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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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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

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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Leadership

So you got the job. Congratulations! Now what?

For the teacher stepping into a new role. This is the first of a series of articles to help you smoothly transition into your new role and start kicking goals quickly.

So you got yourself a new job. Congratulations! Now what?

With schools starting back and your new role about to begin, I imagine you are full of excitement and proud of your efforts and achievements so far in landing the new position. The interview went well, you’ve read the Staff Handbook and are going diligently through the induction process. You’ve probably got some plans in place and set some goals for yourself and your team, if you are in a leadership role, but do you know if your plans and goals are actually what is wanted and required of you. Are you relying on the conversations throughout the interview process and the position description?

Well I’m going to put it out there, right now.

There’s the Position Description and then there’s the job to be done. You need to find out the difference and soon.

The interview was all about if you are the right fit for the organisation and if you have the skills and attitude that is needed in the role. It was also about whether you felt comfortable with the organisation and wanted to role after you had learned more about it. The roles you have held until now have set you up well for your new position and the projects and tasks you have completed give you a good grounding for what is expected by the company.  The Position Description in some cases is brief, a few bullet points. In other cases, to protect against litigation, have incredibly thorough Position Descriptions, to make sure they have covered off everything possible.

But what are the issues that the organisation wants you to tackle? Where is the pain in the role that needs to be addressed? What are the key aspects that your performance is going to measured by? What things will help you keep your job and what aspects if they are not fixed or improved will help you out the front door? This is where your focus needs to be.

The first three months in any role is a time of rapid learning about the organization, its culture and its direction; relationship building with colleagues at your new level of leadership; developing a communication plan and timeframe with your line manager and getting a very clear understanding of what is expected of you and ensuring you have a plan in place to meet those expectations. That’s a lot, I know, and you don’t have long to get that all sorted.

Transitions into new roles are the most challenging times in the professional lives of leaders.  Success or failure during the first few months is a strong predictor of overall success or failure in the job. It is widely understood that by the end of the first 90 days every new hire needs to have reached the ‘break-even point’, where you have contributed as much to the organisation as you have consumed from it.

If you don’t know what I am talking about, I strongly recommend you read, Michael Watkins,The First 90 Days, in hard copy and make yourself notes all over it!

I want to focus in this post about getting clear about your expectations. As I said before, the Position Description is not the role. Within that list of bullet points there are some points that will have peaked your interest and you will be excited to get working on those areas. If left to your own devices, those aspects that you are excited by are where you could most likely spend the majority of your time. But just because you like them does not mean that these are the areas where the organization wants you to spend the majority of your time. You need to find out! Out of all the aspects of your role, you need to find out what is it the organisation requires you to focus on.

How do you find this out?

You ask……during the meeting you are going to schedule with your line manager, if he/she hasn’t already set it up or held a team meeting with others also in your role.

You need to know:

  • What are the key focus areas for your role?
  • What are the 1, 2 or 3 aspects that need to be addressed/changed/improved?
  • What is the timeframe for achievement?
  • How are you to report on your progress?
  • What form of communication is requested and what is the frequency for reporting?

Your line manager may not know the HOW, ie, how to achieve the results, they may only know the WHAT, what needs to be done. The HOW you may need to work on yourself and with your team and come back to your line manager with suggestions before you go ahead. You have been placed in the role for your skills and attitude to get things done. Here is how you show what you bring to the organisation.

Getting this information clear early is vital.

The reporting process and timeframe is important. You need to know what is expected and how your manager likes to work. This will help to strengthen the relationship between the two of you. If your manager does not have a clear idea of what they want, discuss this together and come up with a plan. Don’t leave things hanging in the air. Uncertainty breeds fear and fear prevents productivity.

Next step. Document!

Write down what has been agreed. Step it out clearly so you fully understand and can see what you are to do, by when, and how you are going to report on it. Check it for errors! Twice! Sleep on it! Then email it to your line manager with an expression of thanks for the time they gave to this, and how much you are looking forward to working with them in this role.

Don’t ask your line manager to check it over. That makes you look like you are unsure of yourself. If they find anything they want to add or change they will. That’s their job.

Then get on with it.

My next post, next week, will be about the relationships you need to build in your new role. All the best this week and enjoy the start of your new role.

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.

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Coaching, Leadership

Unleashing Confidence

Lisa Messenger in her book Daring and Disruptive: Unleashing the entrepreneur makes the statement

“We are only limited by our own belief systems; our own ways that we perpetuate self-sabotage. You need to have the confidence and self-belief that if you get thrown to the wolves ( and you will be), you’ll have the strength to come out leading the pack.”

Leadership will present challenges on a daily basis.  Confidence and self-belief  need to be available to draw upon at any moment. Coaching will help get limiting beliefs out of the way and allow confidence and a strong belief system to fuel your next decision or action as a great leader.

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