WELLBEING: WHY LEADERS MUST REACH FOR THEIR OXYGEN MASK Mark Steed Principal & CEO, Kellett School Hong Kong
Eating healthily and prioritising sleep over boozy brunches and late nights out may sound dull, but, from both a personal and corporate wellbeing perspective, it is time well spent.
2. Manage your time One of the problems for many school leaders when Covid-19 struck was that they did not have any working capacity to cope with the crisis. In this context, day-to-day time management is even more important than ever. Here are three ways to do this:
T
ales of travel and exploration anecdotally offer two contrasting models of leadership.
There is the "Titanic model", where the captain is the last to leave the ship. Then there is the ‘aviation model’, where we are reminded to "put on your own oxygen mask first before helping others". Both offer important insights: being a leader is about supporting others, especially in a crisis. But as the aviators acknowledge, this is only possible if leaders overcome their selfless instincts and are in sufficient physical and mental good health to help others.
School leader wellbeing: Five ways to practise self-care Here are five ways that leaders can look after themselves while handling a crisis.
1. Physical basics: diet, exercise and sleep Physical health is an important component in maintaining strong mental and emotional health and its foundations are good diet, exercise, and sleep. It is vital to find time for these basics. I have come to realise that being tired and "hangry" can impact not only on my personal wellbeing, but also on that of the school.
Prioritise: I have always found Eisenhower's "Urgent-Important Matrix" a great help in prioritising my time. Leaders need to live in the "Important – Not Urgent" quadrant; and keep enough space in the week to create space for crises. Living in the "Important – Urgent" quadrant is a recipe for a heart attack. Allow breathing space: For the past 18 years of headship, I have set aside one working day that remains free of meetings and appointments. It is a day when I can clear the inbox, work on governors’ papers or strategic plans, and occasionally visit other schools or attend off-site meetings. Schedule tasks: I have recently moved from to-do lists to scheduling tasks in my calendar. This not only necessitates making informed decisions about priorities, but it also defines how long to spend on the task and allocates that time during the week. This practice is a particularly effective antidote to procrastination – essential for those of us who are inclined to bump to the bottom of the list those dull uninspiring tasks that we know must be done.
3. Trust your team: step back, don’t step in When the adrenaline is pumping in the midst of an acute crisis, the temptation is for leaders to go into overdrive and to try to micromanage the situation. Instead, you need to do the opposite: to step back, retain the overview and trust the team to do their 46
