possible when school leaders are in teachers’ classrooms early and often, providing clear feedback and guidance.

John Hattie is a Professor of Education from New Zealand and a key proponent of evidence-based teaching.  Evidence-based teaching is to teach using only those methods, which have been verified from evidence to be effective.  Such evidence is based on meta-studies of what actually works in education.  John is particularly notable for his work on what he terms ‘Visible Learning’, which is the world’s largest ever collection of evidence-based research into what actually works in education.  John Hattie headed a team of researchers for twenty years who trawled the world for evidence about the effectiveness of different teaching interventions.  The good news from these studies is that 95% or more of things that teachers do to enhance the achievement of students in the classroom work.  Taking this evidence though, which John Hattie presents as a continuum of achievement, his fundamental interest has been to pull out and share the most effective of these teaching interventions.

When learning is visible, teachers know if learning is happening or not, and students know what to do and how to do it.  The key idea of his book, Visible Learning for Teachers, is that teachers and leaders should always be aware of the impact they are having on their students, and from the evidence of this impact, decisions must be made about changing approaches.

Using his data, John Hattie identified the following qualities for teachers to have, which impact student learning the most (ordered here from 1 to 6 in order of importance):

1. Are passionate about helping their students learn

2. Monitor their impact on students’ learning, and adjust their approaches accordingly

3. Are clear about what they want their students to learn

4. Forge strong relationships with their students

5. Adopt evidence-based teaching strategies (see below)

6. Actively seek to improve their own teaching

Teachers are far more likely to have a low (or even negative) impact if they:

• Repeat students
• Label students (fixed mindset)
• Have low expectations

One of the major messages from Visible Learning is the power of teachers learning from and talking to each other about planning – learning intentions, success criteria, what is valuable learning, progression, what it means to be ‘good at’ a subject (Hattie, 2012, pp. 67).  The key message here is clear – educators should not work in isolation.  Hattie explains that schools must create the structures and cultures that foster effective educator collaboration – collaboration that focuses on factors their sphere of influence to impact student learning in a positive way.

That being said, before any teaching strategies are used, Hattie builds on Piaget’s research (1970), to reassert the importance of teachers’ understanding about how each student thinks.  In other words, the teacher needs to understand where a student is in their level of thinking and then challenge each student to go beyond that level through a process described as ‘cognitive acceleration’.

Feedback, for example, is one of the single most powerful influences on student achievement.  For feedback to be effective, Hattie argues that it needs to:

• be clear and mindful of students’ prior knowledge

• be directed at the right level, so it can assist students to comprehend, engage, or develop effective strategies to process the information intended to be learnt.  Feedback works powerfully when there is a lot of challenge in the task.

• relate to the learning intention and success criteria

• occur as the students are doing the learning

• provide information on how and why the student has or has not met the success criteria

• provide strategies to help the student to improve

Among other high-impact, evidence-based teaching strategies Hattie identifies include:

• Direct Instruction
• Note Taking & Other Study Skills
• Spaced Practice
• Teaching Metacognitive Skills
• Teaching Problem Solving Skills
• Reciprocal Teaching
• Mastery Learning
• Concept Mapping
• Worked Examples

Concluding thoughts…

As Hattie explains, the variability amongst teachers is dramatic in the education system.  Some teachers who do certain things have powerful effects on students’ achievement, but half of teachers are not doing those things, so they are not getting the above-average effects.  Using evidence, however, can make a huge difference.  By distilling the teaching and learning strategies into a continuum of effectiveness for student achievement, John Hattie’s work brings us much closer to a pedagogy that can bring great benefits for both teachers and students.

[lasso ref=”visible-learning-for-teachers-maximizing-impact-on-learning” id=”6913″ link_id=”1707″]

References:

Hattie, J.  (2008).  A Synthesis of Over 800 Meta-Analyses Relating to Achievement.

Hattie, J.  (2012).  Visible Learning for Teachers – Maximising Impact on Learning.

Shernoff, D.J., & Frea, A.  (2004).  The Wild West of executive coaching.  Harvard Business Review, 82(11), 82-90.

During our TBS Conference the other week, I attended a 4-day leadership course delivered by Karen Ardley Associates.  As the course was specifically tailored for middle leaders, I came away with many practical insights that I could readily apply to my own role as a curriculum coordinator and line manager.  The purpose of this post is just to summarise my reflections and key actionable takeaways from the four days.

DAY 1 – All about you as a leader

The course began with an emotional intelligence (EI) self-analysis, which I found to be a valuable tool in order to highlight my EI strengths and consider areas for further development.  According to Karen Ardley, emotional intelligence “is the ability to understand, use and manage our own emotions and respond to the emotions of others, in constructive and purposeful ways.”  The importance of emotional intelligence as a factor for creating better leaders became even more clear to me after listening to Ben Walden‘s keynote speech, when one point stood out – we cannot show leadership for others when we are not living it in our own lives.

Apparently, emotional intelligence makes up two-thirds of effective job performance – only one third is cognitive and technical ability.  In terms of self awareness and management, we need to ensure that we manage our emotions in order to control our behaviours.  A key point made on the course was that the first step to developing positive leadership behaviours is to control our self talk.  Optimism, it would seem, is a key characteristic of the best leaders.  Numerous studies support this assertion, along with other benefits such as better health and increased longevity.  The Nun Study was used as one particularly interesting example, showing that nuns who expressed more positive emotions lived, on average, a decade longer than their less optimistic peers and they were far less likely to develop Alzheimer’s disease.

The discussion about emotional intelligence and leadership then neatly led onto looking at Benjamin Zander’s work:

Using the orchestra as an analogy for leadership, one of my main takeaways from Benjamin Zander’s TED talk is the idea that the conductor never makes a sound.  In other words, the best leaders inspire leadership in others – and we can see it’s working for our audience because of their “shining eyes”.  As Benjamin Zander explains, ‘The eyes never lie.  If the eyes are shining, then I know that my leadership is working.’

As a conductor of an orchestra, I realised the music was beautiful and I wasn’t making a sound.  

The conductor who does not make a sound can focus on making others more powerful.  This makes sense: if people you’re managing feel lively, energetic and connected, they’re more likely to perform at their best.

DAY 2 – Leading and developing others

The second day began with a quote by the British researcher and management theorist, Meredith Belbin:

Nobody’s perfect but a team can be.

This, along with mention of Bill Gates’ emphasis on developing the best teams, set the foundation for introducing the idea of a high-performing team.  According to Karen, a high performing team:

– achieves high levels of leadership confidence

– build its capacity to implement change effectively

– nurtures energy and enthusiasm for learning and teaching

– develops and shares its knowledge, skills and expertise

– builds esteem of all members

In order to better understand how to develop a team and get to the high-performing stage faster, we studied Tuckman’s 4 stage model for team development:

At the forming stage, the leader needs to be directive – providing structure for the team and clarifying expectations about how the team process will be initiated.

During the storming stage, the leader coaches the group by helping them focus on the goals and expectations, managing process and conflict, generating ideas, and explaining decisions.

As the team enters the norming stage, the leader acts primarily as a facilitator by providing encouragement, helping to build consensus, and giving feedback.

Finally, at the performing stage, the leader still facilitates the team process, but tasks and objectives are delegated.  The leader oversees and identifies when the group is moving to a different stage.

The Prioritisation Matrix

DAY 3 – Leading teaching and learning

As we looked at what made effective teams and successful initiatives, we naturally moved into a discussion about giving feedback.  Research shows that oral feedback is potentially the most effective way of providing professional development and learning opportunities.  Effective oral feedback has the following features:

– begins with something positive (a headline) – not “How do you think it went?”

– specific

– asks questions to develop understanding – aims for dialogue

– describes behaviours not the person

As an example of how oral feedback should be given, we watched this video, The Story of Austin’s Butterfly by Ron Berger:

In order to receive feedback effectively, the following points were identified:

– listen to the feedback carefully before responding

– be careful you fully understand what is being said

– ask questions for clarification and exploration

– seek other opinions rather than relying on one source

– decide what you will do as a result of the feedback

As leaders of teaching colleagues, we need to be particularly aware of using coaching strategies for developing teachers’ classroom practice.  After watching two filmed lesson observations, the following coaching questions were used to assess the success of lessons and provide effective feedback for the teacher:

1.  Did all students achieve the learning objective?

2.  How do you know?

3.  What will you do about those who didn’t?

4.  How will you assess and use students’ prior knowledge?

5.  How did you liaise with your teaching assistant before/during/after the lesson?

6.  What can students do now that they couldn’t at the start of the lesson?

7.  How did you make sure students know their next steps in learning?

8.  How did you make sure all students know your high expectations?

9.  How did you provide challenge for all your students?

10.  Did the students enjoy the lesson and how do you know?

I like these ten questions because they have the power to refocus from problem to solution.  Certainly, the need for effective feedback, especially for developing teachers, cannot be understated.  In fact, our discussion about coaching and giving feedback to teachers reminded me of this excellent TED talk that Bill Gates gave on the subject:

After studying the theory of coaching and feedback, we were given a practical exercise to do.  Working in pairs, we were asked to think about an important issue we were facing and practise a role-playing exercise in which we took turns to play both the roles of coach and the person being coached.  I found this to be a useful experience both in terms of getting feedback on my way of dealing with a particular issue and helping to clarify my own understanding of what makes a great coach.

The suggested coaching process to support professional development can be distilled into three stages (based on Gerard Egan’s Skilled Helper):

Stage 1 Analysis

Where am I now?  What’s happening here?

Stage 2 Direction setting

Where do I want to be?

Stage 3 Action planning

How will I get there?

Clearly, asking the right questions is a fundamental technique for guiding the person that you are coaching, so that they can find their own solution.  This in itself can be a powerful way of unlocking leadership potential in others.  As Karen explained, it is not the role of the coach to provide answers or to give advice, but to support the development and learning of the professional learner – to inspire self-directed change.  In order to develop coaching skills further, it is important to become increasingly committed to:

– understanding one’s own learning needs

– reflecting on one’s practice

– taking an ever-more active role in one’s own learning and the learning of others

– acting on what is learned to improve student learning

DAY 4 – Practising leadership

On the last day, we looked at what made effective meetings, strategies for dealing with challenging people and, for the last activity, we were asked to deliver a 10-minute presentation about an initiative that we wanted to introduce.

Meetings

As obvious (or not) as it may sound, the best meetings are fun and enjoyable.  Essentially, they are conversations that lead to action – they are not about information giving.  We had the opportunity to experience this by getting into groups and engaging in a role-play of a ‘high energy’ meeting.  This required a clear and purposeful agenda (timed, prioritised), ground rules (listen with an open mind, encourage everyone to participate) and the use of relevant materials (post-its, pens, paper, etc.)

Following a meeting, for larger teams, Karen showed us this method of using dot stickers to quickly gauge and visually represent the popularity of the team’s preference when there are two or more possible options over an issue. In this hypothetical example, we were asked about our preference regarding when to hold a team meeting. We needed to use three stickers for our strongest preference, two stickers for our second best choice and one (or no stickers) for our least desired choice.For larger teams, Karen showed us this method of using dot stickers to quickly gauge and visually represent the popularity of the team’s preference when there are two or more possible options over an issue. In this hypothetical example, we were asked about our preference regarding when to hold a team meeting. We needed to use three stickers for our strongest preference, two stickers for our second best choice and one (or no stickers) for our least desired choice.

Challenging people

I found the advice about how to deal with challenging behaviours useful.  For difficult conversations for example,  the following suggestions were provided:

– Choose the location

– Plan and script

– Predict likely responses

– Use assertive statements

– Think win:win

Lauren Mackler from Harvard Business School also has some great tips about how to manage difficult conversations:

Presentation

For the last activity, we each had to prepare a presentation to be presented to other members of our group and someone from senior leadership.  This activity was a surprise and, having only an hour to prepare, I enjoyed the challenge of presenting an initiative that I wanted to lead.  Using just a Flipchart and pen, it was also a good exercise to present without the use of any digital technology!

 Personally, I like to follow a simple three-step process to presentations: what, why and how.  The ‘what’ sets both the purpose and context for the presentation.  The ‘why’ helps to engage the audience by giving them a reason why they should care.  Finally, the ‘how’ provides the explanation about how the initiative will be developed.  I find that following this structure helps to give a presentation clarity and organisation.

As always, with any activity like this, the most useful part is to get feedback.  In our group, we each took turns presenting and then watching and evaluating the presentations of our peers.  We evaluated aspects such as control of space, use of voice and body language.  Based on my own feedback, I had communicated my message well – I  just need to remember to smile more! 🙂

It is also worth mentioning that when it comes to presentations, less is more.  The simpler and more succinct you can make your message, the better.  After all, as both teachers and students, we know that we all have limited cognitive loads at any one time.  By making your message easier to absorb, it becomes more memorable, and ultimately, more likely to be acted upon.

Concluding thoughts…

By the end of this 4-day leadership course, I felt that I had gained a much better insight into my own strengths and areas of development as a leader.  I was especially happy to come away with so many practical leadership ideas and strategies.  One of the key messages, I believe, is that the best leaders are positive and inspire leadership in others through effective coaching and feedback strategies.