As a leader, how do you know how much information to share with staff?
When leading a staff, it's always important to keep people informed about what's going on - especially when it may affect them and their work. This means providing them with the information they need. Yet not all information is necessary for them. In fact, some might be just too much. It can become mental clutter and serve as a distracter.
How do you know when to share and when to be the gatekeeper and protect your staff from an overabundance of information? As a leader, you need to know how to determine how much information your staff really wants or needs. What is important for them to know? What is less important and might well be best if not shared? Sometimes in our zeal to be effective with communications, we share too much. At other times, we may be overly-protective of staff and not share with them information that they may appreciate having.
How do you achieve the balance? One effective - but embarrassingly obvious - strategy is simply to ask them. Ask who might like to serve on a small committee to help determine what's important for everyone to know and what's not essential. By doing this, you demonstrate a desire to share anything that may be important for your staff while recognizing the need to gatekeep the flow. Your job on such a committee is always to ask: But if someone wants to know more, how do we still ensure that they have access to it? And then ensure that there are structures in place for those who want more. Virtually every school/organization has at least a small group of people who enjoy serving as the gatekeepers of information. As leader, you can benefit from the talents on your staff while ensuring that everyone knows just what they need.
Showing posts with label gatekeeper. Show all posts
Showing posts with label gatekeeper. Show all posts
Friday, 2 December 2011
Monday, 21 November 2011
Leaders as Gatekeepers
As a leader, do you protect your staff from distracters by serving as a gatekeeper?
As a leader, one of the important roles you play is that of gatekeeper. Every school/organization has an endless number of distracters that can take your staff off course from the core work. When you serve as a gatekeeper, you keep these distracters at bay so that your staff can focus on the important work they do. Some distracters are things that come from outside your school/organization. Others come from higher up in your organization. Others are brought into your organization by members of staff when they get an idea for something that is of interest to them personally. Most disturbing is when the leader himself/herself is the one who brings in the distracters.
As the leader/gatekeeper, it is vital for you to maintain the focus on the work of your school/organization. You need to filter all distracters to determine if they will support the focus of your work or if they will funnel the energy of your staff into busywork that does not contribute to the fundamental purpose of the work.
You need to be able to determine just how important that special field trip is to the learning of your students. You need to be able to sort out which special event - that uses up instructional time – really serves the learning needs of your students. Most importantly, you need to be able to engage in dialogue those who bring forward the distracters to find out how the ‘special event’ serves the core business of your school/organization. Staff may get tired of hearing you ask, “How does this support student learning?” but you need to do it. If you don’t, you aren’t leading. Leaders know how to engage people in conversation to sort through what supports the core work of your school/organization and what doesn’t.
As a leader, one of the important roles you play is that of gatekeeper. Every school/organization has an endless number of distracters that can take your staff off course from the core work. When you serve as a gatekeeper, you keep these distracters at bay so that your staff can focus on the important work they do. Some distracters are things that come from outside your school/organization. Others come from higher up in your organization. Others are brought into your organization by members of staff when they get an idea for something that is of interest to them personally. Most disturbing is when the leader himself/herself is the one who brings in the distracters.
As the leader/gatekeeper, it is vital for you to maintain the focus on the work of your school/organization. You need to filter all distracters to determine if they will support the focus of your work or if they will funnel the energy of your staff into busywork that does not contribute to the fundamental purpose of the work.
You need to be able to determine just how important that special field trip is to the learning of your students. You need to be able to sort out which special event - that uses up instructional time – really serves the learning needs of your students. Most importantly, you need to be able to engage in dialogue those who bring forward the distracters to find out how the ‘special event’ serves the core business of your school/organization. Staff may get tired of hearing you ask, “How does this support student learning?” but you need to do it. If you don’t, you aren’t leading. Leaders know how to engage people in conversation to sort through what supports the core work of your school/organization and what doesn’t.
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