Author: janine

Every person in your team wants to feel KNOWN, VALUED and BELONG. It’s your job as their leader to bring these feelings to life in every member of your team and your highway to success is in Term 1. I wrote about this in last week’s Monday Motivation (if you missed it you can find it on my website HERE).

We lead by influence, through showing people what we value. They will see this through our conversations, our actions and our decisions.

The first term of any new team is when the norms are set, processes and systems are laid down and importantly when relationships form.

Maya Angelou famously said

“I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”

It is your role as the leader of your team to ensure every team member feels like they are KNOWN, VALUED and BELONG.

This happens through conversation. (Not through email!)

A great approach is to sit down with every member of your team ( plan it across the term) and get to know them by asking a few questions. Not too many as this can be overwhelming. Too many questions makes people feel suspicion rather than involved. Perhaps choose no more than 5 questions that will provide you with insights about each person that will help you to know more about them, to allow you to identify their value to you, the team and therefore the organisation, and for them to feel part of the team, so they feel they belong.

Of course a trusted team leader is also willing to share a little about themselves. You will need to be comfortable with a little vulnerability about you, perhaps what’s important to you, what you love about your work and your genuine desire to help them in their role or career ( it needs to be genuine – don’t go here if this is not true for you, or they will see through you in only a matter of weeks).

As I was coaching a leader, perhaps 2 years ago, we devised some great questions to ask. Here they are. Feel free to alter them to suit your needs. Choose just 5 questions. Alter the style to better suit you but keep the questions open.

Getting to Know your Team Members.

• What initially brought you to teaching as your profession?
• What is it about your job that you particularly enjoy?
• What is something you are particularly proud of in your career so far?
• Share with me something about home for you. If you feel like this is too personal and you prefer not to respond, I understand. Just say ‘Pass’*.
• What is/are your favourite teaching topic/s?
• What is working well in the department and what isn’t?
• What are some improvement suggestions for the year ahead?
•  What are you worried about for the year ahead (work related)?
• Where would you like to be support or what help do you need?
• How do you want me to support you this year?
• In what areas would you like to grow professionally?

* My mother always said ‘Pass’ when she didn’t have, or want to provide, an answer. I’ve adopted this approach too. She loved game shows and probably picked it up from there.

What are you going to do this week to get to know your team members so they feel known, valued and belong? Have a good week.

Please share this with your colleagues. New people can subscribe here.

Thank you to those who have shared with me their appreciation of the Monday Motivation from last week. It is always important for me to know that my work is making a difference in your life and leadership. Please keep them coming.

____________________________________

I have been doing work on my website and there are some new pages that you will enjoy.

1. Events – we have mapped out the whole year for you so you can match your calendar with which programs are available at that time.
2. Shop – all of our products are now listed on one page. If they have multiple dates, you can see them once you click the icon.
3. Monday Motivation – I have been gradually uploading the Monday Motivations from last year onto the Blog page. This page will continue to grow.
4. Podcasts – Recently I had a great conversation with Julia Padgett, on her podcast, Launch Into Teaching for early career teachers. We talk about managing the adult-adult interactions; an area not covered through the university teacher -training programs.

A team has a behavioural cycle from when it begins through to when it is well established. ​When a new cycle begins it is because there has been a change in the team. People have left and new people have joined. Perhaps there has been a leadership change. Perhaps there has been a restructure. Even if only one person is new to the team, the cycle starts here.

So what happens at the start of this new cycle? People are on their best behaviour. They are respectful, courteous. They are learning about the team and the school. They are understanding the culture, what is ok and what is not ok. What is expected of them and what is considered not important.

But importantly, they are watching. The main person they are watching is the team leader. They are watching to see where they spend their time, because this is the sign of what is important to them. What do they disregard, or give little regard to, as this is what is not important. This modelling is what they are using to determine where they should dedicate their time. This positive behaviour is a delight for the team leader because it means they can get on with their work, they can get their tasks done.

But watch out! Don’t bury yourself at your desk and be head-down doing tasks. In leadership, please remember that WE LEAD PEOPLE AND WE MANAGE THINGS. This means that the majority of your time should be spent on working with your team members, getting to know them, building up a strong level of trust, ensuring psychological safety and opening the pathway to collaboration. And this is especially true in Term 1. The norms are set in Term 1 and your focus as the team leader, is to develop strong healthy and positive relationships with every team member. THE PEOPLE ARE THE WORK. Hold on to this mantra. Every educator comes to work to make a positive impact on the lives of their students. Impact is made through influence, and influence happens as a result of healthy relationships. Every person in your team wants to be KNOWN, VALUED and BELONG. Its your job as their leader to bring these feelings to life in every member of your team and your highway to success is if you do this in Term 1.

So here we go at the start of Term 1. Go and connect with your team members and build those relationships. Then as they watch you, they will see that your priority is the people because the people are the work.

Welcome to Monday Motivation. Last week, I wrote about making a plan for the term ahead and working that plan. It is part of working strategically, which as you have gathered by now is something I regularly write about as I encourage you to be more strategic in everything you do.

This term is a busy term, just like the others, but it takes on a different flavour, because there are lots of endings and planning for beginnings. For each of those endings or beginnings are things that need to be done. The things that are necessary and must be done as a bare minimum.

However, there are also those things that creep into the mix that don’t necessarily need to get to get done, but they would enhance the event, improve the process or provide more detail. I call these the ‘nice to haves’. The things that must be done without exception are the ‘need to haves’.  Can you see the difference?

Here is the connection to being strategic. We all have skills and abilities, and we all have the same time in our week. 168 hours in a week. We all have things we like to do and things we must do, some of those we don’t like to do. I bet that this term there are a quite a number of those things you don’t like to do. Here’s the rub, the ‘nice to haves’ are often the things we like to do and the ‘need to haves’ are more likely the things we don’t like to do, but if we keep saying ‘yes’ to the ‘nice to haves’ we leave less time, sometimes not enough time, to the complete the important things which are the ‘need to haves’ and so we end up doing a poor job of them, getting ourselves stressed, tired and grumpy and really letting ourselves and our teams down.

I have a favourite phrase, and it is, ‘just because you can, doesn’t mean you should’. You might know you can do something, and say ‘yes’ or put your hand up to volunteer, but just because you have the skills and abilities to do it, or perhaps the time and energy now, are you certain that you will still have the time and energy to do it when the event comes around or the due date arrives, and more importantly, that it is not going to impact your time and attention to complete the ‘need to haves’ that are the vital part of your role?

Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should.

Please take some time this week to look at what is on your task list and sort out what are the things that must be done, the ‘need to haves’. These are your core responsibilities, even if you really don’t like to do them. Identify the ‘nice to haves’ and ask yourself if those ‘nice to haves’ really need to be done at all. If they do, explore if there is another way to get them done, perhaps by sharing the load or scaling them back. Now you can see the difference between the ‘need to haves’ and the ‘nice to haves’ you can be more discerning about what you will add to your list and what won’t make the cut. Well done, now you are being more strategic.

Have a good week.

If you enjoyed this, you will benefit from attending The Leadership Blueprint in November 2024. Learn more here.

Being strategic is about having a plan and working the plan.

You will have heard the expression, If you fail to plan then you plan to fail.

With the term ahead of you and with lots to do, it is worth spending time this week to plan out each week so you smoothly work through everything by the end with less fear of last minute panic and potential burnt out.

There are many ways to plan out the term from a simple spreadsheet or table in word with each week plotted out or use a google calendar.

Look at what is happening each week, deadlines, events, meetings, project or task delivery dates and mark them in.

Then take each one and work backwards through what needs to be done for each. Break each one down into its smaller components and note when is the best time to get started.

Scatter the start times. They don’t all need to be started now even though you may want to. If you scatter the start times you can then concentrate on one or two at a time. You will achieve more if you focus on less at one time.

Then take your planning documents and go to your diary/schedule and block out time each week for your tasks. Yes, block time each week, during the work day, not after hours or the weekend. During the work day. Be strong. You can go this. Then make yourself unavailable during those times so that the time is protected from other things. If you have an assistant, let them know when you are going to be unavailable for each week.

If it helps, do this activity with a colleague and keep each other accountable.

Do this planning in the same way for your team, and share the document so that everyone is “on the same page” and you are all working together towards the same goals.

Doing this gives you your plan, now it is up to you to work the plan.

If you enjoyed this, join me in July or November 2025 at the Leadership Blueprint. Learn more here.

Welcome to Monday Motivation. It is the start of a new term. One thing I particularly like about the profession of teaching is we have opportunities to start a new. Each year, each term, and each time we deliver the same lesson to another class, maybe that week or the following semester. So many opportunities for a fresh start. So here we are at one of those opportunities, the new term. It’s the final run down to the end of the year, Term 4.

For some a new term might mean a new role, a permanent or an acting position. For some the new term might mean that there is only a term now between when they start their next role. For many leaders, this term is vital to set the team up for a successful 2025.

Leadership is an interesting thing in education. In many industries actually, because we don’t get taught it before we find ourselves in a position to lead. From there, the only option is to work it out as we go. And sure, mistakes are made and relationships impaired, but these are the things that help us to learn. As a leader, it is so important that you work out the sort of leader you want to be. Remember that you are a leader of people. People have feelings, aspirations, challenges and of course a life, plus pressures, outside of their work. What sort of leader do you want to be for them, your ‘people’, your team, the people who look to you as their leader to know how to conduct themselves, how to negotiate tricky situations, at what intensity to work, when to knock off, when to arrive at work, when to show up for morning Tutor Group, om time or a few minutes late, how to behave in meetings, at assembly, in the staff room. People are learning from you.

I want to give a shout out to Michelle Ironside, Christ Church Grammar School, VIC for sharing the quote below at one of my programs earlier this year.

‘True teachers use themselves as bridges over which they invite their students to cross; then, having facilitated their crossing, joyfully collapse, encouraging them to build bridges of their own’. Nikos Kazantzakis (acclaimed as the best Greek writer of the 20th century, wrote Zorba the Greek and was the Greek Minster of Education in 1945).

A great quote, isn’t it. I want to shift this quote’s subject to leaders. True leaders build the capacity of the people in their team so that they can carry on the work without the leader to guide them anymore. The bridge is the capacity building. Is that the sort of leader you want to be?

I heard on a podcast recently, SAPPA (South Australian Primary Principals Association Inc), an episode sharing content from the Trans-Tasman Principal Conference held in New Zealand recently. Gilbert Enoka, Mental Skills Coach of the All Blacks, said “be the leader others want to follow”. I strongly agree. By the way, here is the link to the podcast led by Adam Wilson.

Be the person your team look to as a role model, someone that makes them feel safe, someone they can trust and someone your team know want them to grow and development to be better. And they will thank you for it.

Here is the new term, the opportunity for a fresh start. What are you going to do to become the leader others want to follow this term, from today?

If you found this useful, you will enjoy the Leadership Blueprint program. You can find out about that HERE.

Welcome to Monday Motivation. We are at, or nearing, the end of the term. Every term in education is a big one. I often describe my working life in education as 4 ten-week-sprints and in between we rest. There is quite a bit of discussion at the moment around teacher wellbeing and I want to examine this from a leadership perspective about how we work. In business, they talk about two ways of working. One is working IN the business, the day-to-day busy work, delivering the product or service. The other is working ON the business, examining how the business is functioning, its systems, its focus, the array of products and services and value and impact for the customer.  I want to take this analogy and switch it to your work, your role in your school and the end of a term is the perfect time to bring this into your focus.

In your role as an educational leader, managing your team and the daily management to ensure classes run smoothly, students are engaged and learning, and curriculum targets are being met is what I am referring to as ‘working IN your work’. It’s the daily, head-down stuff, busy, and task-focused work. This is important work and of course must be done.

‘Working ON your work’ in your role in schools is where you take a big step away from the daily work and examine things like: the direction your team is taking, the systems you use for communication, planning, the sharing and visibility of resources, assessments, their frequency and the learning value each provides to your students, as well as the quality of data each assessment provides. These are big questions. They require a distancing between you and the item you are examining and an emotional disconnection to something that you, or a colleague, may have dedicated considerable time in its creation. But this is important work too and sadly this is the work that gets left off the To Do List because the busy work (‘working IN your work’) gets in the way. Consider this – if you gave more time to working ON your work, to improve assessments, to ensure they are truly providing the learning value and the data needed, and your systems were improved or your communication was more streamlined, how would these things improve your daily work and reduce the time and effort wastage that results in you being so tired at the end of the term? This is even more important work than the busy daily work because it ensures that you are providing value, making an impact and your team is working together towards achieving common goals.

So where am I going here? It’s the end of the term. The first important thing for you is that when the term holidays arrive, you rest, you switch off for a time. Do not think about work. This switching off starts to create the distance you need between the ‘thing’ that you or a colleague may be so invested in, so you can examine it from afar. Then think about one thing that you know is causing a roadblock, or its clunky, or you really don’t know if it is having the impact you want and spend time thinking about just that. Just one thing not many. Do the thinking while walking or go to a café and think about it there. Do something different, go somewhere different, to help you think differently. But stay focused on the one thing. Work on that. Find some options and when the next term starts, take your options back to the team and together find a new way to work in that thing, so it is providing more value, better data, better learning outcomes. Then throughout the next term, set aside time each week for you to refine that one thing, test it, refine it further, then implement it more broadly. This is strategic thinking. It is about thinking ‘big picture’ so that when we are doing the work, the work has purpose, direction and it is achieving what we want it to.

If you found this useful, you will enjoy the Leadership Blueprint program. You can find out about that HERE.

This is my last Monday Motivation for 2 weeks as I too take a break for the end of term and work on my one thing in my business.

If you found this valuable, please share this email with others, so they also gain value.