Performance Appraisals

As a leader, how do you handle performance appraisals?

One of the important tasks any supervising leader must assume is engaging in performance appraisals with members of your staff.  Performance appraisals can be seen as an annoying task that needs to be completed to get it out of the way until the next appraisal cycle comes round......or......it can be an opportunity to celebrate the good work of your staff, to support their professional growth, and to build capacity for ever-better results.  The difference is huge - a mundane task or a celebratory process focused on growth.  What makes the difference?  It's the leader - and how the leader engages in performance appraisal processes. 

If you'd like to lead a work culture that doesn't fear but embraces performance appraisals, it's up to you as the leader, to change your processes.  A few things to consider when doing performance appraisals:

• Who does the talking?  Is it you, the leader/appraiser, or do your staff members have more of the 'air time'?  This is a chance for your staff to present themselves and their work to you.
• Do staff members have a chance:
• to articulate their work,
• to explain why they work in the way that they do,
• to talk about what they believe their greatest strengths and accomplishments are,
• to describe from their own perspective where they believe they need to grow?
• Do you use coaching questions in the conversations?  True coaching questions mediate thinking and are non-threatening.  They open up honest conversation.
• Do your staff members have an opportunity to provide evidence of their work that demonstrates their strengths and accomplishments? 
• Who decides what the next steps - or growth goals- are?  As the leader/appraiser do you tell your staff member or do they have the opportunity first to explain to you what their growth needs to be.  You might be very surprised that they likely know even better than you what they need to learn next in order to grow professionally.
• Once the performance appraisal process finishes, is that it?  Done?  Or do you take the opportunity to check in with your staff to see how they're doing with the growth goals that were set?  Friendly, on-going monitoring - if done well - can be encouraging and motivating without seeming like you're checking up on them.

Performance appraisals can be a time-consuming, routine task or it can be a growth-oriented celebration of each staff members' work.  It's up to you as the leader, to create the culture by your actions.

Ask for Help

As a leader, when and why might you ask for help?

Leaders often hesitate to ask for help because they worry about being intrusive, appearing needy, or not appearing competent. The truth is that it's innately satisfying to assist others, and most people both want and like to help.   The next time you have a question, feel somewhat unsure about something, or simply want to make a connection with someone, ask them for the favor of their help. There are many things you can request that your staff will likely respond very well to.  These can include such things as:

• Request that they provide input about something you're working on,
• Ask some colleagues to review something you're writing to gauge the tone,
• Ask for an opinion about something you are considering doing,
• Request that some colleauges provide a testimonial of your work,
• Simply request some comments about how a current initiative is going
• ...and the list goes on.... 

Don't be shy about it. Asking for help and/or favors can be a powerful way to get people to like you better and see you in a better light, in part, because they become invested in your success.


Adapted from: "The Fear That's Holding Back Your Business" by Dorie Clark.

Inspired Leadership

Guest post by Jan Kielven...

Inspired Leadership

Let’s face it, nuggets on paper don’t inspire.  Board plans don’t inspire, neither do schools plans.  They are necessary.  They’re set up to be ‘information’ and they do that extremely well.   They speak to the left side of the brain.  It’s the “What”, not the “Why” of what we do. 

Plans identify the work to be done, often through numeric targets.  Words like ‘a 3% increase’ don’t inspire. In football, this is like the grinding ground game.  No ‘Hail Mary’ passes, no interceptions, no quarterback sacks.  It’s a game of inches and percentages.   In economic terms, it’s like fracking hydrocarbons.  No burst of thick glistening jets from a deep well gurgling excitedly to the surface.  No Ghawar fields.  It’s trying to get a little above breaking even.   ‘Fracking’ may well be the metaphor of our times. 

So, whose work is the inspiration?  We cannot succeed without it, without undue human cost.  One answer comes from Andrew Hargreaves in The Fourth Way.  He actually uses the word, ‘inspire’!  Rare.  Courageous.  He also identifies it as one of the roles of leadership.   He speaks of the need to trust leaders “…to become inspirational developers of their communities instead of mere managers of imposed targets and external initiatives.” (Hargreaves&Shirley, 2008)

Powerful leaders ‘own’ the Board Improvement Plan and the School Improvement Plan.  They have a strong commitment to it, and a passion for achieving its goals – not for the sake of numbers, but because those numbers represent real individuals in their care.  That conversion from data and targets  to individuals’ experiences of education happens when information is transformed into compassion, drive, and yes, inspiration. 

THE FOURTH WAY

 Andrew Hargreaves and Dennis Shirley

EDUCATIONAL LEADERSHIP/OCTOBER 2008

Guest author:  Jan Kielven



Staying in your Comfort Zone?

As a leader, are you tending to stay in your comfort zone?

In our roles as leaders, there is a certain comfort to be taken from staying in our comfort zones - that is, doing the things that are familiar, routine, manageable, and readily within our range of skills.  However, there is a significant downside to this comfortable territory.  How do you learn?  Michael Fullan (2008) tells us that 'Learning is the Work'.  If we wish to learn, we need to tread into leadership territory that is unfamiliar.  When we find ourselves in unfamiliar territory that demands skills that we have not yet mastered, we put ourselves in a position to learn.  If we always stay with the familiar, we don't need to learn.  For you, what might be new or unfamiliar leadership territory?  What might you try when you are there?  How might you learn when you're there? 

Any readers with interesting leadership stories about moving out of your comfort zone into the unfamiliar?  If so, please share through the Comments just below.  

One Small Thing

As a leader, what one small thing might you do today that could make a difference in your school or organization?

As leaders, we often think that big, bold, new initiatives are needed to bring about change.  We hope that these new initiatives will make a difference in terms of the work we do and the results we'll get.  Today, I'd like to propose that we flip that idea around.  It's not to suggest that bold initiatives don't help us accomplish what we need.  What I want to suggest is that they can work hand-in-hand with small things, thus, my question at the top of this post: What one small thing might you do today that could make a difference?  A few starting thoughts follow.  What might you like to add to this list?

• Get out of your office and wander the building - even more than you normally do.
• Reconnect with a staff member or two.  Do you really know how they are doing and what's important to them?
• Compliment people who aren't expecting it.
• Help someone you've never helped before.
• Speak with someone you don't normally speak with (e.g. a student, a parent, a client).
• Thank someone for something that seems small or insignificant.
• Ask someone - whom you've never asked before - for their opinion.

These are a few ideas.  Corny?  Perhaps.   But the point here is to do things in a different way and see what happens.  Remember, if we continue to do the things we always do, we'll always get the same results. 

Receiving Negative Feedback

As a leader, what skills do you use to receive negative feedback?

On October 12, I did a post about encouraging pushback.  The intent of that post was to stimulate thinking about how we encourage a range of thinking among those we lead.  Today, though, I want to address receiving negative feedback that is about you or the school/organization that you lead.  When you receive negative feedback, what skills do you use to process it and respond to it?  There is always a tendency to get defensive when the feedback is personal or when it addresses something that is important to us.  How you respond to negative feedback demonstrates to others much about who you are as a leader.  Do you come across as defensive and protective?  Do you accept negative feedback passively and appear to 'give in' easily?  Or do you accept it and process it in a way that demonstrates you have the skills to receive it? 

What are these skills?  Here is the start of a list that might be helpful....

• listen carefully to what is being said to you
• relax - as best you can - and breathe regularly
• seek to truly understand what is being said to you
• paraphrase concisely what you've heard
• paraphrase the content of the messages
• paraphrase the emotion in the messages
• try to get to the heart of the matter - what is the essential issue?  - what are the peripheral issues?
• agree or concur with whatever points you can
• if you have specific information (e.g. a letter, an email, an announcement) that could shed light on the issue in question, bring it forward. 
• When you bring forward information that supports your position, do it as helpful information, not as a way of providing 'proof' that you are right
• clarify the points where there is disagreement or a gap in information
• plan - with the person providing the feedback - a plan to resolve the issue
• ensure that your plan has at least one opportunity to revisit the issue with the person
• reflect - Think about how you worked through the process of receiving feedback.  Did you do it with the intent to 'win' or did you do it with the intent to use the information for growth?  Think about this carefully and use your new thinking to inform the next time you need to receive such feedback.

Receiving negative feedback can be very difficult.   None of us likes it but we can benefit from it and grow from it.  It depends on how we receive it and process it.  The skills mentioned above are simply suggestions about how to receive and respond to feedback.  You will likely need to practise.  You could ask trusted colleagues to help you build these skills.  Most probably, they'll be happy to help and you'll be demonstrating that you're preparing yourself to engage with others in positive ways to work though issues.

Mentoring or Coaching - Part 2

As a leader, do you engage in coaching? Do you support your staff in receiving coaching?

As mentioned in the previous post, the terms 'mentoring' and 'coaching' are often used interchangeably but research literature differentiates between the two.  The difference between mentoring and coaching needs to be understood if we wish to use the terms correctly.

It's coaching if:

• the coach has been trained in a specific style of coaching and uses it at all times while coaching
• the coachee has a learning plan which forms the basis of the coaching conversations
• the coaching conversations are intended to support the coachee in the development of identified skills
• the coach mediates the thinking of the coachee
• reflective thinking is routinely incorporated into the coaching conversations to deepen the learning
• the coaching conversations are focused on the growth of the coachee
• the coach does not talk about him/herself.  It's always about the coachee.
• there is a time limit to the coaching relationship

Adapted from 'Coaching For Learning' - York Region District School Board