Leaders’ ability to be fully present affects the quality of their work

“Present moment, wonderful moment.”

Buddhist Monk Thich Nhat Hanh offers that affirmation as a means to live a more centered and peaceful life.

The affirmation also offers a compelling challenge to leaders whose ability to be fully present as much as possible throughout the day is a hallmark of effective leadership.

Just as it is essential for students to be engaged in learning, so too it is essential for leaders to be truly engaged in the activities of their days.

When leaders’ attention jumps rapidly from one thought or activity to another, their effectiveness diminishes, as does the satisfaction they receive from their work

Here are a few examples of times when leaders’ undivided attention is likely to make a significant difference in the quality of their work:

• During one-to-one conversations and in meetings leaders practice committed listening. They fully attend to the words and meaning of the speaker rather than rehearsing what they will say when the person ceases speaking.

• During moments of solitude at the beginning of the day or before important meetings leaders center themselves by focusing on the values and intentions they wish to express.

• At the end of the day leaders reflect on the day’s events to determine what they learned and how that learning might affect future activities.

Thich Nhat Hanh reminds us that the present moment is the only one we have. Leaders’ ability to be fully present in those moments will determine not only the quality of their lives but the quality of the experiences that others have with them.

Question: What do you do (or wish that you did) to be fully present and engaged in the day-to-day flow of leadership activities?

 

 

Why it’s essential for leaders to “seek first to understand”

“Seek first to understand” was for me the most memorable phrase in Stephen Covey’s book, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.

When leaders “seek first to understand, then to be understood,” the result, Covey says, is “empathic communication.”

Over time my appreciation of this habit deepened and broadened into additional areas.

Here are a few uses to which I have applied the phrase, including the one Covey proposed:

1. Seek first to understand the perspectives of others, including their assumptions, so thoroughly that they feel fully heard and understood, even as they recognize that we don’t necessarily share their point of view. I learned that expressing a sincere interest and listening carefully deepens understanding and strengthens relationships.

2. Seek first to acquire a thorough understanding of a situation before acting. I learned that “Ready, fire, aim” was generally not the best way to react to situations that required a slower, more thoughtful response.

3. Seek first to understand the nature and root causes of problems. I learned that leaders too often squandered teachers’ time, energy, and goodwill trying to solve poorly-formulated problems.

4. Seek first to understand the range of solutions available to address a problem, including the evidence that supports them. I learned that moving too quickly into action often exacerbates rather than solves problems.

Formula for success: A thorough understanding of the views of others + a deep understanding of the situation/problem and possible solutions + an action orientation = strong relationships and the achievement of goals.

Question: What is missing from my list (or my formula)—in what other ways is it important for principals and teacher leaders to seek first to understand?

 

How leaders can cultivate positive emotions within the school community

Human emotions are contagious. School leaders’ emotions are particularly contagious because of their visibility within the school community. Their emotions can spread wordlessly from person to person throughout the school.

When principals and teacher leaders lament that they seem to have little influence, I remind them of the power of their emotional states to affect the entire school community, whether they intend it or not.

Leaders who are angry, cynical, anxious, or discouraged can infect the school community with their negative emotions. The downward flow of energy these emotions create what is called a “slow death spiral.”

School leaders who are enthusiastic, positive, hopeful, and have a general overall sense of well-being also infect the school community with those emotions. Researchers use the term “virtuous spiral”  because of the way those emotions create a positive mood and add energy to the organization.

Researchers in the area of positive psychology say that there are two things leaders can do to cultivate their personal well-being, which, in turn, helps create a virtuous spiral within the school community:

• Practice gratitude by noting in writing at the end of the day three things for which they are grateful. Practicing this discipline for as little as six weeks has been shown to produce positive emotional effects.

• Consistently use their strengths to accomplish important goals. This is especially true when leaders apply their strengths to purposes larger than themselves, which, fortunately, is built into school leaders’ work.

Principals and teacher leaders benefit when they practice gratitude and consistently use their strengths. And so do others as an upward spiral of emotion and energy suffuses the school community.

Question: What do you do to authentically lift your mood for your benefit and that of others with whom you interact?

“I don’t know” is sometimes the right answer

My criteria for a radio or TV talk show worthy of my time and attention include well-informed guests, diverse points of view, and a moderator who is able to bring out the best in those guests.

In addition, I appreciate talk show guests who are able to say “I don’t have information about that” or simply “I don’t know” when that is the case.

Saying “I don’t know” is also an essential skill for principals and teacher leaders.

Sometimes I joke with school leaders that they seem to believe that their job descriptions include a responsibility to know the answer to all questions and to be able to solve all problems.

Schools that have ambitious, stretching goals give their leaders lots of opportunities to say “I don’t know” because by their very nature such goals require school communities to invent their way forward. There are no right answers.

When school leaders don’t pretend to know everything, others in the school community have opportunities to develop their problem-solving muscles.

Plus, when teachers see principals responding honestly they are more likely to be vulnerable with their students and colleagues.

Fortunately, once you get the hang of it, it is easier and less stressful to be imperfect.

And, in the long run, our candor will be respected and appreciated by others.

Question: How have you and others benefited when you were able to simply acknowledge, “I don’t know?”

Four essential ingredients of successful faculty meetings

Successful faculty meetings contribute to the momentum of the continuous improvement of teaching, learning, and relationships within the school community.

They add value by deepening understanding, spreading effective practices, and building relationships.

On the other hand, poorly planned and facilitated meetings deplete energy and can bring innovation to a standstill.

In my experience, successful meetings have four essential ingredients:

1. Celebration of one another and of accomplishments within the school community. While it is certainly appropriate to note student accomplishments, it’s also important to draw attention to the accomplishments and strengths of the adult members of the school community. To that end faculty meetings can routinely begin with a few minutes of recognition and celebration. Such rituals can deepen relationships and energize the school community.

2. Professional learning focused on the school’s most important goals. The kind of professional learning I have in mind would occur as staff members analyzed various types of evidence regarding student learning, explored professional literature, and shared effective practices. It would seldom include what we think of as training or presentations.

3. Thoughtful deliberation regarding significant challenges and decisions that the school community faces. Because these conversations would be structured through the use of protocols or other small and large group activities, they would be focused and deep.

4. “Next action thinking.”  Momentum would be maintained because meetings would always conclude with clarity about individual and collective responsibilities. As a result, there would be no confusion about who will do what, by when, and to what standard.

Administrivia, of course, would be eliminated or minimized. Administrative items would be distributed through email with clear explanations about what is expected from staff members.

Question: In your experience what are the ingredients of productive and energizing faculty meetings? What things have I missed?

School leaders gain clarity and influence through writing

Only when students can articulate in writing the basic principles they are learning . . . can we be sure they are internalizing those principles in an intellectually coherent way. – Richard Paul

As with students, writing is an essential means by which school leaders can gain clarity and deepen their understanding of important ideas and practices. It is also a way  to share with others what they are thinking and learning and to increase their influence within the school community.

Even a few minutes of writing can help principals and teacher leaders clarify:

• their goals for an upcoming meeting or conversation,

• what they understand and don’t understand about an important issue or problem, and

• their next actions after professional learning or a decision-making meeting.

Writing is also a tool leaders can use in faculty meetings or other settings to give participants an opportunity to determine what they think about an idea, an article, a set of data, or a potential solution to a problem before brainstorming or engaging in small group conversation.

Question: How do you or others you know use writing for these purposes or others that I did not mention?

When leaders feel like impostors

A surprising number of us feel like impostors. Even people who appear confident and in charge may be experiencing what some have termed “the imposter syndrome.”

Those who suffer from it may appear to know what they are doing. They may appear confident, or even superbly confident. But deep inside they fear the moment when their incompetence will be revealed.

Here’s an example in which Ben Affleck describes what it felt like to direct his first movie, “Gone Baby Gone”: “I was very, very scared. I just didn’t know if I could do it. . . . And every day I was scared, and I probably stayed that scared throughout … and not sure of myself at all.”

So, if you sometimes feel like you have risen above your level of competence, here are some things you might do:

1. Admit it to yourself and to trusted confidants. Because this is a very common feeling, they are likely to disclose the same feelings to you, and together you will experience the relief of knowing that you’re not alone.

2. Read what experts have to say about the syndrome and what can be done to address it.

3. In those small number of areas in which there may be reality-based knowledge or skill deficits, engage in the process of professional learning to remedy the deficits.

Question: What strategies have you used to counteract the impostor syndrome when you feel it arising within you?

When leaders suffer from the curse of knowledge

I sometimes suffer from the curse of knowledge. I also suffer from the impostor syndrome (more about that tomorrow).

(Based on those two observations you probably wouldn’t be surprised to learn that I also suffer from medical student syndrome, which causes me to believe that I have every illness I read about.)

For the moment, however, I’d like to focus on the challenges posed by knowing too much—otherwise known as “the curse of knowledge,” a term I am borrowing from Chip and Dan Heath’s book, Made to Stick.

The curse of knowledge is a problem that often besets those who possess deep understanding of a subject – researchers, consultants, and even school leaders, among others.

The problem, though, isn’t the amount of knowledge one possesses, but rather our inability to communicate clearly what we know.

For example, some of the worst teaching I’ve experienced was in advanced graduate courses taught by scholars with deep knowledge of their subject matter. There was no doubt they knew the material. They had literally written the book. But they were unable to structure and explain what they knew in accessible ways.

The curse of knowledge can make it difficult for those who possess it to understand a beginner’s mind. It can make it difficult to distinguish what is central from that which is peripheral and to speak concretely rather than abstractly.

Because communicating clearly and concisely with others is an essential leadership skill, it’s important that principals and teacher leaders are aware of and address the curse of knowledge as it infects their work.

Here are a few things that school leaders can do:

1. Spend a few minutes writing about what you would like to communicate, separating what is primary from that which is of secondary importance. Engage in conversations to help you further develop your clarity.

2. Hone in on a big idea or two. Organize two or three subordinate points around each big idea. Polish each of those points to proverb-like compactness.

3. Provide concrete examples and/or offer stories to illustrate those points.

In a recent blog post, Ann Murphy Paul uses the term “curse of expertise” to discuss the same phenomenon and offers some suggestions for addressing it.

Question: In what areas do you or others on your leadership team experience the curse of knowledge? What have you done or could you do to address it to enable you to communicate or teach more effectively?

Leaders work smart by focusing on a few, high-impact activities

There is no doubt that principals and teacher leaders work hard. They exert uncommon effort over untold hours.

As a result, they are often so exhausted and stressed that they are unable to do their most important work.

It’s easy for all of us to confuse activity with accomplishment. That’s another way of saying that we too often work hard but not smart.

The truth is we can do only a few things well. That means one of the most important tasks of school leaders is determining what activities have the greatest impact on student learning and investing more time in doing them. It also means doing less of those things that make little or no difference.

Here’s an example: New systems of teacher evaluation that are being ramped up in many states and school systems are taking a serious toll on principals’ time and energy.

Some principals have used the new teacher evaluation systems as an opportunity to spend more time engaged in high-impact activities–frequent, brief classroom visits and evidence-based conversations with teachers about teaching and learning. That’s working smart.

Other principals spend countless hours preparing evaluation reports for their supervisors with poetic precision, although the reports are likely to be seen by only a handful of people. That’s working hard.

While I know this is a simplification of a complex responsibility, I offer it to stimulate your thinking about which activities in your circle of influence make the biggest difference and which do not.

Question: Which activities within your circle of influence make the biggest difference in the quality of teaching, learning, and relationships?

To change teaching, change the metaphor

Policymakers and administrators try to improve teaching through legislation, teacher evaluation, and professional development.

But because teaching is profoundly and often unconsciously affected by the language we use to describe it, the most direct and powerful way to change teaching may be to change its dominant metaphor.

The metaphor of “teacher as performer” for the most part continues to dominate the thinking of educators and the general public.

A powerful replacement metaphor—one that I owe to Phil Schlechty—is to view teachers as “leaders of knowledge workers” whose primary responsibility is the design of engaging knowledge work. (I say more about that here.)

Here are several implications of this metaphor:

1. Instead of “performance evaluation,” principals and teaching colleagues would meet with teachers to learn more about the design of the knowledge work assigned to students to consider its rigor and potential for meaningful engagement.

2. Classroom observers would assess students’ engagement with their work. They might also sample a few students about their understanding of the work’s purpose and clarity.

3. Observers would also pay attention to teachers’ leadership skills—their ability to clearly communicate a purpose for the learning, to place it in a larger context, to manage the flow of the work process, and to provide clear directions for the work with which students will engage individually and in small groups.

4. Formal professional learning would be focused for the most part on enabling teachers to design engaging work, on structuring student group work for maximum engagement, on real-time assessment of student engagement and learning, and on skillfully managing students and the flow of classroom procedures and processes.

Some school systems, I know, have made progress in this general direction, whether or not they have applied the “teachers as leaders of knowledge workers” metaphor. But in many schools the teacher as performer metaphor is as dominant as it was decades ago, which locks into place a teacher-centric view of the classroom and of learning.

Question: Do you agree that metaphors affect what we think and do? I have heard teachers described as performers, designers, gardeners, and architects, among other metaphors. What do you think is the best metaphor for teaching?