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Career Strategy, Coaching, Leadership

Make the decision

  • Janine
  • 07/02/2019

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

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Culture, Leadership

Start how you intend to continue

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 resonating strongly here:

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

 

Allan Shaw, Principal, The Knox School, is speaking about innovative cultures at The Leadership Exchange, Wed 6 March, Brighton, Victoria. To read more and to book go to https://coachingfocus.com.au/event/the-leadership-exchange/2019-03-06/

 

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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Coaching, Leadership

Half Way There! Where is ‘there’?

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

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emotional intelligence, Leadership

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

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

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Coaching, Leadership

Be Bold and Back Yourself

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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Leadership

Are you really delegating or merely off-loading tasks?

It’s the end of Term 1. I hear a sigh of relief. Bring on the chocolate. How do you feel? Has the term gone smoothly? 

I want to discuss delegation. Are you cringing already?. If you are a leader this is something you must do and get comfortable with doing.

It is too easy to think that the only person to get something done and done well is to do it yourself. Sure the task will get done but at the expense of what? If you are travelling a lone journey towards your team’s vision, it is not your team’s vision at all. It is just yours.  You cannot share the success with anyone. You have not united your team and built strong collegiate relationships. Nor have you developed and empowered your team members to take on new challenges and learn new skills. Oh and what’s more there has definitely been no delegation! But there has been lots of control. So that’s a good thing, right? Wrong! Time to re-group.

Delegating tasks is distributing the challenges across the team. Look around at your team members. What are they good at? What are their strengths? What areas could be best developed further? What are their aspirations and how can you help their learning? Delegating is not merely off-loading tasks. If you know what your team members are wanting, and you know what you want for them, delegating becomes a matching process. You match the skills in the task to the strengths evident or to the development needs of your team members.  The important thing after that is that you STEP AWAY and let them get on with it. You can hover, but please not too close or frequently. Allow your staff to come back to you at either an agreed date/time or have a check-in open-door type relationship. Importantly, allow them to come to you.  If things get left too long for your level of comfort and you want to have an update, let them know and set a time to meet. No-one likes the leader that rolls up and demands the update on the spot.

Through delegating tasks, you develop skills and leadership in others. Through sharing your vision and helping your team to see the benefits of the direction you are taking, they will be more likely and be more willing to join you on the journey. Giving them tasks to get involved and through encouraging them to come up with suggestions and ideas to help achieve the vision, and allowing them to carry out these actions, empowers them to be a part of the direction and to take ownership of the results. Now there is excitement across the group and together you can share in the challenges, difficulties and successes that you make together. Sure you have less direct control but in the long term, you are developing a stronger, more capable team that is moving forward together. The time you gain through delegating to others you can use to encourage your team, recognize their successes, even meet with your colleagues in other areas of the organization to learn what they are doing and to plan the next steps towards achieving your vision.  You are not an island! Remember to bring your team along with you on the journey and enjoy it together.

Written by Janine Stratford, Executive Coach and Founder of Coaching Focus.

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Leadership

Building Your Team. Step 1- Developing Trust

  • admin
  • 06/03/2018

In any organisation, the most important asset is its staff. For you as a leader, your asset therefore is your team. They need you to nurture, empower, support, recognize and acknowledge them. Patrick Lencioni’s model for effective teams is shown below in a pyramid. He explains that the foundation for an effective team is trust.

Effective teams are
• More effective and efficient
• Make better, faster decisions
• Tap into the skills and opinions
of all members
• Avoid wasting time and energy on politics, confusion and destructive conflict
• Work together with greater levels of respect
• Create a competitive advantage
• Have more fun while being more productive

How as a new leader do you build a high-trust team? This trust needs to be not only in your leadership but also between each team member. If you role model how to build trust in your relationship with each team member, it will ripple out across the team.

Below are five key ways you can start to develop the trust of your team in your leadership.

1. Involve the team in decision-making – if you seek out their opinions and involve them in decisions, they will have greater ownership of the decision and direction. The team will work better together with a stronger sense of unity.

2. Allow people to do their job. Give your staff the autonomy to carry out their job well. It is important to delegate to them to build their skill level and make sure you do not micro-manage.

3. If you make a mistake, admit it. If your staff make a mistake, thank them for their honesty in sharing the error with you and together explore the learning from the experience. Exploring new things and being innovative are going to come with some mistakes. This is how we learn and grow.

4. When one of your team come to you for advice, allow them to explore the problem with you before giving any advice. Use the coaching style of questioning to help them explore the options available to them. You will be building their resilience, keeping them accountable for the solution and building their capacity at the same time.

5. Know your team members – learn about your team members. Are they quiet, or talkers? Are they deep-thinkers or designers? Knowing their styles will help you to manage your team when they are all together and assist you to know how you need to be with each one. Be interested in your team members in terms of their challenges, their strengths, their passions and their ideal futures. Get to know their stories and their home settings.

Trust is fundamental to an effective team. It takes time to develop and a consistent approach. As the pyramid model shows all other aspects rely on trust being present. If trust disappears the pyramid collapses. (Model reference: Patrick Lencioni, Five Dysfunctions of a Team.)

Written by Janine Stratford, Executive Coach and Founder of Coaching Focus.

The program, Leveraging Your Leadership Style, running on Wednesday 14 March, explores behavioural preferences in depth. Apart from finding out your own behavioural style, you will start to understand the characteristics of the other behavioural preferences and how they can show up in conversation, through the structure of their email, even by observing a colleague’s desk or office or how they dress. It’s fascinating! Once you know what to look for, you can then identify a person’s style quite quickly and the process of getting to know them and developing a working relationship is so much easier.
To learn more about the program, Leveraging Your Leadership Style, the brochure can be found here.

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Leadership

We can do it with our students. Why not with our colleagues?

We can do it with our students, so why can’t we do it with our colleagues? I’m referring to being able to lead with confidence. We can take charge in our classrooms, even exert our authority. We can create great rapport with our students because we make a point of getting to know them, their needs, their challenges, so we can teach them better. In our classrooms, we feel confident, in control and we know where we are taking our students; we have a clear vision and a plan, but more importantly, we’ve developed solid relationships with our students. We’ve worked hard to create a safe place for them and for us, so we can be ourselves and so can they.

Somehow the picture is a little different when we are charged with leading colleagues. Why is it that we are not as confident in the way we communicate? Our vision is less clear and our plans are a little foggy, or at least, they come out that way when we are trying to explain them to others with whom we feel less comfortable. Aren’t our colleagues just upsized students? Don’t we all, as educators, have the same ultimate goal; to help our students achieve their best? So why are we less confident with our colleagues? This plays out in many ways. We are less willing to have colleagues visit our classrooms or observe part of our classes. We are reluctant to lead a professional learning workshop, even if it is only to lead a small 10-minute group discussion. We are hesitant to ‘tweet’ about insights from our teaching or successes in our classrooms and definitely less comfortable to tackle a challenging conversation or deal with conflict. Why is this? It’s because the relationship focus is different. With the students, the focus is on ‘them’ and their progress. As teachers we lose ourselves in meeting ‘their’ needs. With our colleagues, the focus shifts to ‘us’. How are ‘we’ together. How am I being perceived by you? Do I provide value to you? Can you see what I bring to my work and to this team?  Do you know what I want and need? Have we got a healthy working relationship where we can work things out together?

So what’s missing here?

We haven’t worked enough at the relationship and creating that safe place, so we can be all be ourselves.

Fundamentally, we haven’t made enough of a point of getting to know each other, our respective needs and challenges, and we haven’t worked out how we need to behave with each other and communicate to each other, to work better together.

Did you know? 45% of people don’t like dealing with conflict. 8% of people would prefer not to deal with other people at all. 29% of people need to know that you like them and need to be given some indication of this in every interaction and 18% of people have no regard for how you are going to get something done, only that you have got it done or will have done it by the set deadline.

These figures are based on research into behavioural styles, how people behave and communicate. Wouldn’t it be helpful to know who falls into what category? This insight would be helpful, for example, if you know there is a challenging conversation ahead with a colleague who is in the group that doesn’t like conflict. Your conversation would be slower, more sensitively worded, and taking into consideration the feelings about conflict of each person. Compare this to the challenging conversation with the colleague that just wants to get the job done. First the conversation will need to be much shorter, but in this conversation, there is not as much need to focus on letting the person know they are valued and ‘liked’ because, in fact, they won’t be caring as much about that as getting the job or the issue of the conversation completed. But what if you are the type that fundamentally needs to know you are ‘liked and valued’ and you are working with a colleague, or several, who don’t feel the same need. They don’t give feedback often, or compliment or acknowledge the work you do. They think you already know that they feel you are doing a good job. They told you last year, remember. Whose wrong and whose right? Doesn’t everyone want to be told they are liked, valued and doing a good job often. Actually, No!

Getting to know your colleagues from this perspective is fundamental to understanding how they think, how they behave, what are their priorities and how you need to behave and communicate with them. I challenge you to spend some time observing your colleagues. Are they task-focused or people-focused? How do they spend their time? Are they quiet or more talkative? Do they communicate mainly in person or through email? Do they comfortably make eye-contact with you and exchange a greeting when you pass in the corridor?

The program, Leveraging Your Leadership Style, running on Wednesday 14 March, explores behavioural preferences in depth. Apart from finding out your own behavioural style, you will start to understand the characteristics of the other behavioural preferences and how they can show up in conversation, through the structure of their email, even by observing a colleague’s desk or office or how they dress. It’s fascinating! Once you know what to look for, you can then identify a person’s style quite quickly and the process of getting to know them and developing a working relationship is so much easier.

You need to know your colleagues if you are going to have a healthy working relationship. Once you know each other better, you can more easily be yourself. Then watch your confidence soar.

Written by Janine Stratford, Executive Coach, former Deputy Principal, Founder of Coaching Focus.

To learn more about the program, Leveraging Your Leadership Style, the brochure can be found here.

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Leadership

The first thing to do when a challenging conversation strikes.

We have all experienced being caught by a challenging conversation. We didn’t see it coming. We are unprepared and our thoughts are somewhere else. Effectively we’ve been blindsided without warning.
Our bodies respond to these situations with the flight/fight response. We are designed with great systems to keep us safe. Today in our corporate world, even a conversation can look like danger if we are not expecting it. Adrenaline starts coursing through your body and your heart rate spikes, oxygen is directed away from your limbs to keep your vital organs functioning. That’s why you might feel ‘weak at the knees’, shaky or your mind might feel ‘foggy’. Our emotions are triggered quickly and any hope of rational thought has ‘left the building’.
You now can’t think rationally, even if you tried. You need to get rid of the influx of adrenaline in your bloodstream and that only happens with time. We are chemical beings with our bodies responding through chemical reactions, and breaking down adrenaline takes time.
So the first thing to do when a challenging conversation strikes is to buy yourself some time.
Time allows the necessary chemical reactions to take place, the heart rate to return to normal, for blood to reach the brain. Only then will you logically engage in the conversation for a worthwhile and productive outcome. There is no point having a challenging conversation when you are in a heightened emotional state, because you will not be thinking rationally, and you could say or do something you later regret.
Buying yourself some time allows you to get your frame of reference correct, manage your own emotions, collect the data or items you need, get the back-story, bring yourself into the present moment, manage your own emotions and get some rational thinking happening. So how do you buy yourself some time?
Here are three strategies:
• Genuinely tell them that now is not a good time for you to give your full concentration to their concern and you would really like to give this your full attention. Ask to reschedule, perhaps even later that day.
• Walk with them to a different location. It is never good to have a discussion in a public space, even a corridor. The act of walking to a different location will buy you some time.
• Before the discussion gets under way, ask them if they would like a coffee, tea or water. The time it takes to make the drink or to go and ask someone to make it for you, buys you time.
Next time you are caught with a difficult conversation without warning, remember, buy yourself some time.
If you have some more good strategies, please share them with me via email janine@coachingfocus.com.au

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Leadership

Relationships up and down are important, but don’t forget sideways too!

Last week I began writing a series of articles for the teacher that is stepping into a new role. This is the second in that series of articles designed to help you smoothly transition into your new role and start kicking goals quickly. Last week the article So you got yourself a new job. Congratulations! Now what? focused on your expectations, helping you get clarity about what was expected of you by your manager and ensuring you understand what are the priorities for your role and how your performance is going to be measured or evaluated.

You may be hearing more about performance evaluation in schools than previously. I want you to be aware that it is not just on paper that you need to be performing but in the minds of your manager and those in the school who have influence. So this week’s article focuses on ensuring you have your relationships right. Last week, I wrote about setting up a meeting with your manager and gave you a good set of guiding questions to help clarify that the direction of your work is aligned with the direction of the organisation. Now let’s think about who you need to bring along with you to support you in achieving those goals and prevent any potential de-railing of your good work and efforts to move things forward.

In his book, The First 90 Days, Michael Watkins writes ‘Leadership ultimately is about influence and leverage. You are, after all, only one person. To be successful, you need to mobilize the energy of many others in your organization’.

Let’s do a 360 and see who is in your sphere of influence.

Your Team.

The obvious first look is your team, those that report to you. You have the responsibility to lead, inspire, manage and develop each member of your team. Within any team, there will be the following characters and you need to identify them and start developing the relationship.

The leaders – a focus on others before self and display a natural talent and passion to lead

The disruptors – a focus on self before others and may block the change if it is not moving in their favour

The gossipers – gather social credibility by being the go-to person for all news- whether true or ‘alternate’ ( this new US term is catching on!)

The naysayers – have a belief that nothing is ever going to work or change for the better, so they shoot down new ideas quickly

A good leader does not play favourites, so even if you are not so keen about these team members, there is a professional working relationship that needs to be forged regardless. They are a part of your team and they matter. After all, remember, you have the responsibility to lead, inspire, manage and develop everyone in your team and a relationship of trust and comfortable open communication will stem the tide of trouble.

Your Manager.

Do you know how they want to receive communication? Have you had that meeting yet to set this straight, as I suggested last week? Have you worked out their behavioural preference? Do you know your own behavioural preference? For example, are you energetic and lively and bounce into a room when your manager is more reserved and reflective? If this is the case, you need to be doing the adjusting, not them. They will find this level of energy too much. Another example, are they fact driven and specific and you are more comfortable to talk things through and work in generalities? You will need to look closely at how your manager operates, what is their behavioural preference and match yourself closely to theirs, otherwise the way you communicate will be at cross purposes, as your behaviour will hinder the quality of the communication. They will want more and more specifics and you will not understand why. I recommend you getting yourself profiled using the DISC. I can help you with this. It involves a 20 minute on-line questionnaire that produces a very detailed 40-page report outlining how you behave, how you communicate and what motivates you to action. During the personal de-brief of your report, not only will you have a far greater understanding of your own behavioural preference and communication style, you will also have more insight into the types of behavioural preferences of others and how you can adapt and therefore improve your communication with them. I highly recommend that all new leaders be profiled. It is money well spent and in fact, it’s not very expensive.

Now look sideways.

So far we have considered your team and your manager; the relationships below and above you. What many people forget is the people who are on the same level as you and disregarding them can be your undoing.

The higher you go in an organization, the way you engage with others changes. It is far less about authority and more about influence. Decision making becomes more political and having good work relationships and alliances with those that you need to influence is key. People will support those they trust and who know that they have their best interests in mind and know their opinions and concerns have been heard.

Look closely at those around you in the organization and identify the following people:

  • Those who influence the mood of the team and the mood of the organization
  • Those who have strong relationships across the group and can spread messages quickly
  • Those who have been the longest serving and others look to for wisdom and stability
  • The disruptors, those people who can undo good plans in an instant through negative chat
  • Those who are wanting to get ahead in their careers and will be keen to step in and help in order to broaden their own resume

These are people worth spending some time with to create a healthy collegiate relationship. I’m not talking about best buddies, here, or having lunch dates, although that’s up to you. Relationships are built one conversation at a time by quality interactions where you invest your time getting to know others a little more. What you share about you is less important.  as you are showing them that you want to get to know them better.

At your level, developing relationships will help you find colleagues that can keep you informed, help you understand the culture and politics, you can share your thoughts and eventually share your concerns. One conversation at a time you will develop alliances and people you can go to for advice, support, and sounding boards. If these are not developed early, when the time comes and you need some help and it may be too late and that ship may have already sailed.

It is important even as a colleague to remember your professional image in all conversations. Too often, I’ve seen staff wanting to develop relationships using the best buddy approach and sharing too personal or private stories that only work to damage their professional image and lessen respect. My advice, it to be mindful of not ‘over-sharing’ in favour of maintaining your professional impressions. Perception is reality remember and it is very hard to change perception once it has been formed in the minds of others.

So you have got a lot of talking to do. It doesn’t need to be long conversations, it can start with a greeting in the corridor and a smile. Enjoy making the connections and getting to know your colleagues from a new perspective.

Let me know how you are getting on. I’m interested! I would love feedback about how helpful this has been and if you have any other advice to share with people like you starting out on their new leadership role. See you next week.

 

About the author: Janine Stratford is an Executive Coach working with school leaders. She provides leadership coaching developing greater clarity, consistency and confidence in leadership, direction and workplace relationships. If you would like to receive a behavioral profile, Janine can be contacted at www.coachingfocus.com.au

 

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