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Author: janine

Janine Stratford, is a Leadership Coach and Career Strategist, working with teachers and leaders in schools across Australia and New Zealand. A former teacher and school leader, she is passionate about developing great leaders as role models for their schools and their students. You can find out more about Janine at https://coachingfocus.com.au.

Don’t ask that question

Written by janine on . Posted in Career Strategy, Culture, Leadership.

The other day I was talking with a colleague. She had been interviewing recently, knowing my work, she shared with me the applicant’s question near the end of their interview. We all know that you need to have a question, or two, ready for when at the end of the interview they ask, “Do you have any questions?” She was not only surprised by the question but also that two applicants had asked the same question in the same day. The question didn’t sit well with me and I do a lot of career coaching and preparing applicants for interview. She recalled that she responded positively to the question. The interesting thing is that after our discussion, she agreed that the only way anyone could have responded would have been in a positive manner. So was it a good question? Do you want to know the question?

The question didn’t sit well with me. I provide career support and guidance, critique people’s resumes and application documents and prepare them for interview. Interview preparation involves 2 hours of intensive interview questions, crafting clear and concise answers, defining strengths and challenges, ensuring each applicant presents themselves in the strongest light. If I don’t like what I hear, I will have them start again, re-phrase, use a different tone, and possibly choose a different story to share.

At the end of the interview when the panel ask, “Is there anything that you would like to know?” or “Do you have any questions?”, you need to be ready as they are expecting you to ask at least one question, sometimes they will give you time for two. Not having a question to ask may give the impression that you haven’t researched the organization, or role, well or given enough thought to what you don’t know, or should know, in order to help you decide if you actually want the job. The questions shouldn’t be too intense either or make the panel work too hard, as they may have several other interviews, either before or after yours.

Back to the question that was asked. It was;

“Is there anything in my application documents or in my interview that might prevent me from securing this role?”

I’ve come across a fair few questions in the years that I’ve been preparing people for interviews and on interview panels, but I have never come across that question.

You might think, well, that’s a fair question to ask. We say in schools that we are all about feedback and that’s exactly what this question is about.  After an interview, so often the feedback doesn’t arrive. But is it appropriate to ask for feedback in the middle of the process? Additionally, how likely is the interview panel to give anything other than a positive, politically correct, superficial response, filled with pleasantries and possibilities.

Realistically, the panel can’t give you anything but that and here’s why.

  1. They may not have seen all the candidates and therefore cannot evaluate your level of success yet.
  2. They may not have been in contact with your referees to substantiate your claims and experience.
  3. If they told you something that was a negative and you ended up getting the job, you would never forget what they said and be constantly working towards improving that aspect, or worse, hold a grudge.
  4. Most people are not good with conflict. 55% of the population are uncomfortable having challenging conversations because they don’t want to damage the relationship and that means, there is a high chance that your panel members fall into this group.
  5. Half the population cannot evaluate on the spot. They need time to process their answer. If you want an answer immediately, you will only get a superficial, overview response that really isn’t quality feedback at all.
  6. A good interview panel should make every candidate feel comfortable and at ease, so they can present themselves confidently and calmly. This question will quickly break any good rapport that may have developed, because it is putting the interview panel on the spot, demanding an indication of success level immediately.
  7. Finally, and this is a big one, the candidate is presenting with a ‘me-me’ attitude and not considering cultural fit for them and the organization, or the behavioural dynamics across the team to which they may eventually join.

I asked my colleague whether either of the candidates, who asked this question, ended up getting the job.

The answer was no.

Why, because they felt they didn’t fit the team!

It wasn’t about their application or their qualifications. The panel sensed there was an urgency to them, a directness, or perhaps a focus on self when they really were looking for a contributor, a team player and someone who would join them on the journey.

And from where do you think they got that impression ….. from the question that was asked at the end of the interview.

The interview is not over until you have left the building, or in the case of schools, the school gates; so I encourage you to give some thought to what you ask at the end of your next interview. It often cements their impression of you.

I can help you with your next interview. How that might work can be found here.

Perception is powerful. Have you got it under control?

Written by janine on . Posted in Career Strategy, Coaching, Culture, Emotional Intelligence, Leadership.

Leadership is defined as ‘a process of social influence which maximizes the efforts of others toward the achievement of a greater good’.

Notice the key elements of this definition: Leadership stems from social influence, not authority or power. Gone are the days of leadership being about power and control. Those leaders are thankfully, retiring, or realising the new way and making the shift.

So if leadership is about influence, is the way you influence others working for you or against you?

The challenge of leadership is to know the impact of your influence. This insight comes from perception – how you are perceived. How you are perceived colours the thinking of everyone around you and remember perception is reality and it is their reality not yours.

Fortunately, you have the ability to ensure that how you are perceived, is actually how you want to be perceived. If you know how you want to be perceived, you can make the necessary changes in the way you communicate, and behave, to shift perception in the minds of those around you. If we loosely play with McTighe and Wiggins’ model of Understanding by Design; if you know how you want to be perceived, you can design your leadership model to suit.

But you have to know first how you want to be perceived.

You need to know what sort of a leader you want to be, how you want to relate to others and work with them, the types of relationships you want around you and the communication you want in order to achieve that.

It is from here that it is incredibly helpful to know how are you currently perceived as your starting point. So how do you find out?

Well you could conduct a survey. Pick 10 people that you work with, not all your favourites because that would be too biased. The 10 people are mixed up between people you get along well with, as well as those where things are not so great. Design some questions and try your luck with them telling you honestly how they perceive you.

Or, given that surveys are not everyone’s favourite thing to do and your 10 selected people  are unlikely to give you an honest response, mainly because your survey wasn’t anonymous, you could get smarter and look at psychology; behavioural psychology.

In the world of leadership development, we have tools that allow us to evaluate your style. The tool reports back to us, clearly mapping how you behave, how you communicate and how you are perceived all from a 15 minute questionnaire, and it is incredibly accurate. I haven’t had one person say they have been evaluated inaccurately yet!

Now you know, you can move forward.

So armed with this knowledge, you can now move forward. You have the information you need to look at how you are perceived and you can ask yourself: “Do I like it?” You have the information that reports on how you behave, how you communicate, and again, if it is impacting how you are perceived, you can work on identifying the changes that need to be made, to change the way you operate, and ultimately change how you are perceived in the minds of those around you. It puts you back in control.

It is only once you are here, in the driver’s seat of how you are perceived, that you can move your leadership forward. Perception matters. Don’t think it doesn’t. Leadership comes from good relationships and if you are perceived as not caring about others, this will negatively impact any chance of good working relationships. If you are thinking relationships are not important, then you are back to the old ‘command and control’ style and I mentioned earlier, those days have gone.

Knowing how you behave and communicate and how you are perceived allows you to find your true leadership style. I call this having clarity, being clear about your leadership and who are as a leader. From here, your authentic leadership begins to shine. It is from here that you can progress, not only in your leadership but in your career.

Now you have clarity! From here you can progress in your leadership and in your career.

Module 1: Clear of the Elevating Leadership Program is a full day workshop focused on being clear about who you are, your leadership style and how you behave and communicate. We use the psychometric profile, the DISC which is backed up with research,  is easy to understand, and is incredibly accurate.  At the end of the workshop, you will know how you behave and communicate, and how you are perceived. With this knowledge, you can now identify what you want to work on to improve the way you interact with others to improve relationships, communication and ultimately team functioning.

This program is being held every term – Leadership and the DISC. It’s Module 1 of the Elevating Leadership Program.

More details can be found here: https://coachingfocus.com.au/elevatingleadership

____________________________________

Janine Stratford, is a Leadership Coach and Career Strategist, working with teachers and leaders in schools across Australia and New Zealand. A former teacher and school leader, she is passionate about developing great leaders as role models for their schools and their students. You can find out more about Janine at www.coachingfocus.com.au

Dates for the Elevating Leadership Program across 2023

Module 1: Clear

Define your leadership style  

Term 2 2023: Wednesday 3 May          9.00am – 3.30pm AEST online

Term 3 2023: Monday 31 July              9.00am – 3.30pm AEST online

Term 4 2023: Friday 27 October           9.00am – 3.30pm AEDT online

 

Module 2: Confident

Managing Conflict – developing conversational resilience 

Term 2 2023: Wednesday 24 May        9.00am – 3.30pm AEST online

Term 3 2023: Friday 11 August            9.00am – 3.30pm AEST online

Term 4 2023: Monday 13 November     9.00am – 3.30pm AEDT online

 

Module 3: Consistent

Coach Certification Program   ( 2 day program)

Term 2 2023: Day 1- Wed 10 May, Day 2-Mon 5 June                9.00am – 3.30pm AEST online

Term 3 2023: Day 1- Fri 4 August, Day 2- Mon 28 August           9.00am – 3.30pm AEST online

Term 4 2023: Day 1- Mon 30 October, Day 2-Wed 29 November 9.00am – 3.30pm AEDT online

 

Module 4: Considered

The Strategic Leader – defining your focus and managing change

Term 2 2023: Friday 2 June                       9.00am – 3.30pm  AEST online

Term 3 2023: Wednesday 23 August           9.00am – 3.30pm  AEST online

Term 4 2023: Wednesday 22 November      9.00am – 3.30pm  AEDT online

To book individual modules – use the hyperlinks above

To register for the full program and receive the discount – use this link

A New Leadership Perspective for Educators

Written by janine on . Posted in Career Strategy, Coaching, Culture, Emotional Intelligence, Leadership.

Whose problem is it? In educational leadership, taking on team problems leads to ‘Hero Syndrome,’ which causes leader burnout and staff disempowerment. Effective school leaders use a Coaching Mindset to shift from solving to facilitating. This transition is a core pillar of the Leadership Blueprint and Leading by Example programs, designed to build high-accountability school cultures.

Leadership, Ownership, and Responsibility: Why it All Matters in Leadership

The cost of Hero Syndrome is high. As a leadership coach for Australian educators for over a decade, I’ve observed a recurring trap: the Hero Leader. When a team member brings you a problem, and you instinctively say, “Leave it with me,” you aren’t just being helpful – you are accidentally de-skilling your staff. 

As a leadership coach working with educators across Australia for more than 10 years, I have seen how important it is for school leaders to develop clarity around responsibility, ownership, and decision-making. In our Leading by Example Intensive, we categorise this as a failure of Active Transport. By taking the problem, you rob your team of the opportunity to build the very resilience your school needs to thrive.

Are You Being Strategically ‘Played? 

It is vital to recognise that some team members strategically bring you problems because they know your Hero style. They keep the power by letting you do the work.

The Hero Trap – You feel valued because you’re fixing things.

The Reality – You are stagnant, and your team is becoming dependent.

We use DISC Behavioural Profiling in our programs to help leaders identify these team dynamics. Understanding whether a staff member is genuinely stuck or strategically “dumping” is the difference between a growing school and an overwhelmed principal.

The Risk of Taking on Everyone’s Problems

As a leader, it is so easy to take on someone else’s problem. Any member of your team can come to you with a problem, because you’re the leader, you feel compelled to be there to solve the problem for them. And so after they explain to you the problem, you say, “Leave it with me. I’ll deal with it”. How often have you said those words? They can sneak out so quickly! And you might be thinking you are being so helpful. Perhaps not.

So there is one side of your brain saying I’m the hero here, I’m going to fix the problem for them. I’m making their life easier. They’re busy, I don’t really want to overload them, and after all, I’m the leader, so maybe I should be the one solving the problem; it’s my responsibility.

It may be your responsibility in the long run, but that doesn’t mean you are leading well by dealing with it yourself. But what you’ve done is taken the problem away from them, leaving them without the opportunity to either utilise their skills or learn new skills to solve that problem.

Your leadership might have been more focused on the immediate situation and not the long-term plan of developing each member in your team. Yes, you might be right, that it’s quicker to do it yourself. But that is short-sighted thinking. Then there is the perspective of your team member to consider, and also what they are telling the rest of the team, as a result of your action. 

Some may respond to your approach with a viewpoint that you’re not helping them by taking the problem from them and that you are, in effect, controlling the situation and ensuring that you remain holding the power, not allowing them to have the opportunity to step up and solve the problem and learn and grow in the process. They will feel disempowered, not valued, and definitely feel they are not trusted enough to be left with these problems.

There are others in the team who have strategically come to you with a problem, knowing full well that they could solve it, but also knowing that it’s your style to take the problem on, make it your own, and that you do this to ensure your hero status continues. They are the clever ones here, not you. They have worked you out.

We shouldn’t be thinking that any problem is a ‘yours’ or ‘mine’ dichotomy. This is not how a great leader operates. A great leader is consistent. This is key. 

A great leader has a particular mindset that regards every member of their team as being full of potential and capable, and just needs the resources necessary for the solution. The great leader’s role then is simply to help them identify the resources they need and help make those resources more accessible. The problem remains with the team member, but they know they have your support to help find the way forward.

How School Leaders Can Clarify Responsibility

In today’s school environments, leaders need to be clear about what sits within their role and what should be owned by others. The boundaries should be clear enough. 

Here are some useful questions that can help you clarify your responsibility –

  • Is this my responsibility, or am I taking this on unnecessarily?
  • Who is best placed to address this issue?
  • What support can I provide without removing ownership from others?
  • How can I guide rather than solve the problem?

I believe developing this clarity becomes a key part of effective leadership coaching for educators. It helps leaders avoid burnout while building capability in their teams.

The coaching mindset is one where you hold great belief in the individual and their ability, and your role is to help them realise that ability and grow. A coaching leader is constantly growing the people around them, not taking things from them from which they could grow, but allowing them to sit with the problems, explore, ruminate, find options, and work through a resulting choice of solution.

So whose problem is it really? If your team member comes to you with a problem, it is incumbent on you, as the leader, to help them deal with that problem, but not for you to solve it, not for you to take it on as yours. Instead, provide the necessary support, be a partner, a solution-facilitator, and work with them to find a way through this problem and the resulting solution choice. 

A great leader will make sure they remain accessible if more discussion and support are needed as the team member moves further through the process. They provide a safe space to explore, be a sounding board to unpack thinking, be the provocateur, and challenge thinking with great questions that explore the benefits and obstacles of each option.

By being the support person, you are helping a solution to be found, but you’re not taking it on yourself, you’re not adding to your own workload and in the process, de-skilling and disempowering the members of your team. You will be providing them a safe space to stay with a problem and break it apart. You’re setting them up for a better level of success in the future because you’re teaching them thinking frameworks to work through decisions and to work through challenges. 

Initially, the time might be a bit longer, but that time invested is worth it. During this time together, not only will it upskill them, not only will it expand their thinking, not only will it empower them to be more in control of the situation, not only will it ensure they are accountable for the result, but you are also ensuring a far stronger, more collaborative, more trusting relationship develops in the process.

Now you have a true win-win!

Why it Matters in Today’s Schools?

School leadership has become increasingly complex, with greater expectations around communication, wellbeing, and performance. Leaders are often balancing multiple priorities while supporting staff, students, and families. Without clear boundaries around responsibility, leaders can quickly become overwhelmed.

This is where structured leadership development and educational coaching services support educators to lead with clarity, confidence, and purpose.

The 2026 Leadership Mandate 

Our Leadership Programs are specifically designed to help you build this “Coaching Culture.” When you stop solving every problem, you finally gain the “white space” needed for strategic school improvement.

A Leadership Coach’s Perspective

In my work with educators and school leaders across Melbourne and all over Australia for all these years, one of the most common challenges is helping leaders step back and recognise what is truly theirs to own. 

Stop Solving. Start Scaling. 

If your to-do list is filled with other people’s problems, your leadership is hitting a ceiling. It’s time to move from a fixer mindset to a founder mindset. Strong leadership is not about solving every problem. It is about asking the right questions, empowering others, and creating a culture where responsibility is shared effectively. 

Choose Your Next Strategic Step

Register for the Leadership Blueprint
Transform your HODs and Middle Leaders into a self-sufficient, high-accountability team. The 2026 program starts on June 1!

Register Now

Attend the Leading Edge Conference
A dedicated space for women in education to refine their career strategy and boundaries.

Download Conference Brochure

View the 2026 Program Guide
See how our evidence-based frameworks align with your school’s PD goals.

Schedule a Call

Frequently Asked Questions

What does “whose problem is it” mean in leadership?

In leadership, this question helps clarify responsibility, ownership, accountability, and boundaries. Many educators unintentionally take on challenges that may be better addressed by others. By asking this question, leaders can determine whether they need to act directly, guide someone else, or step back. This clarity helps leaders focus on what truly matters and avoid unnecessary overwhelm.

Why do educators often take on too many problems?

Educators are naturally supportive and committed to helping others, which can lead them to take responsibility for issues that may not sit within their role. In leadership positions, this tendency can increase as leaders feel accountable for team performance and well-being. Without clear boundaries, this can impact both leadership effectiveness and personal well-being over time.

How can leadership coaching help with this challenge?

Leadership coaching supports educators in developing self-awareness, reflection skills, and clarity around their leadership role. Through structured conversations and practical frameworks, leaders learn how to ask better questions, delegate effectively, and empower others. This helps them move from solving every problem to building leadership capability within their teams.

How can school leaders build better boundaries in their role?

Building boundaries starts with recognising what is within your control and what should be owned by others. Leaders can support their teams by guiding conversations, asking reflective questions, and encouraging accountability. Over time, this approach builds trust, strengthens team capability, and allows leaders to focus on strategic priorities rather than operational challenges.

Why is clarity of responsibility important in schools today?

Modern school environments are complex, with leaders managing multiple responsibilities across staff, students, and the broader community. Without clarity around responsibility, leaders can become overwhelmed and less effective. Clear ownership helps improve decision-making, strengthen team accountability, and create a more sustainable leadership approach.

Why Leadership Development by Osmosis Takes Too Long (and What School Leaders Should Do Instead)

Written by janine on . Posted in Career Strategy, Leadership.

Do you feel leadership development in your school is slow? Have you stopped relying on leadership by osmosis yet? It’s time. To meet 2026 AITSL standards, school leaders must shift to Active Transport, a structured, intentional framework for leadership reflection and growth.

Most educators tend to switch to leadership roles simply by observing other leaders around them. Over time, they absorb behaviours, adopt communication styles, and embrace decision-making approaches almost unknowingly. In a nutshell, they learn by osmosis. Such learning happens in many schools. However, in today’s complex education environments, relying solely on passive learning may not be enough anymore.

The answer is intentional learning, reflection, and structured leadership coaching. That’s what effective leadership development requires. As an Australian leadership coachworking with educators for more than a decade, I’ve seen how powerful active learning can be in helping teachers and school leaders develop strong leadership capability.

Is Leadership Development by Osmosis Failing Most Australian Schools?

Relying on osmosis, i.e., the passive absorption of leadership traits by observing other leaders around you, is the slowest way to develop school leaders, which eventually results in the lack of structure. This leads to inconsistent school cultures and leadership burnout in today’s rapidly evolving education landscape. On the other hand, active transport, or intentional leadership development, is the only way to build the high-level competency required by AITSL standards.

What Is Osmosis Learning in Leadership? 

As a Science teacher, I understand the term ‘osmosis’. It is an important concept taught not only as part of the science syllabus but also finds its way into Biology and Chemistry too. If science is not your thing, let me explain what it is in simple terms.

Osmosis is a chemical process that uses differences in concentrations across a semipermeable membrane to move liquid, or solvent, from the high concentration side to the low concentration side to even out the two sides. It’s the same process that makes your fingers go wrinkly when you have been in water for too long; the liquid in the skin cells of your fingers loses fluid to the surrounding water.

Why Leadership Development by Osmosis Is Slow

Leadership development by osmosis takes too long and is often inaccurate. When educators learn leadership simply by observing others, they may absorb both strong leadership practices and ineffective habits without recognising the difference.

This is not a science article, but I can’t help but apply the concept of osmosis to leadership development. Many people learn about leadership from reading about it. Some are fortunate to do some formal study. Most learn how to lead, whether that leadership is good or bad, by observing others and working alongside or under other leaders. In other words, by osmosis. 

Osmosis, defined in terms of leadership development, is the gradual process of unconscious assimilation of ideas and knowledge. It just seeps in, both the good and the bad examples of leadership, and they somehow become part of what we understand our leadership to be. We all have an idea of what we think is good leadership, but if we don’t have great role models around us, how would we really know?

The Problem with Passive Leadership Learning

  • Unclear leadership expectations
  • Inconsistent leadership behaviours
  • Delayed development of leadership confidence
  • Repeating ineffective leadership habits

If they are a good leader, we can learn a great deal about what makes strong leadership. If they are a poor leader, we still learn a lot about leadership, but this time in terms of what not to do, and that is only if we can recognise it as what we shouldn’t be doing. Leadership development by osmosis takes too long and is so often inaccurate.

In my career in school leadership, sadly, I came across only a few good leaders. It is therefore not surprising to me that I have dedicated my business to helping leaders in schools be the leaders we need them to be, role models for their communities, so that students, staff and parents can experience quality leadership and from there, craft better working relationships in collaborative communities.

A Better Approach: Active Leadership Learning

Let me introduce you to another science concept, that of ‘active transport’. This is the process whereby it supports the transport of the solute, or the particles floating in the liquid, to move across a semipermeable membrane. Instead of relying on passive learning, leadership development can become far more effective when we take a more active approach to learning from other leaders.

I began Coaching Focus in 2015, after leaving the role of Deputy Principal in one of Melbourne’s leading independent girls’ schools. I now work with staff in schools right across Australia and New Zealand, providing quality leadership development.

In our programs, everyone gets a Coaching Focus bent pen and a notebook for a specific purpose. It’s not to take notes throughout the program; they get a full workbook for that. Instead, they are to use the concept of active transport to learn from others about leadership. I encourage them to identify specific leaders to watch and learn from, and to do it actively, and I share with them a specific framework to pull apart what they see.

I encourage them to write down what they observed and learned in each example, incident or meeting; wherever the examples of leadership show up, both the good and the bad. Then I ask them to put themselves in that leader’s shoes and rewrite part of the story in terms of how they would have managed the situation.

The framework we use is the STAR Technique. This is the same framework used in behavioural interviewing, when you retell a story succinctly to the interview panel. It’s a great method to use to get your story told in about 2 to 3 minutes before the interview panel becomes bored and you see their eyes glaze over.

The transition from passive observation to active mastery is the actual foundation of our leadership programs. I don’t just give you a notebook; I introduce you to the Coaching Focus Leadership System – a proprietary framework that thousands of Australian educators use to turn daily school interactions into high-level leadership data!

Want to develop your leadership more intentionally?

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Using the STAR Framework

S – Situation
What was the situation?

T – Task
What problem needed to be addressed?

A – Action
What actions were taken?

R – Result
What was the outcome?

Alternative Reflection

A – Alternative Action
What might you have done differently?

R – Result
Why might your alternative action have been more effective?

How Educators Can Actively Develop Leadership Skills

One simple way educators can actively develop leadership capability is by analysing leadership situations using a structured framework. In our leadership coaching programs, I often introduce educators to the STAR framework, which is commonly used in behavioural interviews, but works just as well for leadership reflection.

While many are just familiar with the STAR Technique for interviews, our programs teach you how to use it as a Diagnostic Leadership Tool.

  • The STAR-R Method: We go beyond the “Result” to “Reflection” and “Recalibration.”
  • The Application: In our Elevating Leadership Program, we spend entire modules live-coding these reflections to ensure you aren’t just “watching” leaders, but actively architecting your own leadership identity.

Why Active Leadership Development Matters More than Ever Today

Education leadership challenges have evolved over the years. Today’s school leaders face far more complexity than even a decade ago.

Educators are navigating

  • Rapid changes in education systems
  • Increasing well-being challenges among students and staff
  • Complex communication with parents and communities
  • Growing expectations for strategic leadership in schools

Because of this, leadership capability cannot be left to chance. Structured leadership coaching and professional development for educators help school leaders develop the confidence, clarity, and communication skills needed to lead effectively.

Observing and analysing the actions of other leaders helps you to define the type of leader you want to be. My leadership development programs focus on developing leaders who are clear, confident, consistent and considered and being self-reflective is vital to developing these traits.

So your next step is to get yourself a pen and a notebook so you are ready for the start of the school year, ready to begin observing leaders around you and crafting your own style of leadership or come to one of my programs and I will give them to you.

Stop Leaving Your Leadership Growth to Chance!

Observation without a system is just watching the clock. If you are ready to move from learning by osmosis to leading with authority, choose your pathway.

Stop Leaving Your Leadership Growth to Chance!

Observation without a system is just watching the clock. If you are ready to move from learning by osmosis to leading with authority, choose your pathway.

1. For Aspiring Women Leaders

Our premier 2-day immersion into career strategy and behavioural profiling.

Register for The Leading Edge Conference

2. For Established & Executive Leaders

A high-impact program designed to refine your Active Transport leadership skills.

View the 2026 Program Prospectus

For Aspiring Women Leaders

In 2016, we launched The Leading Edge: Women in Education Conference, a two-day event designed for aspiring women leaders in independent schools. The conference is intentionally designed for a smaller group setting, allowing deeper personal exploration, leadership reflection, and meaningful conversations.

Since its launch, the conference has been held five times and continues to receive outstanding feedback from participants.

Across the two days, delegates gain practical insights and clear actions to help them grow as leaders and become the role models our schools need. As a former school leader, leadership coach, and behavioural analyst, I designed the conference to address the real barriers women face in leadership and help them move their careers forward with purpose and direction – no more osmosis learning.

Key Features of the Conference

  • DISC Psychometric Profile
    Each delegate receives a personalised DISC assessment and a detailed 40-page report highlighting strengths, challenges, time wasters, and opportunities for leadership growth.
  • Private Accelerator Coaching Session
     Following the conference, delegates participate in an individual coaching session to unpack their DISC results and develop a practical leadership and career action plan.
  • Leadership Conversations with Female Principals and Senior Leaders
     Hear directly from experienced female school leaders through panel discussions and small group conversations, with opportunities to ask questions and gain real-world leadership insights.
  • Focused Leadership Development
     Practical strategies, reflection exercises, and leadership frameworks designed to help women educators move forward with confidence and clarity.

Learn more about The Leading Edge Conference at https://coachingfocus.com.au/leadingedge/

Ready to Strengthen Your Leadership?

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Make the decision

Written by janine on . Posted in Career Strategy, Coaching, Leadership.

This is my son. He is an outdoor recreation instructor. Rock climbing for most of us, is not easy. It requires concentration, skill, physical strength and agility. Most of all it needs a great deal of determination. There is no point going rock climbing unless your goal is to get to the top; half way doesn’t cut it. At that point you haven’t achieved anything – it’s either all the way or stay on the ground. Climbing a rock face is tough. Every step takes focus. You are constantly problem solving to find the next firm foothold to move yourself one step closer to your goal, the top.

I am sure there have been many times when my son has got himself to a point where he doesn’t think he can go any further. There would be countless reasons not to continue, fatigue, injury, the weather, can’t see a way up, are just a few. But he comes back to give it a second go. He has a goal and he steadily works towards it.

The opposite situation I call ‘wheel spinning’. You might be familiar with the term. It’s when you don’t know which way to go and you seem to be going nowhere. A lot of time and energy is lost vacillating; you are not sure what you should do, so you do nothing. Not making a decision to go in any particular direction is in fact a decision and the decision is to do nothing. There is no goal here. There are often possibilities, but which one to follow is the unanswered question.

Where would you put yourself; are you striving forward or spinning your wheels?

It’s still really the start of the year. The school term has only just got under way. You might still be in the euphoria of the school break, slowing working your way out of holiday mode towards your weekly routine. Beyond this, have you worked out your next step? There is time for you to work out where you are heading, to set a goal and to make a plan.

What do you want to do? What’s your next step?

As a Career Strategist and Leadership Coach, I assist people to forge their career path, fill the gaps in their skill set and experience so they can be an attractive candidate for their next application. But you have to make the decision that you want to take the next step?

Gavin Freeman, Senior Psychologist at the Australian Institute of Sport, believes that we fall into one of two categories: those motivated to succeed and those motivated to avoid failure. Which type we are has a profound effect on our approach to challenges and our chances of success. The individual whose motivated to succeed will see any setback as a stepping stone to success.  By contrast, those motivated to avoid failure, either won’t try hard, and they’ll have a built-in excuse, or they’ll put themselves in non-challenging situations where they are guaranteed success, happy to achieve mediocrity but not their full potential. Fear of failure can drive us to success, but it won’t sustain us in the long term. Fear is not a sustainable motivation.

If you are not sure what that next step for you is, that’s okay. You might have options, possibilities, choices. The important thing is to make the decision that there is a next step for you and get started on searching for it? Without that decision, you are back at wheel spinning. Once you made the decision that there is a next step, you can kick yourself out of wheel spinning and set yourself into ‘drive’ mode and start making a plan to move yourself closer to your goal.

My son, the rock climber, is determined to be a world class rock climber. That’s his goal. He works at that goal every week, taking one small step closer to his target. He knows what he wants and has a clear focus of the end goal.

Nothing worth doing is easy. I’m sure you have heard that before. We all want the quick fix, we are a society spoilt by instant gratification. However, careers aren’t based on a quick fix. Careers are built, over time and through following a strategic path. Careers don’t come by being ‘tapped on the shoulder’. They come from being strategic; making a plan and working steadily towards the end goal. You need to be in it for the long haul, constantly taking steps towards your goal, every month, every week, sometimes even daily.

The important thing is to make the decision that there is a next step and then get on with it. Set your wheels in motion and get moving forward. Just make the decision that there is a next step, whatever that step may be.  Is there a next step for you?

Nothing worth doing is easy.  Just make the decision and get on with it.

I’m here to help, when you’re ready.

Janine Stratford, is a Leadership Coach and Career Strategist, working with teachers and leaders in schools across Australia and New Zealand. A former teacher and school leader, she is passionate about developing great leaders as role models for their schools and their students. You can find out more about Janine at www.coachingfocus.com.au

Start how you intend to continue

Written by janine on . Posted in Culture, Leadership.

After returning from the break, however long or short it was for you, it’s amazing how your head space seems to be clearer and your outlook on the world seems so much better.

It’s after a return to work that you feel more positive about others and what they can do and this makes it a perfect time to work on improving relationships at work. With a more positive approach towards others and with a more open and relaxed mindset the action of considering your colleagues and the relationships you have with them will be so much easier.

Relationships with your team are not just nice to have. Let’s be realistic here. Success in your role is defined by the quality of your relationships with your team, your leadership peers and your colleagues. Too many of us think that these relationships just magically happen because we walk the same corridors or share the same tea or coffee station.

You know that with your friendships, they take time and they take effort and they require knowing each other. Relationships at work also need time and effort and they rely on having a better understanding of each other.

Success in your role is defined by the quality of your relationships with your team, your leadership peers and you’re your colleagues.

The beginning of a year is a good time to give some thought to the people you work with and which of these relationships need a lift. It is from the foundation of a relationship that trust is developed and leaders need to be developing trust across their teams. We know trust is needed to allow the psychological safety for people to feel comfortable to try new things, to be creative, to be innovative. If you have not created trust between you and them, they will not be in the safe space to come to you with their ideas, to admit to not knowing something and seek help, or be confident that when they need to tell you about your own behaviour or something that is not working well, they will fear criticism, reprimand or concerned that the relationship between the two of you will take a dive.

As the leader, start the year the way you intend to continue. With the realisation that relationships are key to your success as the leader of your team, investing time in those relationships is vital and needs to happen NOW.

Start the year the way you intend to continue.

Recently I was reading a Harvard Business Review article by Gary Pisano. The Hard Truth About Innovative Cultures. Thank you to Allan Shaw, Principal of The Knox School, Victoria, for sharing it on LinkedIn. (you can access the article here). It reinforced in my mind that the leader must demonstrate the behaviours that he or she wants to see in their team.

The article gave an account of a medical research group conducting research on novel minimally invasive surgical technology for cardiac teams and found that those teams who felt safe speaking up about problems mastered the new technology faster. They felt safe to ask questions, admit they didn’t understand something and seek help and felt comfortable to voice their concerns and provide critical feedback about the working of the technology. Pisano states that if people are afraid to criticise, openly challenge superior’s views, debate the ideas of others and raise counter-perspectives, innovation can be crushed.

This comes back to culture and while in your role you may not be able to change the culture across your entire organisation, you can change it with your team. It is up to you and how you live out the behaviours you want to see in others. It’s all about role modelling what you want for your team. Be the role model your team needs.

Two quotes resonate strongly with me, they are:

Treat people like they make a difference and they will.   Jim Goodnight

People will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.   Maya Angelou

Janine Stratford, is a leadership coach, working with teachers and leaders in schools across Australia and New Zealand. A former teacher, (Chemistry and H&HD actually) and school leader, she is passionate about developing great leaders as role models for their schools and their students. You can find out more about Janine at www.coachingfocus.com.au

Half Way There! Where is ‘there’?

Written by janine on . Posted in Career, Coaching, Educational Leadership, Leaders as coach, Leadership, Leadership Development.

Half way there! Where is ‘there’?

The holidays are over, Semester 2 has started and that means we are now half way through the year. I so often hear the question in general conversation, “How’s it going?  A common reply is “I’m nearly there”, or “I’m getting there”. Growing up, I often wondered, where is this place called ‘there’? It must be magical because so many people are working hard getting to it.  I used to think that there must be thousands, if not millions, of people who are already ‘there’, as surely some have made it. Of course I also wondered ..what’s it like ‘there’?  I never saw any bus signs to ‘There’ or instructions with how to get to ‘There’. Have you ever pondered this idea, like I did growing up? Then I was told ‘there’ is a ‘figure of speech’ but how could a ‘figure’ be ‘speech’. That didn’t make sense either. But let’s move forward. ‘There’ is where we are going with our life, our goals, our desired results, not a place at all. You knew that all along, right?! Realistically, everyone’s ‘there’ is different. Some people have a clear idea of their ‘there’. Others have no idea of their ‘there’, let alone how to get ‘there’. I thought I would spend some time thinking about your ‘there’ now, given we are half way through the year with Semester 2 in front of us.

I’m assuming, and hoping, that you gave yourself some time away from work, even a little bit of time. We are now hearing more often in the media, something that many have known for a long time, that taking time away from your regular work is so important, to recharge your batteries, slow the cogs of our thinking and to allow some time to get a bit of perspective on what we have been doing and how we have been living out our recent days. I find whenever I take a break, I return to work, with fresh eyes, new ideas and a deeper level of insight into my passion for developing leaders.

So let’s reflect. In the spirit of coaching, let me put to you some coaching questions to help you get some perspective on the year so far and make some plans for the rest of the year moving forward. As a leadership coach, I am all about setting goals and working towards the achievement of those goals. It goes without saying that without goals you are merely drifting along and being moved in the direction of the forces upon you. I want you to be in control of where you are going, your ‘there’ and to be awake to the forces that might have been causing you to drift off course, if they have. Give yourself 10 minutes to work through these questions and make some written notes as you go along.

By the end of this year, what in your life, leadership or career do you want to be different? This is your goal. This is your ‘there’. This is where you are headed. I’m hoping that ‘different’ in your mind means ‘better’, because that’s what I’m thinking.

For what purpose do you want it to be different?  This will help uncover your motivation; why you want this to be different.

If it is different, what will that mean for you or what will that give you? This will help explore the benefits that you will get from making the step forward.

If it is different, what problem or concern or situation will no longer be present for you? This is helping you to understand what pain-point will disappear, or be less of an issue for you.

What have you done so far this year to help you move your life, leadership or career towards your goal? This question will help you to consider actions that you have taken and how beneficial they have or have not been.

How successful has that been on a scale from 1 to 10? ( 1 is fairly dismal, 10 is awesome). Measuring the impact is helpful to reflect upon now so you can compare it to after you complete your next step. After all, what you can measure you can improve.

What one thing can you do, from now, to move you one step closer to your goal?   Now you are planning your next action. Explore the possibilities of all that you can do to make your life, leadership or career different. Then pick one action only. Too many actions will put you into a state of overwhelm. Progress is made one step at a time. It is so much better to achieve one step forward each time than to put pressure on yourself to achieve many, only to be disappointed that you have achieved none due to feeling overwhelmed.

What resources and support do you need to help you? These might be people, knowledge, equipment, access. You might look around for a mentor or a coach.

What could get in your way and how can you prepare yourself to get around it? The best laid plans come unstuck when we hit a snag or a hurdle. But if we look ahead at what they might be, we can more often see them coming and take action as they approach.

When are you going to start?  In order to get ‘there’, you need to start, and setting a date helps you to be accountable to yourself.  You are the one in charge here, so set a date that is realistic and achievable and gets you excited about the change ahead.

When do you want to have completed that ‘one thing’ so you can get going on the next ‘one thing’?  This is the other part to accountability- a completion date. This is the end game date. This is the date you put in your diary with a celebration experience noted, so you acknowledge yourself for completing the action.

And then, you start the process over again, to move you one more step closer to your bigger goal in making your life, leadership or career different.

So you are all set, you have a goal, planned an action and set dates for the start and completion. Well done. I bet you feel better already about the semester ahead because now you have a plan.

See you again in a fortnight. Please write to me and tell me how you are going. Bring me along on your journey to get to your ‘there’. And, of course, if you want some personal coaching, contact me at any time.

Written by Janine Stratford, 17 July 2018

Janine Stratford, is a Leadership Development Coach and Career Strategist, working with teachers and leaders in schools across Australia and New Zealand. A former teacher and school leader, she is passionate about developing great leaders as role models for their schools and their students. You can find out more about Janine at www.coachingfocus.com.au

What is the most important thing to hold on to at this time of year?

Written by janine on . Posted in Educational Leaders, Emotional Intelligence, Future of work, Leadership Development, Wellbeing.

We are now half way through the year, congratulations, and the term break feels like it’s only minutes away. This is a busy time of year in schools with mid-year assessments, reports, marks and setting up the LMS for the next semester. There are also the strategic decisions such as staffing changes, possibly interviews internally as well as those you might be applying for, and financial reporting. This all means stress and being very busy.

During periods of stress and busyness, we often forget how to behave and what we should and shouldn’t say to others. We can lose control of our thoughts and let our judgements run wild. We get tired, become short tempered and intolerant.  Imagine a whole group of people like this working together and I hear you saying, ‘welcome to my staff room’.  Yes, the end of Term 2 can turn the best of us into short-sentenced, judgemental, impatient, sleep-deprived zombies. I often think the end of Term 2 morphs a whole group of normally level-headed, wise individuals to ‘tightly wound-up springs’, and it then doesn’t take much for anyone to ‘unravel’.

Our emotional intelligence has effectively gone ‘out the window’.

Emotional intelligence – the capacity for recognising our own feelings and those of others, for motivating ourselves, and for managing emotions well, in ourselves and in our relationships.  (Daniel Goleman, 1997)

It actually does not take very much for a person to slip into a lower state of emotional intelligence brought on by things like reduced sleep, pressure, time challenges, or relationship changes (both positive and negative). Emotional intelligence is in fact a skill, a learnable skill, that needs to be continually built upon and practised in order to be strengthened. The best leaders have high emotional intelligence and it is the skills necessary to identify the mood state we, and others, are in and regulate for it that are the most sought after in leaders of today. The World Economic Forum lists emotional intelligence in the top 10 skills needed for the future of work. Emotional intelligence is the most important thing to hold on to at this time of year because it can so easily be forgotten.

Developing higher levels of emotional intelligence have been shown to positively impact:

  • Stress
  • Absenteeism
  • Quality of relationships
  • Work performance
  • Teamwork effectiveness
  • Trust among colleagues
  • Organisational commitment
  • Job satisfaction
  • Innovation and creativity
So what actions can you take to get it back?

Daniel Goleman notes that people best able to handle stress have developed a stress management repertoire that they draw upon as needed. These techniques might include mindfulness practices, exercise such as walking or swimming, a long bath or other relaxation favourite. Having these techniques incorporated into our daily way of operating doesn’t mean that you won’t feel the impact of stress from time to time, but the regular daily practice seems to reset the trigger point for the amygdala (the part in the brain responsible for the flight-fight response), making it less easily provoked. This neural resetting gives us the ability to recover more quickly from stressful situations while also making you less prone to them at the outset.

Teachers who have more developed skills in emotional intelligence

  • have more positive feelings about teaching
  • greater feelings of satisfaction about their work
  • are better able to manage stress associated with teaching
  • are less likely to suffer from burnout
  • have higher degrees of warmth and connectedness between teachers and students
  • show more autonomy and leadership
  • have teachers who focus more on students interests and motivations

                      (Rivers, Brackett, Reyes, Elbertson, Salovey, 2012, Yale University)

Your mood will influence those around you. The phenomenon called ‘emotional contagion’ tells us that your mood can be felt by those around you and your mood will change their mood. If you are in a positive mood, your influence on others will be positive. The opposite is also true.

Remember too, that as the leader of a group, you are setting the tone that you want the team to adopt.

The leader’s mood is the reference point for the rest of the organisation. 50-70% of how employees perceive their organisation’s climate can be traced to the moods and actions of one person… the leader.

Ensuring your emotional intelligence stays high means finding ways to self-regulate. By this I mean, finding ways that can return your mood and your thoughts to their usual state of calm, rational and well-paced. Self- regulation is done actively. You make it happen.

Between now and the end of the term, I encourage you to find something that will take your focus away from the day to day tasks for a short time each day. It can be a simple thing. A favourite of mine is to solve the daily challenge quiz in the newspaper and this can be done with others, and the laughter is a bonus. Other times a short walk does it.

I also encourage you to take yourself to bed at a reasonable hour and to get at least 7 hours sleep. You want to start your break healthy rather than exhausted.

The most important thing to hold on to at this time of year is your emotional intelligence. Having high emotional intelligence requires you to self-regulate. This requires taking some action and doing this regularly; and be kind to yourself. Yes, you are tired. Admit it and accept it. Now regulate yourself for it. Realise that you are likely to think and respond differently at this time. Pause before speaking and make sure you are thinking of others with compassion and positive belief in their ability. If your patience is tested, count to 10 before you speak. This allows the emotional reaction to pass and logical thought to begin to form.

Enjoy your holidays ahead. See you in Term 3.

Janine Stratford, is a Leadership Development Coach and Career Strategist, working with teachers and leaders in schools across Australia and New Zealand. A former teacher and school leader, she is passionate about developing great leaders as role models for their schools and their students. You can find out more about Janine at www.coachingfocus.com.au

 

Dates for the Elevating Leadership Program across 2023

Module 1: Clear

Define your leadership style  

Term 2 2023: Wednesday 3 May          9.00am – 3.30pm AEST online

Term 3 2023: Monday 31 July              9.00am – 3.30pm AEST online

Term 4 2023: Friday 27 October           9.00am – 3.30pm AEDT online

 

Module 2: Confident

Managing Conflict – developing conversational resilience 

Term 2 2023: Wednesday 24 May        9.00am – 3.30pm AEST online

Term 3 2023: Friday 11 August            9.00am – 3.30pm AEST online

Term 4 2023: Monday 13 November     9.00am – 3.30pm AEDT online

 

Module 3: Consistent

Coach Certification Program   ( 2 day program)

Term 2 2023: Day 1- Wed 10 May, Day 2-Mon 5 June                9.00am – 3.30pm AEST online

Term 3 2023: Day 1- Fri 4 August, Day 2- Mon 28 August           9.00am – 3.30pm AEST online

Term 4 2023: Day 1- Mon 30 October, Day 2-Wed 29 November 9.00am – 3.30pm AEDT online

 

Module 4: Considered

The Strategic Leader – defining your focus and managing change

Term 2 2023: Friday 2 June                       9.00am – 3.30pm  AEST online

Term 3 2023: Wednesday 23 August           9.00am – 3.30pm  AEST online

Term 4 2023: Wednesday 22 November      9.00am – 3.30pm  AEDT online

 

To book individual modules – use the hyperlinks above

 To register for the full program and receive the discount – use this link

Be Bold and Back Yourself

Written by janine on . Posted in Coaching, Leadership.

I was thinking, how could I give you some inspiration right now. It’s week 8 of a long 11-week term and you could be in the thick of reports, exams, marking, possibly submitting curriculum documentation, and because interview season is fast approaching, you might also be applying for your next job on top of all that.

I wanted to encourage you forward in whatever you were tackling right now and help you to see the ‘light at the end of the tunnel’ in a few weeks. Things get hard about now, it’s often difficult to keep one foot ahead of the other, keep your planning up, people around could have the sniffles, plus its cold.

Last night I was clearing out a few things and I found some notes I made from the very beginnings of my business, back in 2006.  I found some notes that I had written from a coaching session. It resonated with me because the session was all about keeping momentum, keeping moving forward even if it was only small steps each day or each week. Just so long as there was forward progress.

The notes could apply to so many people right now. You are all very busy, so dedicated to your work and so passionate about the success of your students and your school.

The situation back then was about a middle leader, relatively new to his role, and required to make his first presentation to the leadership team. It was about this time of year, the presentation was about a new curriculum initiative he wanted to propose and he was nervous, lacking in confidence, and had never done anything like this before.

He had spent hours preparing his presentation and knew his material. That wasn’t the problem. The problem was he feared the response. What would they say? How would he respond to their queries? How would he respond to their objections? Would there be any objections? What had he not covered? What had he not thought about? This fear is so common to all of us. It’s the unknown. The uncertain.

The ultimate truth, however, is you can never control other people. You can only control yourself; your thinking, language, demeanour and response. If you know what you want and why you want it, then you can hold your focus and response.

What he needed was to believe: believe in what he wanted, believe in its worth and the impact it could create. He need to be bold and back himself.  And so do you!

In coaching, the coach’s mindset is based on the thought that people are doing the best they can with the resources available to them. I wanted him to appreciate the pivotal position he was in, the power to positively influence and the strength in his proposal to affect the learning of the students. So I took him through some mindset exercises based in neurolinguistic programming (NLP).  

I also encouraged him to view a TED Talk by Amy Cuddy, who talks about the power of body language. Here’s the link so you can view it too. https://www.ted.com/talks/amy_cuddy_your_body_language_shapes_who_you_are?language=en

Here are the mindset exercises in summary.  Remember, whatever you are facing:

  • What you focus is what you get – keep in your mind you want this
  • Physiology creates psychology – dress the part, relax into the experience, walk tall, breath deep, keep your shoulders square
  • Trust yourself – you are a dynamo
  • Do the Amy Cuddy thing beforehand to help you feel truly strong and capable
  • Focus on clear communication – speak succinctly, listen, clarify, respond and be flexible in your approach
  • Questions often come from not knowing, so explain it, again and differently if needed
  • Requests for more information are good, it means they are willing to explore
  • If they raise something you haven’t YET thought of, thank them for the insight, and positively respond that you will look into it and get back to them
  • Keep breathing. Stay focused. You want this and it’s a good thing
  • Share the result it can bring, share the positive impact
  • Be bold and back yourself

I hope this gives you some inspiration. I’m a sailor from my teenage years so a favourite quote of mine has always been “we cannot direct the wind, but we can adjust the sails”. So stay on course, finish the race, its only 3 weeks away, just ‘tack’ a little differently to get there and regardless of the size of the step, a step forward is a great step and that’s all it takes to maintain momentum.

Janine Stratford, is a leadership coach, working with teachers and leaders in schools across Australia and New Zealand. A former teacher (Chemistry and H&HD actually) and school leader, she is passionate about developing great leaders as role models for their schools and their students. You can find out more about Janine at www.coachingfocus.com.au

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