Helping Your Team Define How it Will Work

As a leader, how do you help your team define how it will work?

Most leaders know to help their team define goals, but the conversation shouldn't stop there. You also need to agree on the mechanics of how the team will get the work done. Here are four things that need to be clear on every team:

• Roles and responsibilities. Every member needs to know their tasks and how their work will contribute to the overall goals.
• Work processes. You don't need a notebook full of procedures, but agree on processes to carry out the basics—such as decision-making or communicating.
• Rules of engagement. Establish a constructive team culture. Discuss the shared values, norms, and beliefs that will shape the daily give-and-take between team members.
• Performance metrics. How will you measure team progress? Define the measures for meeting the goals, and the consequences for not meeting them.

Adapted from "For Your Team's Success, Remember the How" by Linda Hill & Kent Lineback.

With a Global Clientele, Learn to Master Cultural Norms

As a leader, how do you respond when working with people from a culture that is unfamiliar?

If you find you're working with people from a culture with which you are unfamiliar, as a leader, you have to modify your behavior to fit cultural norms. This can be tough, especially if it makes you feel inauthentic. If you face this discomfort, try these four things:

• Identify the challenge. Pinpoint what's making you uneasy. For example, in a culture that values a top-down leadership style, are you struggling to provide clear directives?  If so, how might you manage that?
• Adjust your behavior. Make small but meaningful adjustments that both reflect the culture you're working with while staying true to your values. You don't have to mimic behaviours, but could you adjust your own behaviours to be more reflective of those with whom you work?
• Learn.  As the leader, you need to learn what the cultural norms are.  Do what you need to do to understand what the cultural norms are.  Understanding the differences helps to build bridges.
• Recognize the value. While you may need to behave in counterintuitive ways, focus on the desired outcomes of your interactions.

Adapted from "Three Skills Every 21st-Century Manager Needs" by Andrew L. Molinsky, Thomas H. Davenport, Bala Iyer, and Cathy Davidson.

Workplace Politics - Engage or Avoid?

As a leader, do you avoid or engage in workplace politics?

Many leaders hate office politics....while others love them.  But avoiding them altogether may end up with you 'out of the loop'. If you've ever worked for a leader who lacked clout or credibility, you understand the risks. As a leader, you're responsible for building productive relationships throughout the workplace so you can influence and support people beyond your immediate sphere. But you can avoid "playing politics" while building the influence you need. Keep your efforts clearly focused on the ultimate good of the school/organization. Work with others for school/organizational advantage, not just your own. And always conduct yourself according to your personal values and beliefs, no matter what others do.


Adapted from "Stop Avoiding Office Politics" by Linda Hill & Kent Lineback.

When you need to apologize

As a leader, when you need to apologize, how do you do it?

When your school/organization messes up, avoid the half-hearted, half-baked apology. Instead craft a clear, strategic message that explains what went wrong and how you're rectifying the situation. Here are three tips for doing that:

• Keep it simple. Get to the point and don't deviate. Don't include any veiled attempts to shirk responsibility or appease people. You'll just upset stakeholders (those you serve as well as your own staff) and muddle the message.
• Mean what you say, and say what you mean. If you're truly sorry for your school's/organization's actions, say so and leave it at that. Avoid clarifying phrases and long, self-lauding explanations.
• Reaffirm your school's / organization's core values. Reaffirm what you stand for and communicate how you intend to bring the school/organization back to the values that guided it to success in the first place.

Adapted from "Smart Apologies Should Be Strategic" by Rosanna M. Fiske.

Take the Work Seriously, not Yourself

As a leader, are you taking the work seriously...or yourself?

If you are serving as a leader, you probably got to where you are because you sought out a leadership position.  Fortunately, many leaders are highly committed to the work they do.  They are motivated by the work, it aligns with their values, and they believe that the work is important.  Unfortunately, we occasionally find leaders who take themselves a bit too seriously.  These are the folks who like the title, the nice office, or sadly, the positional power.  These are the folks we follow not because they motivate or inspire us but because we must.  They are our bosses, not our leaders.

What kind of leader are you?  If a random sampling of your staff members were asked, would they identify you as someone who is highly committed to the important work of your school/organization?  Would they describe you as someone whose actions are driven by commitment to the work?  Or would they see you as someone more interested in themselves and their career? 

As you think about your own leadership.  Pause every once in a while and ask yourself if your words and actions - at any moment of any day - are motivated by a strong belief in the importance of the work you are doing or are motivated by some personal benefit that you may gain.  You will know the answers to these questions and you'll need to respond accordingly.  However, keep in mind the old saying: Don't worry whether they are listening to you or not.  Worry that they are watching.  If you have difficulty answering the question above, don't worry.  Those you lead can always answer it accurately. 

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.

The Big Picture

As a leader, how much of 'the big picture' do you share with your staff?

As a leader, it's essential to have 'the big picture' of where your school/organization fits within the larger purposes of the system in which it is situated.  More importantly, as a leader, it's essential for you to have 'the big picture' of where your work and the work of your staff fits.  The question that arises for us as leaders is, How do we support staff in building their understanding of where their work fits within a larger, purposeful context?

None of us likes to work in a situation where we don’t see how our work connects to things that we believe to be of value or to be important.  As leaders, we need to provide opportunities for our staff to engage in conversations where connections are made to what is important outside the walls of the workplace.  If our work feels out of context or disconnected, it becomes meaningless.  Where is our motivation if we don’t see that our work adds value to any thing or any one?  As a leader, do the people you lead have the big picture of where their work fits both within the larger organization and within a greater purpose?  If not, this is an important opportunity for you as the leader to provide opportunities for staff to reconnect with why they chose to work in your school/organization.  Reconnecting to purpose can breathe new life into each of us.  The big picture can help each of locate ourselves within our work and within an important purpose.

Stop Complaining

As a leader, do you have a tendency to complain?

As leaders, we face daily challenges.  These challenges can be difficult for us because they draw on our skills, our knowledge, our beliefs, our values about the work we do, and in some cases, our patience.  We can handle challenges that demand skills, knowledge, beliefs, and values.  We can learn the skills and knowledge we need.  Beliefs and values may be tested but if we hold them dear, they won't weaken.  Patience, though, can be tough.  At times, our patience is tried by the range of challenges we face.  When patience is tried, we can slip into complaining.  When patience is often tried, we can slip into complaining often.  In fact, complaining can become a habit. 

Is complaining just blowing off steam?  That might be a convenient excuse to use to justify our complaining.  However, we need to consider those whom we serve (students, parents, communities) and those who follow us (our staff).  What is the impact of our complaining on them? 

As leaders, we hope to inspire both those whom we serve and those we lead but if we slip into the habit of complaining, the impact on staff can be far-reaching.  When leaders complain, staff can become demoralized, unmotivated, cynical, even fearful.  Worse, staff may not want to bring forward important issues for fear of the impact on you as leader.  The potential for a downward spiral in the culture of the workplace is evident. 

Next time you feel like voicing your complaints, consider who's listening.  What impact might your complaints have on them?

Your Values

What are your values as a leader?  Every leader has both personal and professional values.  As a leader, how are your values made evident in your school/organization and - more significantly - through the work that you do?  Do your staff and the students you serve know your values?  Do they know what what's truly important to you in terms of the work you do?  If not, you are losing a great opportunity for organizational growth.  If they do know your values, how might this benefit the work of your school/organization? 

More on Leadership and Moral Imperative

As a leader, what does moral imperative look like in your leadership?

School leadership is serious business.  It takes a combination of clear personal values, persistence against a lot of odds, emotional intelligence, thick skin, and resilience.  It also takes a knack for focusing on the right things and for problem solving.  We will see plenty of named cases of this in action, but let us realize that the best leaders have strong values and are skilled at strategy.  Attila the Hun and Hitler meet this definition.  Leaders with moral purpose, on the other hand, have a different content - deep commitment to raising the bar and closing the gap for all students. 

Leaders need to support, activate, extract, and galvanize the moral commitment that is in the vast majority of teachers.  Most teachers want to make a difference, and they especially like leaders who help them and their colleagues achieve success in terrible circumstances.  Revealingly, once this process is under way, teachers as a group value leaders who help the hardcore resistant teachers leave.  When this happens, the cohesion of the rest of the staff actually increases (Bryk, Bender, Sebring, Allensworth, Luppescu, & Easton, 2010; Linton, 2011).

From:  The Moral Imperative Realized by Michael Fullan

Published by: Corwin Press and OPC (the Ontario Principals' Council)

Visionary Leadership

As a leader, do you know where you are going, why, and with whom?

Change is Constant

Positive action: Know where you are going; Know why you are going there; and Know who is going with you.

There are a great many books  on visionary leadership.  They each present their own philosophical perspective, often accompanied by wonderfully quotable quotes.  Yet, visionary leadership really boils down to a few specifics for leaders: vision, values, and visibility.

Vision: Know where you are going

Values: Know why you are going there

Visibility: Know who is going with you

From: Ten Principles for New Principals by Mark Joel
Published by: Robin Fogarty & Associates