NPQML Blog post #1 – My most positive leadership contribution.

05/10/2013

@gapingvoid

In my short time as a teacher my formal leadership opportunities have been limited but that has not stopped me from leading. Leadership for me is not about a formal title but about building positive habits, inspiring others and leading by example. Leadership is about doing simple things that enrich people and organisations.

I try to make a positive contribution everyday I am in school, but for the purpose of this blog I will look at a recent example – coaching teachers. Working with colleagues and leading them through change to improve their practice can be daunting. Using the Heath brothers ‘Switch’ framework I was able to motivate colleagues by returning to our moral purpose, the students. Remembering that everything we do as teachers should be geared towards improving student outcomes. I was also able to set clear goals ‘not below a 2’ and then support colleagues to achieve that goal. To do this I shrank the change. If a colleague was struggling with several aspects of their lesson, reminding the, of that would not help. So we started by focusing on just the structure of a lesson. Letting the men-tee feel success and mastery of just one aspect before moving onto the next area of improvement. This extends the coaching cycle but makes for a greater chance of success.

I also used Seth Godin’s ‘purple cow’ analogy of trying to do remarkable things. Once a colleague had satisfied the ‘2’ criteria during a lesson observation I would encourage them to to take risks and be remarkable. Safe is risky. ‘Very good’ is bad. We must be remarkable! To help colleagues achieve this I invited them to observe my lessons and we would jointly observe other outstanding teachers in the school To get experience of what outstanding lessons look and feel like. Leading by example is a key element of leadership.

To to summarise I believe leadership is not a title or pay grade but a habit. My most positive contributions have come from influencing others through striving to be remarkable in everything I do.

Written by mrocallaghanedu Posted in leadership, NPQML, purple cow, seth godin Tagged with coaching, heath brothers, leadership, npqml, purple cows, seth godin, switch framework