Five Ways of Being
What Learning Leaders Think, Do, and Say Every Day “This book is a true tool in a leader’s communication toolbox. Connecting with the messages inside Five Ways of Being will allow school leaders to develop patience, purposefulness, storytelling, and mindfulness, and to guide in everyday situations. The six A’s of deliberate action will be a particular high point of the book for many leaders looking for a gem of knowledge.” —Jeremy Pach, Principal, Pulaski High School, Wisconsin Traditionally, educators view leadership as a competency-based skill—something they do rather than something they embody. Five Ways of Being challenges that narrative, positing leadership is about who you are and who you need to become to enable learning and growth in others. Authors Jane Danvers, Heather De Blasio, and Gavin Grift assert every leader in a school community must embrace (1) being trusting, (2) being brave, (3) being a storyteller, (4) being purposeful, and (5) being growth focused. Through thirty-two evidence-based, practical strategies, readers will learn to adopt these five ways of being and improve their ability to lead learning. K–12 school leaders will: • Discover what it truly means to build leadership capacity in others • Establish the business of developing people as their primary purpose • Examine what influences the way they think and act • Learn how to embody the five ways of being every day • Create productive environments for both their students and their colleagues
SolutionTree.com
What Learning Leaders Think, Do, and Say Every Day
Copyright © 2021 by Solution Tree Press and Hawker Brownlow Education All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction of this book in whole or in part in any form. American version published in the United States by Solution Tree Press 555 North Morton Street Bloomington, IN 47404 800.733.6786 (toll free) / 812.336.7700 FAX: 812.336.7790 email: info@SolutionTree.com SolutionTree.com Printed in the United States of America
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Danvers, Jane, author. | De Blasio, Heather, author. | Grift, Gavin, author. Title: Five ways of being : what learning leaders think, do, and say every day / Jane Danvers, Heather De Blasio, Gavin Grift. Description: Bloomington, IN : Solution Tree Press, [2021] | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2020043327 (print) | LCCN 2020043328 (ebook) | ISBN 9781951075910 (paperback) | ISBN 9781951075927 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: Educational leadership. Classification: LCC LB2806 .D24 2021 (print) | LCC LB2806 (ebook) | DDC 371.2--dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020043327 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020043328 Solution Tree Jeffrey C. Jones, CEO Edmund M. Ackerman, President Solution Tree Press President and Publisher: Douglas M. Rife Associate Publisher: Sarah Payne-Mills Art Director: Rian Anderson Managing Production Editor: Kendra Slayton Copy Chief: Jessi Finn Production Editor: Alissa Voss Content Development Specialist: Amy Rubenstein Proofreader: Sarah Ludwig Text and Cover Designer: Rian Anderson Editorial Assistants: Sarah Ludwig and Elijah Oates Five Ways of Being: What Learning Leaders Think, Do and Say Every Day originally published in Australia by Hawker Brownlow Education © 2020 by Hawker Brownlow Education
Table of Contents About the Authors
xi
Introduction 1 Who Are We?
1
What Led to This Work?
1
What Is Our Aim?
2
How to Use This Book
3
Underpinning Beliefs for the Five Ways of Being
4
Who Is This Book For?
5
What Is Our Hope for Leaders?
5
Chapter 1: Changing Times and the Need for a New Paradigm
7
Theories of Leadership
7
Criticisms of Leadership Theories
12
Changed Times
13
Prerequisites for Learning Leaders
15
Understanding Self
15
Developing Others
15
Influences on Our Thinking
16
Professional Learning Communities
17
Thinking in Learning
17
Empathetic Leadership
17
Self-Efficacy and Collective Efficacy
18
And So, to Five Ways of Being
19 v
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Chapter 2: Being Trusting
21
Picture the Problem
21
Unpack the Consequences
22
Be Curious
24
Learning Leader Strategy 1: Learning Conversations What to Do Be a Safe Place Learning Leader Strategy 2: Three Rules for Feedback
24 25 27 28
What to Do
28
Tips for Learning Leaders
29
Be Kind Learning Leader Strategy 3: Talking Partners
29 30
What to Do
30
Tips for Learning Leaders
31
Be Connected Learning Leader Strategy 4: Collaborative Learning Teams
31 32
What to Do
33
Tips for Learning Leaders
34
Be a Delegator Learning Leader Strategy 5: I Do, You Do, We Do
35 36
What to Do
36
Tips for Learning Leaders
36
Be Your Whole Self
37
Be Vulnerable
37
Be Mindful
39
Learning Leader Strategy 6: Mindful Meditation
40
What to Do
40
Tips for Learning Leaders
41
Learning Leader Strategy 7: STOP
41
What to Do
41
Tips for Learning Leaders
42
Closing Thoughts
42
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Table of Contents
Chapter 3: Being Brave
43
Picture the Problem
43
Unpack the Consequences
45
Choose Courage, Not Comfort
46
Take Action Amid Uncertainty and Ambiguity
46
Learning Leader Strategy 8: Lights! Camera! Action!
47
What to Do
47
Tips for Learning Leaders
49
Commit to Difficult Conversations and Take Care of People as You Do Learning Leader Strategy 9: Six Wedges
49 50
What to Do
50
Tips for Learning Leaders
51
Choose to Use Self-Doubt as a Resource for Growth Learning Leader Strategy 10: Crafting Your Self-Story
52 53
What to Do
53
Tips for Learning Leaders
54
Accept Where You Are and Take Calculated Action Learning Leader Strategy 11: The Six A’s of Deliberate Action
55 55
What to Do
55
Tips for Learning Leaders
57
Assume Others Have the Capacity to Grow and Learn Learning Leader Strategy 12: DEA (Delegate, Expect, Assume)
58 59
What to Do
59
Tips for Learning Leaders
61
Closing Thoughts
Chapter 4: Being a Storyteller
62
65
Picture the Problem
65
Unpack the Consequences
66
Be the Chief Storyteller
67
Learning Leader Strategy 13: The Story of Why
67
What to Do
68
Tips for Learning Leaders
69
Tell a Values Story Learning Leader Strategy 14: Back to the Future
69 71
What to Do
71
Tips for Learning Leaders
72
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Tell the Leadership Story Learning Leader Strategy 15: Synectics
73 73
What to Do
74
Tips for Learning Leaders
74
Tell a Language Story Learning Leader Strategy 16: Snapshot Observations
74 75
What to Do
76
Tips for Learning Leaders
76
Tell a Learning Story Learning Leader Strategy 17: Chalk Talk
77 77
What to Do
77
Tips for Learning Leaders
78
Learning Leader Strategy 18: Gallery Walks
79
What to Do
79
Tips for Learning Leaders
79
Bring Everyone Into the Story Learning Leader Strategy 19: Fireside Chats
80 80
What to Do
81
Tips for Learning Leaders
81
Keep the Story Alive
81
Closing Thoughts
82
Chapter 5: Being Purposeful
83
Picture the Problem
83
Unpack the Consequences
84
Know Thy Purpose
86
Learning Leader Strategy 20: Begin With the End in Mind
86
What to Do
87
Tips for Learning Leaders
87
Make Choices Congruent With Your Purposes Learning Leader Strategy 21: Conscious Choices
88 88
What to Do
89
Tips for Learning Leaders
90
ix
Table of Contents Hold Purposeful Formal Meetings Learning Leader Strategy 22: Planning Purposeful Agendas
92 93
What to Do
94
Tips for Learning Leaders
97
Learning Leader Strategy 23: Working Agreements What to Do
99 99
Tips for Learning Leaders
100
Be Purposeful About Decision Making
100
Learning Leader Strategy 24: Decisions, Decisions, Decisions
100
What to Do
101
Tips for Learning Leaders
101
Closing Thoughts
Chapter 6: Being Growth Focused
101
103
Picture the Problem
103
Unpack the Consequences
105
Withhold Judgments and Embrace Growth
106
Learning Leader Strategy 25: Check-ins (Not Checkups)
107
What to Do
107
Tips for Learning Leaders
108
Understand Being Growth Focused
108
Articulate Your Leadership Story in a Growth-Focused Way
109
Learning Leader Strategy 26: Mirror, Mirror
111
What to Do
111
Tips for Learning Leaders
112
Align Role Statements and Position Descriptions
113
Embrace Challenges as a Catalyst for Growth
114
Learning Leader Strategy 27: Challenge Corner
114
What to Do
114
Tips for Learning Leaders
115
Expect Continuous Growth for All Staff
115
Learning Leader Strategy 28: Putting the “D� in Development
115
What to Do
115
Tips for Learning Leaders
116
x
Five Ways of Being Make Meetings About Leadership Learning Learning Leader Strategy 29: Leadership Sprints
116 117
What to Do
117
Tips for Learning Leaders
118
Notice and Name Leadership Moves Learning Leader Strategy 30: Leadership Moves
118 118
What to Do
119
Tips for Learning Leaders
119
Align Review Processes Learning Leader Strategy 31: Annual Reflective/Planning Conversations
120 120
What to Do
120
Tips for Learning Leaders
121
Learning Leader Strategy 32: Tenure Review Revisited
121
What to Do
122
Closing Thoughts
122
Epilogue 125 Index of Learning Leader Strategies
127
References and Resources
129
Index 137
About the Authors Jane Danvers has served the Australian educational community for over twenty years. She is the principal of Wilderness School, one of the most recognized girls’ schools in South Australia, and was the inaugural principal of University Senior College. Jane’s leadership extends beyond the school gates. As the presiding member of the South Australian Certificate of Education (SACE) board and chair of JamFactory, she has a deep understanding of the intricacies and challenges of leading others. Jane plays an active role in shaping policy and driving positive change across education sectors and in the broader community. She sits on numerous industry-related committees, including the Committee for Economic Development of Australia’s (CEDA) SA/NT State Advisory Council board, the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award South Australia Friends Committee, and the Premier’s Council for Women. Throughout her professional life, Jane has contributed to the wider educational debate and championed pedagogical advancement in schools. Over her career, she has been a continuous learner, completing a master’s degree in education at the University of South Australia, Oxford University’s High Performance Leadership Programme, and Harvard University’s Leading Learning that Matters (LLtM) project. Jane has presented at numerous national and international education conferences, including the Global Forum on Girls’ Education, uLead, and the International Conference on Thinking. She has mentored new leaders at the Association of Heads of Independent Schools of Australia’s New Members Conference and the Association of Independent Schools of South Australia’s (AISSA) Leading Learning Program. An advocate for gender equality and diversity, Jane was recently quoted in Madonna King’s (2017) book Being 14. She is proud to have overseen the development of academic scholarships for adolescent girls in rural Nepal. In 2013, Jane was awarded the AISSA Noel Volk Excellence Award and the Principals Australia Institute’s John Laing Award. xi
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Five Ways of Being Heather De Blasio has spent a lifetime committed to growing others and refusing to put limits on what people can achieve. Her teaching career began with coaching tennis in rural South Australia and later developed into life as a bilingual ski instructor in both Australia and Austria.
Since making education her formal profession, Heather has held middle and executive leadership responsibilities in pastoral care, curriculum, and teaching and learning at a range of independent schools. Heather has participated at the executive levels of leadership of the subject associations of which she has been a member, including as president of the Association of Secondary Research Teachers, executive committee member of the History Teachers’ Association of South Australia and South Australian English Teachers Association, and chief assessor and examiner for modern history and the Research Project. Heather also played an important role in the project team responsible for developing and training teachers to implement the Research Project, a new compulsory subject at the twelfth-grade level, across South Australia. As a part-time lecturer and tutor at Flinders University’s Graduate School of Education, as well as through guest presentations to master’s degree students at the University of Melbourne’s Graduate School of Education, she has helped shape the careers of many aspiring teachers. The recipient of an Outstanding Presentation Award at the 2017 Australian Council for Educational Research’s Excellence in Professional Practice Conference, Heather is an engaging presenter. She has spoken at Australian state and national conferences as well as international conferences—including the Australian Council for Educational Leadership, Australian College of Educators, International Congress of School Effectiveness and Improvement, uLead, and the International Conference on Thinking—on topics ranging from tackling in-school variation to intentionally developing the leadership skills of middle leaders. Heather is a contributing author to the second edition of Patrick Griffin’s (2018) Assessment for Teaching and is currently completing a doctor of education degree at the University of Melbourne in the area of building middle leaders’ leadership capacity.
About the Authors
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Gavin Grift is the founder and CEO of Grift Education. Gavin’s passion, commitment, humor, and highly engaging style have made him one of Australia’s most in-demand presenters. Through his keynotes, seminars, and coaching services, Gavin connects with international audiences on how to cultivate authentic collaboration, build success in others, and genuinely commit to reflective practice. His belief in the development of defined professional autonomy for educators challenges and connects the heads and hearts of his audience members. Gavin has held numerous educational leadership positions, including serving as a cluster educator, leading teacher, assistant principal, and director of professional learning. He also served as the executive director of Hawker Brownlow Professional Learning Solutions and the managing director of Solution Tree Australia. Gavin serves as a training associate for Thinking Collaborative’s Cognitive Coaching Seminars® and Professional Learning Communities (PLCs) at Work®. He is also the cofounder of the Centre of Learning Architects, in support of both teachers and leaders becoming students of their own professional practice. Gavin is coauthor of numerous articles and books, including Collaborative Teams That Transform Schools: The Next Step in PLCs (Marzano, Heflebower, Hoegh, Warrick, & Grift, 2016), Transformative Collaboration: Five Commitments for Leading a Professional Learning Community (Flanagan, Grift, Lipscombe, Sloper, & Wills, 2016), and the second edition of Teachers as Architects of Learning: Twelve Constructs to Design and Configure Successful Learning Experiences (Grift & Major, 2018). Most recently, he worked with Colin Sloper to revise Learning by Doing: A Handbook for Professional Learning Communities at Work (DuFour, DuFour, Eaker, Many, & Mattos, 2016) for the Australian context. He has led the development of PLC networks across Australia, culminating in the establishment of the Centre for Professional Learning Communities. He is committed to growing the legacy of Richard and Rebecca DuFour’s work through the PLC at Work process, which has been transforming schools in Australia since its pilot program launched in Adelaide, Melbourne, and Canberra in 2010. To learn more about Gavin’s work, visit www.grifteducation.com.
Introduction Who Are We? We bring three diverse backgrounds to this body of work. Through the lens of a principal, professional learning provider, staff leader, curriculum director, coach, and classroom teacher, the ideas outlined in this book come from rich insights developed through working in schools with leaders, teachers, and students. Our leadership diversity is the strength of what we offer. We have been privileged and fortunate to have had many opportunities to work with and learn from a multitude of systems, schools, educators, leading thinkers, researchers, and exceptional practitioners, and then apply these lessons to our own schools and contexts. We are authors of books, papers, blogs, and newsletters, as well as the authors of our own leadership stories. We have been inspired by our own leadership journeys, both in our search to make meaning of that learning and in the pursuit of our own growth. In our leadership roles, each of us has committed to both our own learning and the growth of those we lead. We are drawn together by our faith in the humanity of leadership—how you work with people and how you grow yourself and others. We are friends and colleagues who have been drawn together by a deep commitment to and passion for influencing the thinking about education and, in particular, leadership.
What Led to This Work? In our work with leaders in Australia and internationally, we have witnessed a common desire to find meaningful ways to build capability in those who lead schools and, by extension, everyone who is instrumental in supporting student growth. As educators, we share a common commitment to the learning entitlement of young people. Yet there appears to be a mismatch between this commitment and the effort devoted to the learning entitlement of our leaders. 1
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Five Ways of Being It is problematic to have one culture of learning expected in the classroom when the same principles do not apply to the wider school community. What message are we sending to students about learning when we do not apply this to ourselves? If schools are focusing their efforts on classroom cultures that develop thinkers and learners, can we say the same thing about our work with teachers and, importantly, those who lead our teachers? Driven to find out what it truly means to build capacity in those we work with, we found the literature on educational leadership limiting. Much of what we have come across is centered on a competency-based approach, through which leaders are encouraged to learn and apply skills without necessarily considering how they need to embody the personhood of leadership. We have seen the need for a different way of talking about leadership identity from both a research and a practical perspective. Over time it has become apparent to us that work on self must precede work with others. We have become increasingly certain that the cultural change required of schools today can only eventuate in sustainable ways when each layer of the organization has a focus on learning that affects individuals, collaborative teams, leadership personnel, and the wider school community—in short, the whole organization. We have come to understand that schools must have a shared belief about leadership and invest the time and resources to grow the capacity of all who lead. In this way, we can ignite the learning opportunities for everyone. We believe that for student learning to flourish, we must also commit to the learning entitlement of every leader in our schools.
What Is Our Aim? Five Ways of Being: What Learning Leaders Think, Do, and Say Every Day is a new way of thinking about our impact as leaders. Traditionally, leaders in schools have focused on curriculum, resources, strategy, and structure, but we believe their primary purpose should be the business of developing people—particularly those who influence the learning and growth of others. We want to give people authentic tools that lead to real change. We are committed to researching theories of thinking and learning to assist in our development as leaders. We are steadfast in our commitment to becoming leaders who enable. The core purpose of leadership in schools is to lead learning. That is what leaders of learning commit to. It is what defines them as a leader of learning, and it is the key ingredient for ensuring better outcomes for students and educators. In our profession, a great deal of time, thinking, research, prioritization, system, and strategy is centered on enabling schools to be more learning focused. Yet the language we use is
Introduction problematic. Terms like professional learning teams and leaders of learning are often used indiscriminately. Just labeling something does not give it meaning. The challenge is that there has to be clarity around the terminology and actualization of what it truly means to lead in schools. The conceptualization and enactment of leading learning requires clear exposition if we are to fully realize the potential that lies within each school community. Our premise is that every academic leader in the school is a learning leader. We are very clear on our use of the term. We define learning leaders as those who gain the self-knowledge and skills to support and guide their colleagues’ acquisition of the selfknowledge and skills required for educators and students to learn successfully as part of the broader mission of becoming a truly learning-focused organization. The core mission of learning leaders is to enable learning and growth in others. We propose that learning leaders: • Are students of their own leadership • Are intentional about their own leadership practice • Facilitate their colleagues’ and students’ self-work • Connect mind and heart with action • Reflect on their impact in supporting the learning of everyone else • Are learning all the time • Are willing to examine the way they think, in order to say and do things differently • Understand that self-knowledge comes before knowledge of others and commitments to action • Prioritize being before doing in both themselves and those they serve in education
How to Use This Book This book addresses three key questions. 1. How do we genuinely lead learning in others? 2. How do we create an environment for our colleagues to become learning leaders? 3. Who do we need to become to make this happen? From the outset of this book, we are more interested in who we become and what we discover as we work on the work of leading rather than simply accomplishing the task of leadership. This is what learning leaders do. We unpack why the success of school communities is intrinsically bound to the deep work of leadership. We stake our claim that leadership is not about doing but about being and explain who effective leaders should be.
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Five Ways of Being A way of being is the nature or essence of leadership. It is about who you are becoming in your ongoing pursuit to learn about yourself and those you work with. In this book, we outline the five ways of being that encourage learning leaders to look internally for the answers to the challenges they face. 1. Being trusting 2. Being brave 3. Being a storyteller 4. Being purposeful 5. Being growth focused These five ways of being are underpinned by fundamental beliefs about learning. The degree to which you connect with these ways of being and seek to understand them further will, in some ways, depend on how you feel about and connect to these beliefs.
Underpinning Beliefs for the Five Ways of Being Being Trusting Learning leaders believe that people are inherently good. They understand that high-quality relationships are critical to the work they do. They know that trust is foundational to success.
Being Brave Learning leaders believe that true learning comes from living with discomfort. They see challenge as an opportunity to learn and grow.
Being a Storyteller Learning leaders believe that we make meaning through story. They communicate a compelling narrative to bring the learning vision of their school to life.
Being Purposeful Learning leaders believe that intentionality shapes our reality. They are thoughtful and deliberate in what they think, say, and do every day.
Being Growth Focused Learning leaders believe that everyone can learn. They are committed to practicing their leadership and making the growth of those they lead their primary purpose.
Introduction Schools that embrace the five ways of being accept that what we expect of and for our students is what we expect of and for our teachers and leaders as well. Ultimately, the five ways of being we outline in this book are the key levers to genuinely move the emphasis from what we do as leaders to who we need to become and can become. It promotes the search for leaders to address the following questions: Who have I been? Who am I now? Who must I become to enable the learning and growth of others? We contend that who learning leaders are is made manifest in what they think, do, and say every day. Chapter 1 contextualizes our sense of urgency for a different way of thinking about leadership—how it might be conceived, enacted, and developed. We position our thinking about leadership through the research that informs and influences us and the broader educational leadership space. We provide a rationale as to why this way of leading is important for the future of our schools and our students. Chapters 2 through 6 unpack each way of being and provide a series of practical strategies for building each leadership capacity. Our index of strategies (available on page 127) makes it easy to dip in and out of the text. We understand how difficult it is in the daily rhythm of schools to take time to stop and reflect, to challenge old habits and invite new ways of thinking and acting. We have found having easily accessible prompts reminds us how to be intentional learning leaders, even when times are tough and we are short on time.
Who Is This Book For? This book provides a road map of strategies to build the capacity of every leader in every school. It is for principals, deputies, senior leaders, and middle leaders. It is for anyone who is responsible for others’ learning.
What Is Our Hope for Leaders? This book shifts the balance from a more formulaic and competency-based view of leadership to one that truly captures the spirit of human endeavor that is so critical to the work of education and educators. It is our firm belief that we must extinguish helplessness and hopelessness in our schools, because the facts are that these things do exist. We have seen it, researched it, felt it, and lived it. Five Ways of Being helps to douse the flames of disillusionment by providing leaders with an avenue for hope, permission to be hopeful, and a blueprint to instill in others the possibilities that hope brings.
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©2021 by Solution Tree Press. All rights reserved.
Chapter 3 Being Brave Courage is like—it’s a habitus, a habit, a virtue: you get it by courageous acts. It’s like you learn to swim by swimming. You learn courage by couraging. —Mary Daly
The inherent nature of learning requires us to feel uncomfortable, to confront the unknown, to feel vulnerable, and to make peace with the ambiguity that learning brings. Learning leaders understand the importance of this to their role in schools, where the core business is learning. To choose bravery requires learning leaders to commit to becoming braver. Through the application of strategies such as Lights! Camera! Action!, six wedges, crafting your self-story, the six A’s of deliberate action, and DEA (delegate, expect, assume), building bravery can truly become a way of being for a learning leader.
Picture the Problem As part of her leadership role at a large elementary school, Donna leads the fifth- and sixth-grade team. She has regular coaching sessions with the school’s coach, Samantha, to support her leadership development. At her fifth session for the year, Donna is fuming. She explains to Samantha that prior to the school vacation, her team had agreed on a shared approach to the units of work due to start this semester. This included a mathematics preassessment to provide a benchmark for differentiation and experiential lessons so students could experience what it felt and sounded like to live in colonial times. She had been very proud of this, as her team could be difficult and it had taken a lot of hard work to improve the quality of their collaboration. But now they seem to have ignored the agreement. In response to Samantha’s probing questions, Donna recounts that on the first day back, Gaye, the director of curriculum, handed her the units to check. When Donna looked, no preassessment or experiential day was recorded. Gaye had apparently 43
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deleted those items from the plan. Donna thinks this shows a lack of trust in her and also undermines her team’s work. The situation had been worsened by a team member telling her to “calm [her] farm,” suggesting that, in the grand scheme of things, it did not really matter and was not worth the conflict. Donna told the coach that she would like the chance to calm all their farms!
Donna angrily tells Samantha that she does not want to take any action. She is sick of it and fed up as it is not the first time she has felt deliberately undermined. She wishes she could just do her own thing and teach her own students while wishing her team members would do the same. While ensuring she honors Donna’s feelings of frustration and anger, Samantha asks Donna to explore some possible reasons for her colleagues’ actions. With further encouragement and questioning, Donna acknowledges how: • They may be uncomfortable due to a lack of knowledge, experience, and confidence in being able to implement and analyze the data from the preassessment • Some may feel uncomfortable about dressing up and playing out the role of a colonial-era teacher • Perhaps they are putting personal preference before the learning of the children because they feel uncomfortable • Gaye is renowned for being uncomfortable in leading anything she does not fully understand As Donna speaks, she begins to calm down. She starts to focus on what she thinks she actually has some control over in this situation. At a coaching session two weeks later, Samantha encourages Donna to speak about the successes she has experienced since they last chatted. Donna explains that the team had postponed the students’ colonial dress-up day but had committed to doing it later. They did give a preassessment (albeit a modified version) in the third week of term rather than the first week, as originally planned. Donna also mentions that she had had a difficult conversation with Gaye. She summoned the courage to explain how Gaye’s decision to leave the preassessment off the unit plan had undermined her team’s autonomy to make decisions and left her feeling vulnerable. Donna is proud that she did this in a calm, professional, and proactive manner without needing any kind of redemption. She also felt that Gaye at least understood her perspective and the conversation fostered a better connection.
©2021 by Solution Tree Press. All rights reserved.
Samantha digs deeper into Donna’s thinking. Donna admits to feeling anxious that she is not able to control both the situation and the outcome. She expresses a concern that their behaviors (particularly Gaye’s) demonstrate a lack of respect for both her and the decisions her team makes. The whole situation conjures up the same kinds of feelings of inadequacy that she experienced on her return to the teaching profession from family leave three years earlier.
Being Brave
45
Unpack the Consequences Like many leaders, the core problem Donna faced in this situation was not knowing what to do when her colleagues did not and would not commit. Moreover, by not committing to their actions, Donna’s colleagues could be jeopardizing improvements in student learning. Schools that are not learning centered are littered with scenarios such as this, which significantly affect the evolution of culture throughout the course of each day.
Donna’s initial predicament shines a light on the difficulties confronting learning leaders in education today. These challenges include: • How to build authentic collaboration • How to address conflicting values and beliefs between schools and individuals • How to model the competencies we want for our students • How to create a school that is dependent on the interdependency we create • How to be decisive amid ambiguity • How to accept and embrace the gray that sits between the black and white through any change process Rather than become somebody who distances herself because she cannot control the outcome, Donna learns to use this experience as the catalyst to discover more about who she might need to become to lead collaboration successfully and have difficult conversations when it is important to do so. Donna is discovering what it means to be a learning leader, rather than a manager of curriculum tasks. With support from Samantha, this situation helps her create distance from her thinking so she can challenge her own negative thoughts. Donna is beginning to understand that she does not have to be her thoughts, and she feels freer. Donna is learning to be brave through becoming vulnerable and making her vulnerability visible to her colleagues (especially Gaye). She is achieving all this without compromising her dedication to ensuring that student and teacher learning always come first. This is a huge breakthrough in the development of Donna’s leadership capacity and in her ability to lead both herself and others through a process of learning and professional growth. Learning leaders need to consciously commit to modeling what is required when stepping through complex territory, for the benefit of not only themselves but also their colleagues and students. That is modern-day education. Brown’s (2017) work on vulnerability reminds us of the need for human connection and true belonging in a world that often seems more about sorting and withdrawal. Brown (2017) says that “like all meaningful endeavors, it is going to require vulnerability
©2021 by Solution Tree Press. All rights reserved.
The situation also reflects the disconnect between Donna and her colleagues, an imbalance created by title, communication, and beliefs. But what may seem like a lowlevel problem to some was significant enough for Donna to react extremely.
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and the willingness to choose courage over comfort” (p. 51). If you believe education is a meaningful endeavor, then taking the courage to become a true learning leader is an absolute prerequisite to success.
Choose Courage, Not Comfort
Being courageous also calls on us to understand how our own emotions and feelings may enhance or impede our approach to leadership. This is highly challenging for learning leaders in and of itself. As human beings, we are physiologically wired to react to stressful and difficult tasks rather than respond skillfully by looking inward. Guy Claxton’s (2015) explanation of how the body constitutes the core of intelligent life helps us understand this. He suggests:
An animated conversation may make me think, but it may also make me “hot under the collar” or give me “butterflies in my stomach.” So, as we move from the unconscious minutiae of neural networks and biochemical soup to the worlds of daily experience—of “mind”—it is our feelings and emotions that must be our next port of call. (Claxton, 2015, p. 102)
The implications of this are obvious. Learning leaders must develop a way of processing their emotions and feelings in their core to overcome the challenges associated with becoming courageous. The approaches and strategies outlined in this chapter assist us in doing that.
Take Action Amid Uncertainty and Ambiguity It is important to take action when faced with uncertainty and ambiguity, or else things can become bigger in our minds than they are in reality. Doing something can demystify what we are faced with. Have you ever walked away from a conversation wondering what it was you spent all that time worrying about? Having the actual conversation results in letting go of all the assumptions and what-ifs that we often formulate in our minds, particularly if fear sits at the heart of the issue.
©2021 by Solution Tree Press. All rights reserved.
As learning leaders must navigate the unchartered territories our schools face both now and in the future, choosing courage over comfort is a key leadership requirement. Learning leaders who choose courage embrace conflict as an opportunity to learn and grow, assume positive intent in others, let go of the need to control the whole situation, and commit to the core mission of the organization even when the work gets hard.
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It is likely that Donna would still have worried about her relationship with her colleagues, her capacity to undertake her role successfully, and the power imbalance in her relationship with the director had she not had the conversation. In reality, the situation would have only become worse, as the negative thoughts in Donna’s mind compounded until she either became paralyzed by self-doubt or put up a wall in the name of self-preservation. By committing to having a conversation and communicating her expectations of the commitments her team made, she avoided the possible consequences and implications of her self-perception decaying and, by extension, her professional relationships deteriorating. Donna’s example highlights the importance of taking action. But taking action requires thorough planning, analysis, and the fleshing out of ideas to ensure a learning leader acts with confidence, sensitivity, and clear purpose. The following strategy helps to do this.
Learning Leader Strategy 8: Lights! Camera! Action! Lights! Camera! Action! enables an individual or team to identify all the possible implications of a decision that leads to a change. It can be the catalyst for examining ambiguity that exists any time change is involved and supports brave action by enabling the decision maker to look at all the issues from two sides: (1) support for the change and (2) resistance to it. This strategy puts a lens on the proposed change and a light on the implications, and it encourages subsequent action. This strategy has been influenced by the original work of Kurt Lewin (1997), a social psychologist who was the founder of the Force Field Analysis, a tool used to determine the factors and forces for social contexts.
What to Do Using the diagram in figure 3.1 (page 48), describe the proposed action and place it between the two columns.
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Donna’s instinctive reaction to the situation with Gaye and her team was to retreat into her classroom teaching and let it all be. Unfortunately, the behavior you ignore is the behavior you accept. However, with support from her coach, Donna chose to take action. This was not easy for Donna. On the one hand, she knew she would have to confront the director of curriculum and express the impact of her decision. On the other hand, she needed to draw a line in the sand with her colleagues to ensure they stood by the collective commitment they had made, both now and in the future. Donna fully understood the slippery slope she would create if she did not act on both parts.
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Forces resisting change
Forces for change
Figure 3.1: Lights! Camera! Action! model. Brainstorm all the reasons for what is driving this change, and record and address some key questions in the left-hand column, entitled forces for change. Ask the following questions. • Why is this action needed? • What might be some of the reasons this is important? • What benefits will the change or action deliver? • Who supports the change? Who does not? Why? • What might be some of the resources needed to act? • What might the risks be? • What other processes could be affected by this action? Then, identify all the factors and forces that would make this action or change difficult, and place those in the right-hand column, entitled forces resisting change. Assign a numerical score to each identified factor or force: five being very strong to one being very weak. Add up the scores on both sides of the column, and draw meaning from what you discover. Then decide whether you will take action or not based on the data and explore ways to strengthen or weaken the factors or forces depending on which column they are in.
©2021 by Solution Tree Press. All rights reserved.
Proposed Change
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Tips for Learning Leaders When practicing Lights! Camera! Action!, consider the following tips.
y Ensure the issue fits with this kind of analysis. This approach will not work for every context.
y The factors and forces described in this strategy are subjective. Their validity can be strengthened using data.
leads to inaction. The process for this context is designed to promote action.
y If the decision is of critical significance, it may be important to use it alongside other decision-making processes.
Commit to Difficult Conversations and Take Care of People as You Do When schools pursue learning as the fundamental mission of their organization, leading learners sometimes need to have difficult conversations. Marzano and his colleagues (2016) suggest that it is critical to engage in difficult conversations when discussing resistant team members, as “often, when someone is difficult to work with, one’s instinct is to pull away from that person and avoid involving him or her in tasks. This reaction, however, actually reinforces the person’s difficult behavior” (p. 29). At level one of a high reliability school—one that is seeking to improve learning for all students—is the creation of a safe and collaborative culture (Marzano, Warrick, Rains, & DuFour, 2018). As mentioned in chapter 2 (page 21), safety refers not just to the physical environment but also to the psychological landscape. Learning leaders understand the importance of creating a safe psychological space for people to feel uncomfortable. It is during the process of feeling uncomfortable that we are learning. The result of uncomfortable conversations, which are difficult to have, is progress. By thinking about what people want to hear, rather than what they might need to hear, the organization suffers, and, by extension, so do the students whom we serve. Alongside that, we create a model of leadership that contributes to a more toxic culture, rather than a healthy culture where people learn and commit to becoming problem solvers, not complainers (Muhammad, 2018). When we commit to having difficult conversations, we support the organization to become healthier in the long term through prioritizing learning. If we ignore important issues and they go unaddressed, the opportunity to genuinely speak up in the best interests of the organization, department, teams, or colleagues is forever lost. The implications of that, and the subsequent ripples, can be extremely damaging to a learning-focused organization.
©2021 by Solution Tree Press. All rights reserved.
y Implementing time limits can assist in ensuring there is no overanalysis, which
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Having difficult conversations while caring for people during the interaction is critical. Learning leaders take care of people by communicating that while it may be a difficult conversation, it is first and foremost centered on the mission, vision, and values of the organization. This reduces the risk of it becoming personal or perceived as an attack on an individual or a team.
The six wedges strategy ensures learning leaders are fully prepared to navigate difficult terrain. The conversation centers on facts while taking into account the perspectives of both parties and the organization. It also maximizes the ability to keep the impact of our words and actions in our consciousness through maintaining a high degree of empathy. The development of this approach to having difficult conversations is drawn from the work of Collaborative Teams That Transform Schools (Marzano et al., 2016), The Adaptive School (Garmston & Wellman, 2016), Cognitive Coaching (Costa & Garmston, 2016), and Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking When Stakes Are High (Patterson, Grenny, McMillan, & Switzler, 2012).
What to Do Table 3.1 identifies the six wedges and provides actions leaders can take at each phase of the strategy.
Table 3.1: The Six Wedges and Associated Leader Actions Wedge 1. Check Your Facts
Actions • Share the facts. • State what you want out of the conversation by articulating a goal for why the conversation is taking place.
• Explain how that goal contributes to the ongoing nature of the work that you are doing together.
• Make sure that you source information from people and collect
possible artifacts or data to illustrate the issue prior to the conversation. The conversation is then less likely to descend into a battle of perception, a game of positional power, or a feeling of “us against them,” and more one of assessing the current reality in order to reach agreement or consensus.
2. Set Aside Your Ego
• Leave your ego at the door. This enables people to be open to possibilities in how they might move forward.
• Remain as objective as you can. • Make it less about yourself, and you are more likely to focus on the issue, show genuine empathy, seek to understand the person you are working with, and stay steadfastly focused on the goals of the organization or team.
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Learning Leader Strategy 9: Six Wedges
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Actions
3. Honor Their Emotions
• Acknowledge everyone’s emotions, particularly when heightened levels of emotion are likely to arise.
• Recognize that the emotion is both difficult and important for them.
This demonstrates respect, empathy, and benevolence, but it cannot be fake.
• Do not use language and intonation that removes you from the situation as this can lead to a person feeling patronized.
• Ensure your language, tone, and gestures send messages of positive intent. It is important to genuinely care about the impact of the situation on your colleague.
• Be authentic in your efforts to show personal regard while navigating complex territory. The body does not lie.
• Consciously choose language, gestures, and a tone to support the
building of rapport, and commit to creating a safe place for the person with whom you are having the conversation.
5. Be True to Your Word
• Be true to your word and the reasons why you need to have the conversation.
• Have integrity when having difficult conversations. • Be true to your word and the mission of an organization or team. This is necessary to ensure it becomes a catalyst for professional growth.
• Recognize that people do not necessarily have to agree with or like what you say, but they cannot argue with why it is important.
• Ensure you have gathered facts alongside clear reasons that align to
the goals, values, and mission of your work. This will safeguard against others taking the conversation personally.
6. Seek Both Perspectives
• Be open to discovering why the person may have approached a situation in a particular way or have a particular viewpoint.
• Be open to the viewpoints of others. • Seek to understand each other so that you can both strive to reach some resolution.
• Be relentless in your search for common ground rather than illuminating difference.
Tips for Learning Leaders When implementing the six wedges strategy, consider the following tips.
y Meet with the other person in his or her environment to aid comfort. y Listen intently and remember to paraphrase before offering other perspectives. y Use and instead of but. y Reiterate the need for common ground in the support of the organization’s goals.
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4. Demonstrate Personal Regard
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When Donna and Samantha had their coaching conversation, Donna was able to consider the perspective Gaye may have brought to her decision to delete key parts of her team’s planning. Donna may have done this in her conversation with Gaye by saying, “It would help me to understand some of the reasons for your decision to delete those parts.” An effective way of putting a person to the forefront of your thoughts in difficult conversations is to seek his or her perspective before explaining your own.
Indecisiveness, self-doubt, inadequacy, and fear can be crippling. Such feelings can paralyze our efforts in developing ourselves and others as learners, limiting the impact that we may ultimately be seeking. At times, each of us has suffered from imposter syndrome when we felt that the title we were given and the responsibilities that came with it did not mesh with our capacity or ability. The way that we view ourselves comes from the stories that we tell ourselves and the way that we process data and information. It is challenging to recognize and embrace self-doubt as a natural aspect to becoming a learning leader. As leaders, it is inevitable that, at times, we will face complex and nonlinear challenges that feel beyond our capacity and, therefore, out of our depth. But self-doubt offers us the chance to shine a spotlight of awareness on what we might need to do to move beyond the doubt. In Donna’s scenario, one of the ways that self-doubt presented itself was through the generalizations she made in her thinking: “they want to undermine me,” “they do not trust me,” “they do not listen to me.” The problem here, as is often the case, is the use of the vague pronoun they, coupled with broad sweeping generalizations that are not necessarily true. Learning leaders consciously take stock of what they are feeling and what some of the reasons for that might be. This assists them to respond positively rather than react negatively, and helps them accept what is. Physician, therapist, and public speaker Russ Harris (2010) reminds us:
self-acceptance does not mean that we pay no attention to the way we behave and the impact of our actions; it simply means we let go of blanket self-judgements. Why would we do this? Because judging ourselves does not help us in any way; it does not work to make our life richer and fuller. (p. 101)
Being brave means choosing self-doubt as a catalyst for further learning. This can be both cathartic and revolutionary for learning leaders. To make being brave a way
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Choose to Use Self-Doubt as a Resource for Growth
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of being, learning leaders deliberately challenge the stories they tell themselves. As consultant and leadership coach David Rock (2009) states, “Leaders who want to drive change more effectively may want to practice becoming more intelligent about their inner world as a first step” (p. 235). One of the ways to help with this is to employ the crafting your self-story strategy.
Crafting your self-story is a strategy to ensure that you check, refine, and develop a narrative that is conducive to being brave. It comprises four elements to heighten consciousness and encourage the facing of fears through recognizing and shifting one’s inner discourse. The influences on the strategies outlined here have their roots firmly embedded in cognitive behavioral psychology, pioneered by leaders in the field such as Albert Ellis and Aaron Beck.
What to Do The elements and actions involved in crafting your self-story can be seen in table 3.2.
Table 3.2: Elements and Actions of Crafting Your Self-Story Element Look in the Mirror
Actions • Imagine you are looking in a mirror. • Ask how you are feeling about the situation. • Name the emotion. • Challenge your assumptions. • Recognize if you are feeling afraid and angry because what you really wanted is for your colleagues to value your thinking.
• Frame your thinking through recognizing how you feel before
launching into internal stories of “they do not trust me.” This enables you to dig deeper and reject some of the generalizations that potentially become harmful to our thinking.
Avoid Catastrophizing
• Challenge your self-doubt. • Transform negative thoughts into productive thoughts to self-monitor so that you do not blow things out of proportion.
• Check the evidence behind the assumptions you are making and consider why they occurred.
• Examine the roots of your self-doubt, challenge the assumptions that sit behind your generalizations, and challenge the disproportionate stories you may be telling yourself, before jumping to conclusions.
Continued
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Learning Leader Strategy 10: Crafting Your Self-Story
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Five Ways of Being
Element Prevent Perfectionism
Actions • Reject the need to get things perfectly right the first time. • Commit to being flexible in the approach you take when different situations arise. Refer to this as building situational flexibility.
• Choose curiosity over worry. • Pause to consider what questions the situation warrants. happen to me?”
Visualize Your Fear
• Consciously distance yourself from the fears that you hold. Visualizing the fear that you notice can be highly effective in separating yourself from them.
• Picture your anxiety or fear as an ostrich. Every time you feel anxious, imagine this ostrich looking feverishly for sand to bury its head in. Imagine yourself pulling the ostrich out of the sand, looking at it straight in the eyes, and saying, “Listen, ostrich—remember to focus on what you are in control of and let go of what you are not!”
• Use this more lighthearted approach to help you not take yourself
or your situation too seriously. By distancing yourself from the actual emotion and seeing it for what it is rather than what it could be, you prevent the self-sabotaging inner dialogue from deepening, evolving, and eventually paralyzing you into either inaction or inappropriate action.
Tips for Learning Leaders When crafting your self-story, keep these simple rules or helpful hints on a chart or visual aid nearby. They will remind you in those moments when you might have to change the story you are telling yourself based on the fear you are experiencing.
y Recognize and honor how you feel. y Keep things in proportion. y Check for evidence that sits behind your assumptions. y Embrace learning over perfection. y Separate yourself from the emotion.
©2021 by Solution Tree Press. All rights reserved.
• Ask, “Why might this be happening?” instead of “What is going to
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Accept Where You Are and Take Calculated Action
As we have developed in our role as learning leaders, we have developed an approach that we use, and support other learning leaders to use, called the six A’s of deliberate action.
Learning Leader Strategy 11: The Six A’s of Deliberate Action This approach outlines six particular cognitive processes people adopt, rehearse, and practice to move from recognizing where they are to doing something about it. The six cognitive territories of this process are (1) admitting, (2) acknowledging, (3) assessing, (4) analyzing, (5) accepting, and (6) acting. Braving the Wilderness (Brown, 2017) and Trust Matters (Tschannen-Moran, 2014) have been influential in our understanding and commitment to being brave. They both challenged us to examine how comfortable we were in our own skin and the implications of this for the greater purpose of our work. This strategy has been developed through our experiences in the field and the expertise we have gained committing to this way of being.
What to Do Table 3.3 (page 56) identifies each A in the six A’s and highlights actions learning leaders can take at each stage.
©2021 by Solution Tree Press. All rights reserved.
Accepting how you feel in any moment in order to take measured strategic and deliberate action is critical to any learning leader and requires us to be brave. What differentiates learning leaders from others is their commitment to consistently learn from the approaches they take through examining their own thoughts and feelings as they experience different situations. This commitment is a prerequisite to accepting where you are at and taking subsequent brave action. Clinical psychologist Chad LeJeune (2007) explains how acceptance, combined with commitment, leads to a willingness to act: “Inside and outside willingness work together. As we become more accepting of our thoughts and feelings, we are more willing to take action” (p. 32).
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Table 3.3: The Six A’s Six A’s 1. Admit
Actions • Admit the way you feel about a particular situation. When you cannot
shake the feeling of angst, work hard to acknowledge the emotion and accept that you feel that way.
• Recognize that fear is associated with the emotion. a colleague or friend.
2. Acknowledge
• Acknowledge why you feel this way and place value on your right to feel the way you do.
• Work hard to reject the urge to judge yourself harshly for feeling that
way. When we judge ourselves harshly or negatively because of the emotion we feel, it limits our capacity to act professionally and bravely.
• Read articles and books, or seek out empathetic colleagues. • Reflect on other times that have called on you to be brave to help you acknowledge the way you feel.
• Assess what is causing the fear. Try to identify that cause.
3. Assess
• Talk to a trusted colleague, partner, or friend. • Seek out a professional coach or counselor to help you explore the possibilities for why this fear may keep surfacing.
• Assess what possible reasons might exist for the emotions that you feel. • Write these reasons down. They might be far-reaching, multilayered, and complex, or relatively simple, depending on the individual and environmental context, but when written down, they can seem more legitimate.
4. Analyze
• Analyze what is going on in more depth to align it with possible actions. • Once you have worked out some reasons for where this fear might be coming from, examine what you might need to do about it.
• Consider different approaches to address the identified issues. • Research relevant literature on the topic. • Talk to colleagues you admire for their ability to handle themselves successfully in similar situations.
• Write down your thoughts about the approach you will take moving forward.
continued
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• Write down the emotion associated with the situation, or share it with
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Actions • Accept the fact that you may feel vulnerable. This can be the discerning
5. Accept
difference between leaders who are brave in their leadership and those who are not.
• Embrace the vulnerability. Do not run from it. When you feel
vulnerable, you feel more at risk, more exposed, or uncertain. You know there is a likelihood that you could be hurt. encourages you to take required action and often results in less worry. Brave leaders understand that everything in life is a risk and accepting vulnerability assists them to develop empathy.
• Take action.
6. Act
• Take control over what you can do, and let go of what the outcomes
might be. Your capacity to let go of the things you cannot control, such as what transpires as a result of your action, is the key to acting consistently in a brave manner.
• Let go of the need to control the outcome, even when you know what you want it to be.
Tips for Learning Leaders Consider the following tips to remind you about implementing the six A’s strategy.
y Write these six A’s on sticky notes, and place them in your office. y Create a reminder of the six A’s on your desktop. y Create a visual chart to go next to your computer or an area where you will look at it.
y Read widely on what it takes to act bravely when confronted with fear. y Leave this book on your desk, and bookmark this page to remind you of the process when you are feeling a heightened level of anxiety.
As Amy Morin (2014) reminds us:
When you worry about what is wrong with the world, without looking at how you can control your attitude and behavior, you’ll find yourself stuck. Instead of wasting energy to prevent a storm, focus on how you can prepare for it. (p. 89)
©2021 by Solution Tree Press. All rights reserved.
• Know that when you learn to accept vulnerability as a way of being, it
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Assume Others Have the Capacity to Grow and Learn
Monica Taylor and colleagues (2011) assert:
If teacher leaders are told what to learn, how to learn, and why to learn, their learning is controlled by others and their capacity to lead is stunted. To learn to lead, then, teachers must place their own issues and concerns at the center of their learning process, know themselves as learners, reflect on their learning, and share it with others. (p. 922)
Learning leaders implement three powerful ways to ensure they commit to the assumption that everyone can grow and learn. First, learning leaders commit to building their capacity to delegate responsibly, strategically, and purposefully. Second, learning leaders commit to an expectation that their colleagues can and will be successful. Third, learning leaders assume positive intent in the way people operate, even when the evidence might seem counter to that. As outlined in chapter 2 (page 21), there is a fine line between ensuring organizational goals are met through the action taken and providing genuine possibilities for the people delegated the tasks to discover more about themselves and their jobs. People rise to the level of expectation that is placed on them. In many ways, we get what we expect. Expectancy theory indicates there is a positive correlation between someone’s effort and his or her performance. We know that the way something transpires is an indication of how much effort was exerted. That effort is driven by an individual’s self-perception of his or her ability to be able to do something successfully. The desire to satisfy the need for something is strong enough to make the effort worthwhile (Vroom & Deci, 1992).
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Assuming others have the capacity to grow and learn is central to being brave. Assuming positive intent communicates how much you value individuals’ roles, their influence, and the contributions they make. It also models the belief that being a learning leader requires a commitment to the learning of others. Through a learning leader’s support, staff members refine their own approaches to discovering who they are as leaders and how they might best approach situations in support of the ongoing shared mission of the school. This fosters commitment for those we lead, rather than compliance.
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Many educators see their own capabilities differently from how others may see them. These capabilities are underpinned by whether people really believe in and value what they have been asked to do, which affects their desire to do something. Our work with schools to embed the PLC at Work process offers us an insight into this.
Tonia Flanagan and colleagues (2016) put it this way:
While it may not be easy to maintain an optimistic vision in the face of staff skepticism or resistance, successful PLC leaders have the courage to stick with their vision and take the necessary steps to achieve high levels of learning for all students. (p. 29)
Related to the concept of expectancy is assuming positive intent. Assuming that others’ intent is positive can promote the building of professional relationships and trust.
Learning Leader Strategy 12: DEA (Delegate, Expect, Assume) DEA is a strategy designed to ensure that we think the best of people. Leaders model this belief in the way we work with others. DEA has three discrete parts, each different, but all contributing to both the collective and self-efficacy of the colleagues and teams learning leaders serve. This strategy has emerged from and been influenced by the insightful work of Byron Katie and Stephen Mitchell (2002) and Victor H. Vroom and Edward L. Deci’s (1992) foundational work on expectancy theory.
What to Do Table 3.4 (page 60) defines the process of the DEA strategy and provides example actions learning leaders may take.
©2021 by Solution Tree Press. All rights reserved.
The PLC at Work process (DuFour et al., 2016) is based on the premise that staff believe every student can and will learn at high levels. We have found some believe unequivocally that all students can learn at high levels of learning and make no exceptions. For them, all really does mean all. But others are more dubious. They may want to believe it, but their experience has meant they do not really think it is possible. The importance of these beliefs cannot be understated in a leader’s endeavor to create school change.
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Table 3.4: The DEA Strategy Stage Delegate to Promote Learning
Actions • Ensure that the work is connected to the goal of the school or team for a clearly understood purpose.
• Use dialogue that centers on why the task is important. Staff are more
• Show and explain exactly what is required to complete a task successfully to avoid micromanaging later.
• Provide enough time for your colleagues to ask questions or for you to outline a process in some depth to begin with.
• Trust that the person who has the capabilities to work through the
task is self-directed enough to ask when he or she is unsure and can complete it by the deadline.
• Resist the urge to dive in to solve a problem for someone at the expense of his or her own opportunity to learn through doing.
Expect Success
• Be willing to find out what motivates someone to support the building of shared knowledge toward a collective goal.
• Learn about your colleagues. ➥ What interests them? ➥ What are their beliefs on particular issues? ➥ What are they motivated by? ➥ What experiences have they had that really connected to them in their role as an educator?
• Gather this information to learn how to more ably support your
colleagues and set expectations for success related to who they are and what drives them.
• Find as many ways as you can to communicate your expectation that they can and will be successful.
continued
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likely to undertake the task successfully, even if they feel compelled not to, when they know why they are doing it.
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Actions
Assume Positive Intent
• Ask yourself the following questions. ➥ What might be the positive intention behind the behavior or words? ➥ When was a time I might have done or said something similar, and what was my intention?
• Consider your own beliefs about why something happened or somebody did something.
• In what is referred to as “the work,” ask the following four questions as outlined by Katie and Mitchell (2002) to monitor your own intentions and beliefs. 1. Is it true? If the answer is no, move to question three. 2. C an you absolutely know that it is true? This question has you investigate and analyze in depth whether what you are seeing or saying can absolutely be proven as true. If not, it may be just an assumption you are making as opposed to absolute truth. 3. H ow do you react to what happens when you believe this thought? This question promotes the examination of your own actions and the implications for what happens when you assume negative intent. It has you consider the implications of your actions when you believe something to be true before you act. 4. W ho would you be without the thought? This question has you think about your identity: Who can you become to think, feel, and act differently? Each of these approaches requires us to disrupt our habitual thoughts through challenging the assumptions that drive them.
Tips for Learning Leaders Consider the following tips when implementing DEA.
y Commit to taking a chance on people. y Memorize the mantra delegate, expect, and assume to strengthen your chance of operating from the premises they each represent.
y Teach this strategy to your team and colleagues to build a culture focused on what people bring to the table rather than on what they do not.
Learning leaders avoid dampening the possibilities of growth. They take a chance on people—a strategic, supportive, well-meaning, and committed chance that operates from the premise that others can grow and learn, and will do so in ways that benefit the school team, their colleagues, students, and ultimately themselves. This requires bravery as learning leaders relinquish their need for total control.
©2021 by Solution Tree Press. All rights reserved.
By asking these questions, we remind ourselves to set aside negative assertions or scenarios that are unhelpful.
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Closing Thoughts Think back to Donna’s situation at the beginning of this chapter. There was a definite shift in the resourcefulness she felt toward the end. Through addressing her concerns with her colleagues, Donna felt as though the team was more committed to working collaboratively than it had been. She was also on the road to exhibiting genuine attributes of bravery through:
• Believing she can be in control of what she says and how she reacts while understanding she cannot really control the actions or behaviors of others • Presuming positive intent and making the decision to help others, rather than condemning them for not doing what they agreed to • Learning how to distance herself from her fears, rather than distancing herself from her colleagues • Making herself vulnerable to a coach and eliciting support, which is a healthier way to channel her feelings of condemnation and passive aggressiveness that otherwise would have led to the contamination of the culture So, what might all this mean for you? What do you do when confronted with the need to be brave like Donna did in her situation? Think about the following propositions. • You procrastinate instead of taking action and stew on possible negative outcomes. • You resort to escaping into your work and not challenging what you know is the right thing to do. • You tend to get defensive rather than seek to understand when tension emerges in a conversation. • You tend to doubt yourself and lose confidence to act. • You judge yourself harshly and retreat. • You assume those that you are having the issue with do not mean well. • You waste time wishing someone would react or act in different ways. • You waste time discussing how you would like someone to react or act with a trusted colleague. • You are drawn to colleagues who tend to take the same position on issues that you do. • You would rather walk over hot coals than discuss what you are learning about in relation to your own development at a staff meeting or when working with your peers.
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• Challenging herself to let go of the things that she is not in control of, such as how Gaye might respond if she decides to talk to her
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Do some of these things ring true for you? They certainly have for us in the evolution of our leadership in education. Bravery requires leaders to move toward the challenge of building a learning culture and embrace some of the thinking, approaches, and commitments outlined in this chapter.
According to Gavin Grift and Clare Major (2018):
Teachers who consciously and deliberately develop their wisdom are more metacognitive in their approach to teaching and learning. They model their practice so that others can learn from them and observe others in action, learning from them. They are clear about their beliefs and principles and can articulate both what they do and how they do it. (p. 13)
The same applies to learning leaders. This symbolizes a significant shift in leadership, as it requires leaders to exhibit growth of their own development. Staff become more accepting of what is being asked of them when they see their leaders develop in front of them. Demonstrating and committing to one’s own learning fosters empathy and makes it easier for staff to connect with their leaders, but it requires practice. A commitment to being brave and to some of the strategies outlined in this chapter will serve you well in your journey to put learning at the heart of your leadership approach.
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Learning leaders understand that through any process of learning, they gain as much from what they do as to what they ask others to do. This becomes contagious and sets the tone for learning throughout every layer of the organization. Bravery is required here, as leaders need to model themselves as learners. They do not always have all the answers, and they need to manage this without eroding the confidence others hold in them and in their position.
Five Ways of Being
What Learning Leaders Think, Do, and Say Every Day “This book is a true tool in a leader’s communication toolbox. Connecting with the messages inside Five Ways of Being will allow school leaders to develop patience, purposefulness, storytelling, and mindfulness, and to guide in everyday situations. The six A’s of deliberate action will be a particular high point of the book for many leaders looking for a gem of knowledge.” —Jeremy Pach, Principal, Pulaski High School, Wisconsin Traditionally, educators view leadership as a competency-based skill—something they do rather than something they embody. Five Ways of Being challenges that narrative, positing leadership is about who you are and who you need to become to enable learning and growth in others. Authors Jane Danvers, Heather De Blasio, and Gavin Grift assert every leader in a school community must embrace (1) being trusting, (2) being brave, (3) being a storyteller, (4) being purposeful, and (5) being growth focused. Through thirty-two evidence-based, practical strategies, readers will learn to adopt these five ways of being and improve their ability to lead learning. K–12 school leaders will: • Discover what it truly means to build leadership capacity in others • Establish the business of developing people as their primary purpose • Examine what influences the way they think and act • Learn how to embody the five ways of being every day • Create productive environments for both their students and their colleagues
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What Learning Leaders Think, Do, and Say Every Day