WAIT - Why Am I Talking?

As a leader, do you ask yourself to WAIT?

Last week, I heard a great little acronym - WAIT - Why am I talking?  It struck me as a great message to use as a blog post.  As leaders, we need - often - to ask ourselves this question.  We need to think about why we are talking and when.  When we're speaking, we're not listening....and listening is likely a much more valuable skill for leaders than talking. 

Think about the five leadership competencies proposed by Ken Leithwood.  Leaders:

• set direction and sustain vision
• build purposeful relationships
• develop people and the organization
• manage core business
• secure accountability

Think about these 5 competencies.  For leaders to enact them, which is more important, listening or speaking?  If you believe listening is more important you're likely more inclusively minded in your leadership.  If you believe speaking is more important, you're likely more directive in your work.  Each of us chooses our own styles.  Does your style align with what you say you believe in? 

Bottom line.....ask WAIT.  A bit more listening and a lot less talking can help you know your school/organization better.  Ultimately, that will help you as a leader.

Balancing Leadership and Management

What is leadership and what is management?

Both are very important in organizational life and shouldn't be confused. 

Leadership is doing the right thing; management is doing things right.  Managers direct the hacking of a new path through the jungle; leaders make sure that they are in the right jungle.

One of the major contributions that a leader can make is to always be able to distinguish between these two important functions.  We often become so focused on the day-to-day realities of what we do that we lose sight of whether we are doing the right thing.

Leaders often have to ask the hard questions: Are we getting the best results possible?  Where can we improve?  Who is not learning and what can we do about it?  Are there ethical issues involved?  What knowlwedge and skills do our staff need, and how will they get them?  Will the proposed staff development give us what we need?  Is our strategic planning effective?  These queries will help you challenge the status quo that is often accepted without question.

Think about the leadership role you play and ask yourself the following questions:

1. Why are you doing what you are doing?
2. What data do you have to show that you are addressing the right problems and doing the right work?
3. How are you spending your time? What percentage of your day is spent on managing tasks?  What percentage of your day is focused on setting the course, engaging with others and providing leadership?
4. Are you sure you are "doing the right things" before you set up procedures to "do things right"?

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

Technical or Adaptive?

As a leader, are you engaged in technical or adaptive work?

...it was Ron Heifetz (1994) who focused attention on the concept of an adaptive challenge.  An adaptive challenge is a problem situation for which solutions lie outside current ways of operating.  This is in stark contrast to a technical problem for which the know-how already exists.  This distinction has resonance for educational reform.  Put simply, resolving a technical problem is a management issue; tackling adaptive challenges, however, requires leadership.  Often, we try to solve technical problems with adaptive processes or more commonly force technical solutions onto adaptive problems.  ...

Almost by definition, adaptive challenges demand learning, as progress here requires new ways of thinking and operating.  In these instances, it is 'people who are the problem', because an effective response to an adaptive challenge is almost always beyond the current competence of those involved.  Inevitably, this is threatening and often the prospect of adaptive work generates heat and resistance. 

Mobilizing people to meet adaptive challenges is at the heart of leadership practice.  In the short term, leadership helps people meet an immediate challenge.  In the medium to long term, leadership generates capacity to enable people to meet an ongoing stream of adaptive challenges.  Ultimately, adaptive work requires us to reflect on the moral purpose by which we seek to thrive and demands diagnostic enquiry into the realities we face that threaten the realization of those purposes. 

From: Every School a Great School by David Hopkins
Published by: McGraw Hill

Leader or Manager?

As a leader, do you characterize yourself as a leader, a manager, or a combination of the two?

Over time, the concept of 'leadership' vs. 'management' has somehow evolved into a pejorative view of management skills as a set of low-level, mundane and inferior set of skills when compared to the loftier instructional leadership skills.  The intention here is not to enter into a qualitative debate, but rather to demonstrate that an effective instructional leader needs to have well-developed management skills in order to lead effectively.  A poor manager will be hampered by broken relationships, mounds of unfinished paperwork, unmet deadlines and missing or unspent school funds. 

What follows is a synopsis of the key management skills whose absence have caused difficulty for some school leaders.

The article goes on to describe:

• communication skills
• time management
• delegation
• dispute resolution
• fiscal responsibility
• self-management

From:  Instructional Leadeship vs. Instructional Management by the OPC Professional Services Team
Published in: OPC Register - Spring 2011, Vol 13, No. 1