It’s all in the vision
Again, another challenging topic, from The Coach course, am I a leader?
Firstly, I was interested in the comments from Diana Beabout about leadership, and it made me re-evaluate my relationship with the term. I too, like the coaches she had spoken to, connect the term leadership with the those who manage/lead the school. I use the term to mean a group of people, and not a skill set. As I see my role as a supportive peer-to-peer position, I have never considered it to be one of leadership. Nor have I ever really wanted a leadership role (or so I have always thought). Over many years of teaching and studying, I have studied what it means to be a leader and how those skills can create a dynamic working environment. However, I have never really looked at myself through that lens. Just the academics of how it works...after all leadership was for “them” and not “me”
So I begin this blog post on shaky ground. If I make the assumption that a coach is a leader then which of the skills do I possess and which do I need to improve. I read French and Ravens 6 forms of power. Honestly, this is a step too far for me. I am just about getting my head around being a maybe leader, so I am definitely not interested in looking at power dynamics! The article that I did enjoy listening too was Kim Cofino explanation of the ways that coaching is leadership. So I am going to be looking at the list of 10 ways to evaluate myself.: Trust, Vision, Emotional Intelligence, Systems perspective, Project Management, Engaged with all Stakeholders, Data, Balanced and Inspiring/Motivational.
So if I had to have leadership strengths, from this list, then I would say Trust, Emotional Intelligence and Project management are mine. I am good with people and I think I have created an environment where people feel safe to “not know the answers” and be vulnerable. I think this has helped when I have needed to push-out whole school initiatives and when staff have wanted to talk though ideas or concepts. I would also add that I would never expect from others what I do not do myself, putting yourself in positions where I also feel vulnerable, and in need of coaching is important to me. Project management is just something all teachers do. I never have just one project on the go, I always have a plethora of projects, which I constantly need to juggle to navigate my way through without dropping any of the balls (which rarely happens - I guess part of project management is knowing which balls you can drop!)
For areas of growth, there are many, but Vision, and being inspiring particularly stand out. Especially vision. I think my lack of vision for my role, and myself within it, has led me to feeling a little lost and (now I have had time to reflect on it) the reason I do not see myself as a leader. The more I read and look into coaching the more I realise that this is key...unfortunately, for me, it is also SUPER hard to create…...mmmm vision. What is my vision? When I have this, how can I implement it? Inspiration is again a confidence thing. I am a hard-working successful teacher, but never have been inspirational! I know I have inspired some pupils (and possibly staff) but that is normally through determination, not by just being! I have met and worked with inspirational teachers and still wonder how much is developed and now much in just naturally in them.
So onwards, ever onwards. My first port of call is to redesign my teacher feedback document. Send it out and see what I get back and then target a few kind souls to try and better understand what they want and how I can achieve this.
I am still not convinced that I see myself as a leader and definitely not as a visionary. However, I can use this idea about leadership to help get some feedback from my colleagues and hopefully improve my coaching. I will share the results when I have them.
