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New Year’s Resolutions

Posted in Leadership, Parents, Professional Teams, Teaching and Learning on December 31, 2012 | 1 Comment »

 

 

 

“Teaching is an instinctual act, mindful of potential, craving of realizations, a pausing, seamless process, where one rehearses constantly while acting, sits as a spectator at a play one directs, engages every part in order to keep choices open and the shape alive for the student, so that the student may enter in and begin to do what the teacher has done:  make choices.”

     -  A. Bartlett Giamatti

 

highwayPlease accept my Best Wishes for a terrific 2013. 

 

As we return to our professional work following our Christmas Break I thought I would pen a different version of my professional resolutions for 2013.  I make them public in the hope that we can collaboratively work together  to find many successes throughout the year.

 

One of my reflections during the holidays was a reminder of how human is our profession.  We can build new schools, alter bus routes, develop new technologies, but in the end, it is the human interactions in the classroom and the school that drives our educational endeavours.  Let’s hope that we as teachers in the upcoming year can see improvements in the following:

     1.  More supportive emotional climates for all learners.

     2.  Strategies to enhance mastery of content, skills and concepts.

     3.  New ways for learners to apply their knowledge

     4.  Better use of formative and summative assessments of learners and systems.

     5.  Enhancements of the professional capital of all associated with our district and profession.

 

Young learners are with us for part of the day and we accept our responsibilities as educators as part of a collaborative pact with parents, guardians and the community.  Another resolution for consideration is an enhanced partnership with parents.  I hope:

     1.  We further develop trust with all parents and guardians.

     2.  Provide welcoming environments to our parent partners.

     3.  We find ways to include parents as partners in providing academic support for their children.

     4.  We can reduce the structural and psychological barriers to increased parental participation in our classrooms and schools.

 

In return I hope parents can find ways to better support teachers and schools, enhance their roles in developing student self-discipline and provide better information on their children for our consideration.

 

Resolutions should speak to moral purpose and directions.  With this in mind I hope for:

     1.  More instructional leaders in our district.

     2.  Continued development of Social responsibility as a way of being.

     3.  Better and more adult learning.

     4.  More knowledge and understanding of how to approach and integrate the requirements of 21st Century into  our classrooms.

 

Students have a huge responsibility to support their own learning.  My hope is that they find opportunities for enhanced

     1.  engagement, participation and learning

 

In the end my resolutions remain the same as they have for over 37 years as a professional.  I wish to be the best teacher, connected to the best system serving students and families.  Not too much to wish for I hope.

Enjoy 2013

 

“We do not believe in ourselves until someone reveals deep inside us that something is valuable, worth listening to, worthy of our trust….. Once we believe in ourselves we can risk curiosity, wonder, spontaneous delight or any experience that reveals the human spirit.”

     -     e.e  cummings

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A Community Working Together

Posted in Change, Leadership, Professional Teams on December 11, 2012 | Leave a Comment »

bright idea

“There is no particular substantive reform I would recommend  — because no single reform will account for much difference.  If has to be an array of reforms orchestrated at the community level and involving a joining of schools and universities, as well as a much closer relationship between community and school than we’ve been having in the last few decades.”     -     John Goodlad

As a community we continue to deal with the tragedy of losing a student to suicide. In speaking to Carol Todd recently she informed me that she was busy meeting with individuals and groups in the community to ensure that the passing of her daughter Amanda would not be forgotten and that her legacy would be improved conditions for young adults. The discussion was comforting and personal as both of us lamented the passing of a daughter but also because we were both looking for lessons learned and how to develop individual and collective responses to the tragic loss of Amanda.

We feel the loss of Amanda as a wound that continues to hurt and affect us all. We recognize the harsh reality of this wound, but our expressed hope is to encourage people to think about their experiences with a feeling of compassion and responsibility. It is only through this type of concerted action that the wound will eventually heal.

It is commendable to see the many leaders in our community trying to find solutions to the issues that many of the young learners in our community deal with. From bullying, social isolation and loneliness to mental health and poverty I see many individuals investing time and energy to find solutions to these difficult situations. Municipal leaders such as Mayor Moore in Port Coquitlam are gathering momentum in their community to deal with the issue of bullying. They are organizing a walk to raise awareness and developing a legal strategy to deal with acts of bullying.

Mothers like  Carol are raising awareness of the various aspects of this issue in ways that honour young adults but provide us with the possibility of action that will make our communities safer for all.

What is the response of a school district and its many leaders?

Our continued and ongoing efforts are to create an environment where all, including students, staff and parents feel respected and safe. We cannot create such an environment by individual acts of courage alone. We need a holistic, active and engaged set of strategies that include all of us looking at the many elements of our environment. We must pay attention to the physical environment and to the social routines of our classrooms and schools. As Cindi Seddon, a principal in our district indicated during an interview with the media, developing a safe haven for students includes building a positive and safe school climate. Such a climate requires that educators find ways to build student and educator attachment to each other, their schools, their district and their communities. This can be achieved through personal and professional relationships and by assuming responsibilities in the civic and extracurricular lives of our schools.

Currently we have a district representative committee meeting on a regular basis to develop an overarching and inclusive strategy on school safety. It will include an orientation to expectations, routines and strategies to develop safe and inclusive learning environments for all. It will look at the task from an appreciative perspective and I look forward to working with our organization in a combined effort to effect positive change in our schools and communities. 

90“  To put the world right in order, we must first put the nation in order; to put the nation in order, we must first put the family in order; to put the family in order, we must first cultivate our personal life; we must first set our hearts right.”   -     Confucius

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Team-building

Posted in Leadership, Professional Teams on November 14, 2012 | Leave a Comment »

“The whole is greater than the sum of its parts”

No one says teambuilding is easy.  It takes work to get a team functioning well.  There are specific strategies that help individuals get the most out of teamwork and all contribute to the success of the team:     – Daniel Stamp

I recently reread the book the “Five Dysfunctions of a Team” by Patrick Lencioni in an attempt to review and reflect on my skills in building teams.  The five dysfunctions are:

1.  Absence of Trust.  Strong teams are composed of individuals who trust each other on a fundamental level and remain vulnerable to each other in an attempt to accomplish team goals.

2.  Fear of Conflict.  Strong teams are not afraid to engage in passionate dialogue prior to making decisions.

3.  Lack of Commitment.  Powerful teams are able to achieve genuine buy in around important group decisions.

4.  Avoidance of Accountability.  Strong teams are accountable for group decisions.

5.  Inattention to Results.  Highly functioning teams are able to set aside personal agendas and focus on what is best for the team. 

It is important for each of us as members of teams to understand that we have a responsibility in working strategically in developing the best teams possible.  We cannot simply join a team and think that without intense commitment and strategic action the team will develop.  There are strategies that teams must commit to in order to be effective. I present for your review some suggestions on teambuilding that I have collected recently.   

Daniel Stamp reminds us that teams need to:

· articulate their goals

· communicate well

· plan better meetings

· commit to learning

· learn to be both leaders and followers

· trust teammates

· look for win:win opportunities

Jon Katzenbach and Douglas Smith in “The Discipline of Teams”  articulate that a team’s essential discipline comprises five characteristics.  These include:

· A meaningful common purpose that the team has helped shape

· Specific performance goals that flow from the common purpose

· A mix of complementary skills

· A strong commitment to how the work gets done

· Mutual accountability

Susan Wheelan, in her book, Faculty Groups, From Frustration to Collaboration outlines four stages of group development and leadership strategies to assess, and help groups improve their performance.  From the author’s perspective effective team building:

· Educates team members about group development

· Educates team members about the characteristics of effective teams

· Educates leaders on strategies to support group development

· Includes structured methods so that team members, not facilitators or consultants, decide what to do to improve their performance

· Occurs when members decide what steps to take to improve team performance

· Occurs when members commit to implementing plans they have developed

The author further suggests there is no evidence that strategies focused of individuals; individual performance, personality incompatibilities, personality types, interpersonal relationships, or emotional issues have any positive effects on team performance.

Many authors present profiles on highly functioning teams that can be used to self-reflect on how the team is doing.  Perhaps the first place to begin would be team meetings.  This is a tangible function of a team that can be improved through communal work.  Through the actual work of the team, the team can get better.

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SYSTEM FRAMEWORKS

Posted in Change, Leadership, Professional Teams, Teaching and Learning on June 8, 2012 | Leave a Comment »

“A teacher who understands the conditions that make people want to learn – want to read, to write, and do sums – is in a position to turn these activities into flow experiences. When the experience becomes intrinsically rewarding, students’ motivation is engaged, and they are on their way to a lifetime of self-propelled acquisition of knowledge.” – Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

I recently spent a day in a workshop examining leadership and governance and the associated communication required to keep a team invested, knowledgeable and connected.
During the day I was impressed by the level of discussion and surprised at times with the discovery of solutions through collaborative processes. Through our work I was reminded:
• Developing and sustaining a community of learners is continuous, and rewarding work
• We should remember to review and renew our community and its processes for newer members
• Educational communities have a history and should continually evolve and co-create knowledge
• Never forget the power of appreciative inquiry
• 90% of accountability is affirmation
These were valuable reminders for leaders charged with helping develop a high achieving school system. Luckily, in my position I get to see manifestations of each on a daily basis. While they do not form a framework for leadership they do form part of the orientation our school system has accepted as part of its development going forward.
Following our workshop, I was motivated to review lessons learned by others involved in systemic organization and growth. McGuinty (2012) reminds us:
Lesson 1. The drive to make progress in our schools can’t be a fad
Lesson 2. Education reform is not important to your government unless it’s important to the head of your government – personally
Lesson 3. You won’t get results unless teachers are onside
Lesson 4. To succeed you need to build capacity
Lesson 5. Settle on a few priorities and pursue them relentlessly
Lesson 6. Once you start making progress, you’ve got permission to invest more
Lesson 7. You’re never done
Lesson 8. The best way to sustain your effort to improve schools is to keep it personal
While McGuinty doesn’t propose a framework, his lessons do provide guidance to our collaborative actions.
If we continue to learn and build on the appropriate ideas of others and connect people’s hearts to the work we do we will continue to develop collaboratively a system built on a “Dream”.

“The secret of change is to focus all your energy, not on fighting the old, but on building the new.” – Socrates

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PROFESSIONAL LEARNING AND EMPLOYEE SUPORT

Posted in Leadership, Professional Teams, Teaching and Learning on May 24, 2012 | 2 Comments »

“For good teaching rests neither in accumulating a shelf of knowledge nor in developing a repertoire of skills. In the end, good teaching lies in a willingness to attend and care for what happens in our students, ourselves, and the space between us.”
Laurent Daloz

I had the pleasure to address a group of Coquitlam and Richmond teachers completing a Mentorship Training Program facilitated by Bruce Wellman. It was amazing to see the level of engagement and commitment of these educators extending their skills in the area of Mentorship and Coaching.

I have just begun to read Andy Hargreaves new book written in collaboration with Michael Fullan. The premise of their book “Professional Capital” from my understanding is that we can improve student learning by positively impacting the capacity and skill of all teachers in a school or district. It is not a singular proposition. The work of all of us as educational leaders is to figure out how to collaboratively support better teaching. Mentorship and coaching skills will be requisite for all system leaders if we are to achieve this goal.

If we expect teachers to enhance their professional practices then we need to provide different knowledge and skills than we have provided in the past. As systems we need to commit to professional learning and Doug Reeves in his book Transforming Professional Development into Student Results (2010) suggests that our focus should be on high-impact professional learning that focuses on student learning, and on people and their practices.

He states:
“We know what effective professional learning looks like. It is intensive and sustained, it is directly relevant to the needs of teachers and students, and it provides opportunities for application, practice, reflection, and reinforcement.

We also know what it doesn’t look like: death by Power Point, ponderous lectures from people who have not been alone with a group of students for decades, and high-decibel whining about the state of (take your pick) children, parents, teachers, public education and Western civilization.”

If we can support professional learning with a high level of emotional commitment to each other as valued professionals we can truly improve learning. Stallard and Pankam in a Leader to Leader article (Winter, 2008) suggested the following practical ways a leader can add the element of human value to our work environment.
1. Help employees understand the basic psychological needs of people.
2. Make a connection with as many people as possible.
3. Treat and speak to employees as partners.
4. Help employees find the right roles.
5. Educate, inform and listen to employees.
6. De-centralize decision making.
7. Recognize the need for work-life balance.
They further indicate that leaders should eliminate behaviours and attitudes that do harm to people by devaluing them.
1. Eliminate disrespectful, condescending and rude behavior.
2. Go easy on criticism.
3. Minimize unnecessary rules and excessive controls.
4. Eliminate excessive signs of hierarchy.

Wise suggestions which employed in concert with professional learning are bound to result in greater achievements.

“Are we doing enough to take the ‘hero’s journey’ and become agents for the future? Or were our individual identities so dependent on our existing competencies and skills – and so entwined with the established structure – that change, deep or otherwise, was simply not an option?” – Tom Jones

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LEADERSHIP AND TEAMS

Posted in Leadership, Professional Teams on February 17, 2012 | Leave a Comment »

“The effective functioning of social systems is assumed to be dependent on the quality of their leadership” – Victor Vroom

I have always found Doug Reeves to be one of my most favourite writers. He has the ability to synthesize research so that it make sense to me and also to help me understand simple lessons on leadership and other educational topics. In one of his recent books, The Learning Leader, Reeves articulates that there is a significant body of research that suggests that there is great hope for raising the achievement levels for all learners. Much of the research rests on leaders assuming the responsibility to lead and to do so in effective and collaborative ways. The primary conclusions of the research from his perspective are as follows:

1. Leadership. Teaching and adult action matter. This is not pablum, but from his perspective a statistical truth. While it is true that demographic variables are directly linked to student learning, it is also true that adult variables, including the professional practices of teachers and the decisions leaders make, can be as important as demographic variables. ACT on behalf of learners.
2. There are particular leadership actions that show demonstrable links to improved student achievement and educational equity. Reeves’ research suggests that excessive emphasis on school improvement plans is misplaced unless those plans are associated with very specific elements. These include:
• Inquiry
• Implementation
• Monitoring
3. Leadership is neither a unitary skill set nor a solitary activity.

If leadership is not a solitary activity, it is an application of certain skills in concert with others. John Glasser has helped me understand the application of leadership to working with and for teams.

Generally norms are created to specifically address negative interactions that are impeding group effectiveness. According to Glasser, an easy way to norm a group is to dialogue about the kinds of behavior that is hindering the group from performing effectively together. Some of his suggestions include:

1. Clarify the purpose of the team and the ground rules for interactions.
2. Always review the ground rules and invite comment, discussions and changes.
3. Publish the rules and process mechanisms for ensuring that team norms are enforced.

Through his book, Leading Through Collaboration, Guiding Groups to Productive Solutions (Corwin Press, 2005) Glaser makes the connection between the work of Reeves and his sense that our adult actions matter and how to harness that principle in our work as leader or facilitator with groups we are accountable to. He also reminds us that we are all leaders.

“It’s a little like wrestling a gorilla. You don’t quit when you are tired – you quit when the gorilla is tired.” – Robert Strauss

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LEADERSHIP LESSONS

Posted in Leadership, Professional Teams on February 3, 2012 | 1 Comment »

“There is Nothing stronger that gentleness” – Abraham Lincoln

Virtually all of the successes we have realized as an educational organization over the past few years is a direct result of the power of collaboration. The power of “we” is realized daily in our classrooms, our schools and our district. Projects such as the opening of Mandarin Bi-Lingual programs, the development of a Reggio Program, the evolution of Middle Schools, the development of new prototype models of service delivery such as I-HUB, the planning and development of new buildings that serve our Dream of “Learning Beyond Boundaries” would have been accomplished without a commitment to solving problems or implementing initiatives collaboratively.

In her book Learning From the Best , Sandra Harris (Corwin Press, 2009) suggests that the essence of leadership is collaborative; it is about establishing relationships, then managing those relationships through the practice of key principles. These include trust, passion, courage, the common good, a focus on performance, and keeping it real. She explained these principles in more detail in her book

• Trust : Maintaining a trusting relationship ensures a solid, productive working culture. When the trust is broken, everyone in the district pays for it for years to come.
• Passion : Passion is an essential motivating force because there is no substitute large enough to move us to do the great things we do for young learners every day.
• Courage : Courage requires trusting in and empowering others. It takes courage to ask the tough questions while giving the difficult answers. It takes courage to find win-win solutions to the day-to-day problems.
• The Common Good : Balancing the needs of all stakeholders is an almost impossible task, yet the honest attempt to do things for the common good reaps benefits far beyond what the latest and greatest strategic plan might promise.
• Focus on Performance : Over the past few years, we have learned how the power of focus and the results it yields has the capacity to transform a school. We must ask and answer the “so what?” question with every practice and every program in our district.
• Keeping it Real : Being honest and forthright even when it might appear to be to your disadvantage is about being real. This is what it means to define oneself as a real person and a real leader.

Through good and bad experiences, I have learned to appreciate the impact that a grassroots, collaborative leadership style has on what schools and school districts desire most: getting good results for each and every learner. Through these lessons, I have learned how the power of “we” rather than the genius of “me” has a multiplier effect on the human capital of an educational organization. Finally, I have seen this power allow our district to be in the best possible position to do the right thing, at the right time, and always, for the right reasons.

In one of his recent books, All Systems Go, (Corwin Press, 2010) Michael Fullan articulates leadership from the perspective of being resolute in the application of principle and implementation. He also suggests that leadership is about purpose and action. His summary of lessons learned by Dalton McGuinty, premier of Ontario, is worth repeating. His learned lessons on leadership and education include:

Lesson 1 : The drive to make progress in our schools can’t be a fad.

Lesson 2 : Education reform is not important to your government unless it’s important to the head of your government – personally.

Lesson 3 : You won’t get results unless teachers are onside.

Lesson 4 : Don’t forget the hard part; You must improve your teaching.

Lesson 5 ; If you want to achieve your goals, you need to keep up the pressure all the time.

Lesson 6 ; Once you start making progress, you’ve got permission to invest more.

Lesson 7 ; The best way to sustain your effort to improve schools is to keep it personal.

Passionate, collaborative leadership is a necessity to the achievement of outcome for learners. In any examination of leadership there is always a process of self-reflection on personal attributes. Peter Drucker clearly articulate the Four Competencies” of leaders in simple language. As leaders we must be able to listen, communicate, do not alibi, and subordinate themselves to the task at hand.

The message for me in these articles or books is that effective leaders must have the capacity to maintain their personality and individuality while at the same time acting as part of a collective. Another lesson learned.

“The greatest discovery of my generation is that man can alter his life simply by altering his attitude of mind.” – William James

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BEGINNING A NEW YEAR

Posted in Change, Leadership, Personalized Learning, Professional Teams, Teaching and Learning on January 6, 2012 | Leave a Comment »

  • “The secret is to work less as individuals and more as a team. As a coach, I play not my eleven best, but my best eleven.” – Knute Rockne

Happy New Year and welcome back from your vacations.

As we begin a new year I thought it would be interesting to reflect on my recent aha moments as a professional. This will be a random review of some memorable items I have read or heard. I hope they have some use for you the reader.

From Steven Johnson who wrote “Where Good Ideas Come From” I was reminded that innovations are rarely a result of a solitary imagination at work. Most of the time innovations are the result of a slow hunch, influenced by many others and lots of ideas that percolate over time.

From Michael Fullan through presentations and his recent books I have been reminded that our work as educational leaders is very complex. He always so clearly articulates the work of leadership for me. As he suggests we need to identify the few things that matter most; know how to leverage our skills in ways that benefit our entire organization and how to act with purpose and empathy. In observing our district at work, I can clearly visualize his thoughts in the way we organize professional learning, motivate each other and learn by doing.

From the work or of “Strong Classrooms, Strong Schools” project I observed the power of intense collaboration and the importance of leaders participating as learners. I hope to help others learn of the work of these terrific educators.

From our collaborative work with Principals, Vice Principals and District Leaders who are working on a Professional Growth Plan Model, I am again reminded that good ideas need to be implemented properly. However I must always be aware of the implementation dip. Through deliberate practice and resolute focus on our ultimate aim of developing this process properly, we will have impact on learning and teaching.

From our collaborative work on “Learning Without Boundaries” I am always struck by the power of our work. Our focus on learning success for every learner, every day, and without exception is the basis for our successful collaborative efforts. Our outcomes as a learning organization that has achieved a student completion rate of 91% is testament to the power of capacity development and the harnessing of potential as learners and teachers.

From some very innovative teachers I have observed that you get better through practice, you provide opportunity for learners to make their learning public, provide opportunities to excel, and reap greater outcomes for students.

Building collaborative cultures is so important as we communally develop a school system focused on learning. Our leaders, coordinators, support staff, teachers, parents and students work together on precise goals. In Kindergarten I learned the value of working together and I sincerely hope that we continue to apply these collaborative skills on a daily basis.

From McKinsey in his study ( http://www.mckinsey.org ) “How the World’s Most Improved School Systems Keep Getting Better” I was again reminded of interventions that lead to success. Capacity development, flexible and thin plans that guide others, communication, a focus on learning, and collaboration are all important aspects of our work as a good organization working to excellence.

Christopher Doyle surprised me with his suggestion that educators make bad prognosticators of the future. His argument suggests that much of our zeal for 21st Century Learning is fueled by business and political leadership . According to Doyle we would do better by asking artists, psychologists, environmentalists and physicists to be part of the debate on where we are headed and how to get there.

I was intrigued by the white paper written by Valerie Hannon and others for Cisco. In “Developing an Innovation Ecosystem for Education” they reminded me that there are contextual pressures on education as we enter the 21st Century. Their framework suggests that we respond to the pressures by re-engaging in learning and not just with and through school, that we mine our present landscape for successful innovations, find new innovations to support learners and develop networks to share and learn from each other. I feel we are moving in the right direction in Coquitlam.

I would like to finish this blog with a reference to the strategy I learned from my examination of Reggio Emilia philosophy. Prior to organizing a Reggio influenced classroom, program or school, the community must come together and make explicit their “image of the learner”. This strategy helped me to better frame my individual orientation to schooling and learning. By a public expression of a view of the positive elements of children and learners, we are better able to focus on our Dream of “Learning Without Boundaries”.

“However beautiful the strategy, you should occasionally look at the results.” – Winston Churchill

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SUCCESSFUL SCHOOLS THROUGH COLLABORATIVE LEADERSHIP

Posted in Change, Leadership, Professional Teams on November 25, 2011 | 1 Comment »

“I look at each year in basketball as an integral part of life. Each season is a journey. Every journey is a lifetime.”
- Mike Krzyzewski

I recently reviewed an impressive list of achievements of student athletes in our district. It was very impressive indeed. Their success is the result of talent and commitment, family support and a collaborative team of teachers and coaches. These teachers and other professional staff are the same group of professionals who also develop communities to support learning in our district.

It takes a village to raise a child. Many leaders have communicated these words of wisdom. They remind us that we can envision, implement and achieve much more when collaboration is a key factor in our everyday participation in society. Collaboration is an important key to success for all students. It is an essential ingredient in an educational environment that demands nothing less than that every student can and will learn in our classrooms. That is the essence of our DREAM. We must work together to build communities that are conducive to sharing ideas, knowledge, theories and information. Only within these communities will our system develop to its optimum and further help our students achieve at their optimum level in all instances, and reap the benefits of the experiences of those around them. We must openly communicate about what is working well and about areas in which we need to improve – in our pedagogy, instructional practice, assessment and all components of student and adult learning.

Randi Stone and Pru Cuper in their book, Best Practices for Teacher Leadership, (Corwin Press, 2006) proposed the following activities and actions for members of Collaborative Teams.
1. Create a Vision Statement and Strategic Plan

If we want to know the path on which we will travel, we must first choose a destination. This is an opportunity for educational leaders to engage in a dialogue with the other members of their school and district community. We have collaboratively developed out DREAM statement which for us encompasses all that we will work to change, improve and maintain over the course of the next few school years. Our DREAM of “Learning without Boundaries” speaks to our commitment to the success for all learners in life and not just in school.

2. Implement Your DREAM

Once a community has created its DREAM, it is incumbent on the team to collaborative implementation of that plan. We are extremely blessed in our district to have such a large group of leaders which includes administrators and teachers in our schools. We are also extremely lucky to work with the strong group of coordinators of Staff Development and Student Services. They continually remind me of the power of competence and knowledge tempered with the appropriate process and theory. It is the appointed and self proclaimed leaders of our district that help guide us to implement our DREAM.

Early in my career as a teacher, I was introduced to the work of John Glasser by my mentors. Glasser, better known for his theories on student discipline and self regulation, also examined effective collaborative teams. In his book Leading Through Collaboration: Building Groups to Productive Solutions, Glasser describes great teams as those with a particular chemistry, based on such qualities as:

a) Joint commitment to shared goals
b) Trust of all members to understand their roles and get the job done
c) Shifting leadership based on task and circumstance
d) Excellent communications
e) Understanding each other’s needs and perspectives
f) A sense of humour
g) Willingness to set aside differences and to work together for the greater good

According to Mr. Glaser, none of these qualities suggests an unusual alignment of dynamic elements, but the combination of the characteristics implies that there is something happening that causes each individual to let go of his or her view of the world to become part of something bigger and broader. He further suggests that there are four fundamental elements for creating coherence within teams and groups. Acquired en masse, with the appropriate tools, they offer some powerful skills for producing agreements in groups of all kinds. The fundamentals include:

a) Aligning the team
b) Focusing on the vision
c) Searching for solutions
d) Reaching agreements.
Glaser offers a comprehensive set of tools leaders can use to facilitate powerful processes that help diverse constituencies generate and own solutions. Glasser could have been describing the dynamic, collaborative, teacher led teams that support student athletes and all learners in our district.

“Enthusiasm, that certain something that pulls us out of the mediocre and commonplace, and fills us with power. If we have it, we should thank God for it. If we don’t have it, we should get down on our knees and pray for it.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

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10 Skills for Successful School Leaders

Posted in Change, Leadership, Professional Teams on September 12, 2011 | Leave a Comment »

“The will to win is important, but the will to prepare is vital.” – Joe Paterno

Despite all the challenges we face as educational leaders, there are still numerous inspirational forces within our schools and district networks. One such inspiration is a belief in process and to outcomes. How do we help ourselves and other leaders become more effective and efficient?
To this day I still recall the voice of a particularly good mentor who would always remind me to “trust the process”. It is the same reminder I hear in my study of “Analytic Processes” and from other wiser colleagues. Like Luke Skywalker’s ability to “trust the force” teacher leaders who trust process become more efficient and capable as leaders. In their recent book 10 Skills for Successful School Leaders,  NASSP, 2010,  used a process circle to guide action.

The authors suggest that at the heart of any school initiative lies a focus on individual development for every member of every team. The circle can also guide the analysis and assessment of a leader’s needs and strengths as well.
They contend that school leaders should be the model and driving force in the school or network behind personal development, professional learning and school improvement initiatives.
The effective leader uses the steps in the “processes circle” for these contexts and must develop capacity and abilities with each step of the process. According to them each step has a skill set that can be developed or improved and therefore mastery at each step can guide a school plan or an individual’s “Professional Growth Plan.”

For more in depth discussion and analysis of the steps in the process refer to: 10 Skills For Successful School Leaders; NASSP, 2010

“Complacency is the last hurdle standing between a team and its potential greatness.” – Pat Riley

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