Reflections on Leadership as it relates to being a new Parent

How is being the parent of new-born twin boys like leadership?

My twin boys came on Dec 15th and today is the first month after they were born. These boys are behaving so differently compared to my daughter who just turned two a few weeks ago.

I reflected upon leadership in terms of the need for establishing a strong partnership between my partner and me. Throughout the entire last month, it was really a challenging time as my wife and I are mainly the only people looking after the 3 young kids in our household. Non-stop feeding, burping and diaper changing are already programmed in my brain. I am glad that we have a strong partnership in dealing with challenges around the clock.

How do I apply this to school leadership? Once a good partnership is established among staff at school, challenges will be met and shared.

A good partnership is key for successful leadership at school. School leader partnerships involve other stakeholders including school staff, board staff, parents, students and other community members.

To have a good partnership, I thought about the following six key directions:

1) Keeping up good communication skills (listening, expressing, verbal and non-verbal).

2) Respecting all stakeholders.

3) Willing to trust and bring trusted.

4) Keeping up a sense of humor.

5) Sharing the work.

6) Sharing the responsibility for outcomes.

Guest Post from: Benjamin Law (York Region District School Board)

Delegating Tasks to Build Staff Capacity

As a leader, do you delegate tasks to staff in the hope to build their capacity?

In a desire to share / distribute leadership, have you ever delegated a task to a staff member,....and somehow it ended up back on your plate?  Beware of this "reverse delegation."  Staff members who are unsure how to do something may enlist you in doing it for them.  Don't automatically solve problems or make decisions for hesitant colleagues.  Focus on generating alternative solutions together, making sure your colleague maintains responsibility for carrying through with the task.  Don't fall for it when others make statements like, "You'll do a better job with this."  While flattering, and possibly even true, they are often a way to get you involved when you needn't be....and how do you build capacity among your staff...if people feel they can - or should - default to you?

Support your staff members with tasks that 'stretch' them.  Many will discover that they have much more capacity than they realized.  They'll discover that their talents are greater than they realized.  But just in case.....don't be too far away.  They may need some coaching or mentoring along the way.  They'll feel reassured and more willing to take on challenges in the future if they know that you believe they can do it AND you're close by 'just in case'. 

Adaped from: Guide to Project Management (Harvard Business Review)

Shared and Distributed Leadership

As a leader, do you share and distribute leadership...and why?

If you do an online search of terms like shared leadership or distributed leadership, you will literally uncover hundreds of thousands of links.  There are likely as many understandings of these terms as there are people who use them.  But what do they mean to you? 

As leaders, we are exposed to a great deal of leadership terminology and we often bring it into our daily vocabulary.  However, do we have an understanding of what these terms mean for us and our practice?  Shared and distributed leadership are great examples to work with.  What do they mean to you - the same thing or different things?  What do they look like in your practice?  Do you use them in your work?  Do you use them intentionally for a particular purpose?  The questions go on....

The issue here for leaders is this: When it comes to shared and distributed leadership, can you explain your understanding of these terms, how you display them in your practice, and for what purposes?  Too often, leaders may be tempted to hand unappealing tasks over to colleagues under the guise of sharing and distributing leadership. This is simply dumping jobs the leader doesn't want to do into the laps of others.  Staff members can see through this type of behaviour.  The impact of this is that leaders can appear to be in power positions to unload work they don't like onto others. 

The next time you think about passing a task along to a colleague, or to share and/or distribute your leadership, ask yourself if you are doing this in the best interest of the person and the organization.  If you have solid and purposeful reasons for sharing/distributing leadership with others then you're probably setting up a valuable learning experience for this person.....and your integrity as a leader stays intact.