Leadership & Learning

Leadership and learning are indispensable to each other.

 

John F. Kennedy

Providing Effective Feedback

As a leader, how effective are you are providing feedback?

Feedback is problematic. Leaders often dislike giving it and the members of your staff rarely get enough to help them learn and to change their behaviors. But feedback, both positive and negative, is an important tool for learning, effective work, and career growth. Next time you talk with someone about their performance, follow these four steps:

• Be specific. Feedback needs to be actionable. Use concrete examples to back up your observations. Avoid generalizations. Instead, describe the behavior clearly and specifically.
• State the impact. Tell the person how his behavior is affecting you, the team, or the school/organization.
• Prescribe. Be specific about what needs to change. Often employees won't know what to change unless you tell them.  Be sure to check for understanding.  Does your staff member truly understand what you expect of them?
• Do it often. Get in the habit of praising good performance and identifying troublesome behavior.

Adapted from Guide to Giving Effective Feedback (HBR OnPoint Collection).

Building Capacity by Giving Away Responsibility

As a leader, do you build capacity by giving things away?

Entrusting the responsibility for a project to someone else can be tough. But if you don't rely on others, you'll always end up doing everything yourself...and you don't build capacity within your school/organization.  Essentially, you'll shortchange those who could learn by taking on new tasks. Once you delegate something, don't be tempted to micromanage the process. Agree on the expected outcomes and just let go. If you've asked a team member to take care of an important presentation, don't spend endless time on edits and corrections. Be clear on the parameters and remove yourself so she can do it her way, not yours. This is much more efficient than taking over, and the end product will likely be better.

Remember.....great leaders are always trying to do themselves out of a job.



Adapted from "Be More Productive by Making Better Daily Choices" by Ana Dutra.

Engaging with Social Media - Do It...but Wisely

As a leader, are you wisely engaged with social media? 

Social media is not just for socializing. When handled correctly, you can use it to enhance yourself personally, establish your expertise, engage in learning, or demonstrate your digital fluency. Commit to using social media for professional reasons but be proactive about managing your activity and image. Consider what potential employers or colleagues will see—you don't want them to discover only pictures of you and your dog, or worse. Make sure at a minimum you have a LinkedIn - or similar - account with a completed profile. Try tweeting or blogging about your area of expertise, thereby creating content that others can forward, retweet, or repost. This can help you establish yourself as an expert and a leader who is truly passionate about your work.  As well, be sure to access the knowledge of others who are also engaged!


Adapted from "Boost Your Career with Social Media: Tips for the Uninitiated" by Amy Gallo.

How do you use Social Media to learn?

As a leader, how do you use social media to learn?

It only takes a passing glance at social media to see that people use them for learning.  It may be something as simple as someone seeking suggestions.  It could be a link to a valuable website or a great article to read.  It can also be an opportunity to engage in longer-term discussions about issues or ideas that really matter to you and your work.  So...how are you using social media to learn?  Or are you?  If you're not, you may be missing something really valuable - not to mention that without connection to social media, you're less and less connected both to issues that are current for people and the methods they use to engage with these issues. 

Does participating in social media demand some new learning on your part?  Sure.  It might take a half hour of your time and the knowledge of a friend who is familiar with any particular medium.  Is it worth it?  Absolutely!  In an age when change occurs quickly, information is essential, and connection is critical, you're being left behind if you opt out.  Ignore social media at your peril as a leader.

Do as I Say, Not as I do

As a leader, do your words match your actions?

As leaders, one of our roles is to set direction for those we lead.  We articulate the vision and mission of our schools/organizations and then sustain the focus of the work that flows from the vision and mission.  On a day-to-day basis, our role is to ensure that everyone in the school/organization sustains their commitment to the work, engages in learning to support the work, and demonstrates continuous improvement in doing the work and delivering results. 

This is all well and good for our staff.  But what about us as leaders?  Do we actually do what we say we believe in?  Do our words align with our actions. It's very easy to inform others of their work responsibilities, their need to commit to ongoing learning, and to demonstrate ever-improving results.  But do we do the same?  Are we willing to do what we ask of our staff members?  If not, our words ring hollow - and people see through them. 

Remind yourself every once in a while - especially when you are providing direction to your staff - to ask yourself these questions:

• Am I willing to do this work too?
• How do I demonstrate in tangible ways the commitment that I wish to see in all staff members?
• Do my words align with my actions?
• Do I model what I profess to believe in?
• If I pause at any moment in time, could I honestly say that what I am doing aligns with the direction I've set and the mission and vision I espouse? 

Conscious or Unconscious?

As a leader, do you lead consciously or unconsciously?

Many of us have the good fortune to work with leaders who are exemplary and make leadership appear effortless.  We wonder what it is that makes them such great leaders.  It may be that they lead consciously.

As leaders, we can lead consciously or unconsciously.  Unconscious leadership is when we behave in ways that just seem like the right thing to do or are behaviours we've used in the past that have helped us get by.  Conscious leadership is when we select from a personal toolkit of leader behaviours that we know - not by 'gut feeling' - are the right choices for any particular situation. 

Unconscious leadership can get us into difficulty.  Sometimes our decisions or actions simply don't work well.  We end up paying the price by having to struggle with situations that don't go well with the added burden of the stress that accompanies these struggles.  Conscious leadership, on the other hand, is when we have a broad repertoire of leader behaviours that we consciously choose in order to respond to whatever situation we are facing.  Conscious leadership means we act in an informed way based on a set of personal skills that can help us through many of the situations we may find ourselves in. 

One of the ways to know if we are conscious or unconscious leaders is by asking this question: Do I know why I lead in the way that I lead and make the leadership choices that I make?  If you can answer yes and provide a sound rationale for your actions, you're likely a highly conscious leader.  If you have difficulty answering this question and you tend to lead spontaneously or rely more on 'gut feeling', then you're likely an unconscious leader. 

How do you build conscious leadership?  It's not that difficult.  It just requires some reflection on your leader behaviours.  On a regular basis, look back on situations you've dealt with.  Ask yourself some reflective questions like these:

• Why did I choose to respond in that way? 
• What worked?  What didn't work?  Why?
• How would I handle that differently if I were to do it again?
• What might I say differently next time?
• What was the impact on those I was dealing with?  Was this the impact I hoped for?
• What have I learned about myself as a leader? 
• Do my actions align with my values and beliefs?
• How might a leader I really admire have handled this?
• What do I need to learn that would help me be more successful another time?

Reflecting on your own actions as a leader, leads you to a state of greater consciousness about your leadership and why you lead in the way that you do.

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.  

If Learning is the Work...

As a leader, how do you support, encourage, enable learning for your staff? 

Michael Fullan tells us that "Learning is the work".  If this is the case, it has great significance for leaders.  It means that we must be aware of what learning needs to take place and then to determine the best ways to support, encourage, and enable it if we wish to create authentic learning communities.  We may even need to help our staff members understand just what this means in terms of their professional practice.  Indeed, it may also mean that we need to understand and come to terms with this in terms of our own leadership practice. 

According to Fullan (2008), "The secret behind 'learning is the work' lies in our integration of the precision needed for consistent performance (using what we already know) with the new learning required for continuous improvement." 

It's a simple statement but it requires thought about what this means and how it translates into practice in a school or organization.  It assumes that we are focused on continuous improvement in both practice and results.  It also assumes that everyone is 'on board' with this type of thinking.  As a leader, this may involve new thinking and reculturing around professional practice - for your staff and possibly even for you.

I look forward to your comments about Fullan's statement.  


From:  The Six Secrets of Change by Michael Fullan (2008)

Focus and Creativity Matter

If the following is true.....

Leaders in sustained, successful organizations focus on a small number of core priorities, stay on message, and develop others toward the same end, making corrections as new learning occurs (Fullan, 2011).

.......how, as a leader, do you:

• sustain the focus?
• stay on message?
• develop others?
• make corrections as new learning occurs?

Reflection

This blog exists as a way for leaders - in any type of organization - to read a short piece and then to reflect on it.  My hope in providing these short pieces of writing is simply to stimulate the metacognitive level of leadership.  As I was reflecting on the blog, it occurred to me that the blog is designed for leaders to reflect on their practice.  However, I have not yet asked leaders how they stimulate reflective thought in others.

So.....as a leader, how do you stimulate reflective thought in those you lead?  If there is value in reflecting on our work as leaders, how do we support those with whom we work in reflecting on their practice?  There is ample research evidence to support reflection as a growth process for learning.  Do we, as leaders, know how to stimulate reflective thought in others? 

A few favorite questions that stimulate reflection are:

• If you were to do it again, how might you do it differently?
• What do you believe you did that led to such a successful outcome?
• Why do you think he/she might have reacted like that?

If you have some suggestions for great questions that stimulate reflective thought, please post them in the Comments section for this posting. 

Developing Your Culture

What is the culture of your organization?

Darryl Connor (1993) defines cultures as "the beliefs, behaviours, and assumptions of an organization [that] serve as a guide to what are considered appropriate or inappropriate actions" for individuals and groups to engage in.  Culture operates at two levels: 1) overly, as apparent in policies and procedures and 2) covertly, reflected in "the way things are done".

Culture in an organization usually evolves over time.  The personalities of the leaders often determine the beliefs, behaviours, and assumptions that eventually become firmly established, although they may not be especially visible.  This results in what Connor (1993) calls a default culture.

It is much less common for leaders to consciously and deliberately establish the type of organizational culture that serves their needs.  As a result, new leaders often inherit a culture that doesn't support changes they want to make in the organization.  And they find out quickly that a non-supportive culture can be very inhospitable to a change initiative. 

If you are a leader of a new organization or project, you have the opportunity to build the type of culture you believe works best.  If you take over an existing entity, you have the harder task of assessing and changing the culture - a difficult but not impossible task. 

Regardless of which position you are in, here are some things to consider about your culture:

• Are the values and principles explicit so that everyone understands what is valued?
• What is the trust level in the organization?  Do people at different levels trust one another?  What do you do to make it safe for people to take risks and trust one another?
• Are people valued as individuals, or are they thought of primarily as assets or resources?
• Are people's hands, heads, and hearts wanted - or just their hands?
• Is the atmosphere informal and comfortable, or is it formal and tense?
• Are people treated equitably, or is there evidence of preferential treatment?
• Is the environment positive, with people encouraged and recognized, or is it negative, with little or no recognition and a lot of blaming?
• Does the organization freely share information, or is the flow of information tightly controlled?
• Is learning from mistakes valued, or are people more likely to be fired, blamed, or reprimanded for errors or failure?
• Is learning valued, or is it seen as a deterrent to getting the work done?
• Is the organization committed to continuous improvement, or does it change only when there is a major problem? 

From:  Leading Every Day by Joyce Kaser, Susan Mundry, Katherine E. Stiles, & Susan Loucks-Horsley
Published by: Corwin Press