Mā te kimi ka kite, mā te kite ka mōhio, mā te mōhio ka mārama
Seek and discover. Discover and know. Know and become enlightened
Module Objectives:
- Articulate a clear understanding of coaching principles and their application within an educational leadership context.
- Develop and apply a range of effective coaching models and techniques to support the growth and development of individuals and teams.
- Cultivate strong coaching relationships built on trust, respect, and a focus on individual strengths and goals.
- Utilise powerful questioning and active listening skills to facilitate self-reflection and ownership of development.
- Provide constructive feedback and support accountability to enhance performance and foster a culture of continuous improvement.
Learning Material:
As Deputy and Associate Principals, you are in a prime position to foster a coaching culture within your kura. This module will start to equip you with the knowledge and skills to lead through coaching, empowering your colleagues to reach their full potential.
Understanding the Coaching Approach:
Coaching in an educational setting goes beyond mentoring or directing. It is a collaborative process focused on:
- Empowering Ownership: Facilitating individuals to identify their own goals, solutions, and pathways for development.
- Focusing on Potential: Believing in the capacity of others to grow and achieve their best.
- Promoting Self-Reflection: Guiding individuals to critically examine their practice and identify areas for growth.
- Supporting Action and Accountability: Helping individuals translate insights into concrete actions and take responsibility for their progress.
- Building Capacity: Developing the skills and confidence of others to become more effective in their roles.
Key Coaching Skills and Models:
Effective coaching requires a specific skillset and often draws upon established models. Key elements include:
- Active Listening: Paying full attention, seeking to understand perspectives, and reflecting back what you hear.
- Powerful Questioning: Asking open-ended questions that encourage deep thinking and self-discovery.
- Goal Setting: Collaboratively establishing clear, specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound (SMART) goals.
- Providing Feedback: Offering constructive and timely feedback that is both supportive and challenging.
- Building Rapport and Trust: Creating a safe and supportive environment where individuals feel comfortable exploring their challenges and aspirations.
- Coaching Models: Familiarity with models like GROW (Goal, Reality, Options, Way Forward) or TGROW (Topic, Goal, Reality, Options, Way Forward) can provide a structured framework for coaching conversations.
Applying Coaching in Your Role:
As a Deputy Principal, you can integrate coaching into various aspects of your leadership:
- Supporting Teacher Development: Coaching teachers to enhance their pedagogical practices, classroom management, and leadership skills.
- Mentoring Emerging Leaders: Guiding and supporting staff members taking on new leadership responsibilities.
- Facilitating Team Growth: Coaching teams to improve collaboration, communication, and problem-solving.
- Having Difficult Conversations: Using a coaching approach to navigate challenging conversations in a way that fosters learning and growth.
- Promoting a Coaching Culture: Modelling coaching behaviours and encouraging others to adopt a coaching mindset.
Resources:
Introduction to Coaching in Education:
- Growth Coaching International – offers articles and resources on coaching in schools: https://growthcoaching.com.au/resources/
Developing Coaching Skills:
- Michael Bungay Stainer – Has written two excellent and easy to digest books if this is an area of interest for you. For now, have a look at his TED Talk, “How to Tame Your Advice Monster” https://www.ted.com/talks/michael_bungay_stanier_how_to_tame_your_advice_monster_feb_2025?language=en and this article (there are more if you are interested) on his Box of Crayons website – https://boxofcrayons.com/resources/how-to-be-coach-like-at-work/
- Explore the Instructional Coaching resources most relevant to you – https://www.instructionalcoaching.com/resources/
Task: Practicing Coaching Questions:
Reflect on a recent interaction you had with a colleague where you could have used a coaching approach. Identify 2-3 powerful coaching questions you could have asked to encourage deeper reflection and ownership of the situation.
Post your chosen questions and a brief explanation of why you selected them and the potential outcomes you anticipated on the forum (150 words maximum).
Extra practice! Comment on someone else’s post with a coaching question to make them think.
Assessment:
- Completion of all readings.
- Participation in the online forum discussion.
- Reflective post on forum
6 Responses
During a recent staff meeting, I stepped out of the room, and two team members began voicing concerns about the leadership team, specifically stating they felt uncared for and that staffing was inadequate. This was surprising, as every class is currently overstaffed.
Another staff member, recalling our work with Brené Brown’s “Dare to Lead,” intervened and encouraged them to address their concerns directly with the leadership team rather than airing grievances in a public forum and making others feel uncomfortable.
After being informed of the situation, I met with both teachers individually. I used open-ended questions to gain a clearer understanding of their perspectives and to explore how their concerns could be addressed respectfully.
Question 1: “What specifically are you hoping would be different if the leadership team ‘cared’ more about staffing?” I wanted to uncover the underlying needs or desired outcomes. It challenges the assumption of “not caring” and pushes for more concrete examples or expectations.
Question 2: “Considering our school’s commitment to ‘Dare to Lead,’ what brave conversation might be necessary here to move forward constructively?” This question leverages the shared understanding of “Dare to Lead” principles. It encouraged them to consider their own agency and responsibility in addressing the situation directly and constructively, rather than through public complaint. It reframes the issue as an opportunity for brave leadership from their side.
Question 3: “If you were in the leadership team’s shoes, what information or actions would help you understand and address these concerns more effectively?” I wanted to be empathetic, but I wanted them to see things from a different perspective. We are a 6-site school that has its complexities.
The outcome was that both members of staff have looked at the staffing list daily and have offered to change their programmes and send a TA to another site when staffing is low. A great collaborative approach!
Recently, a team leader approached me expressing frustration about the lack of student engagement during lessons. My immediate reaction was to offer advice—strategies around lesson structure, classroom management, and engagement techniques. While my intentions were to help, I later reflected that I had defaulted to solving the problem for them rather than empowering them to find their own path forward. I refer to this as ‘rescuing’.
Michael Bungay Stanier’s TED Talk “How to Tame Your Advice Monster” reminded me how quickly leaders can fall into the trap of offering advice too early. While advice might feel helpful, it can often rob others of the opportunity to reflect, learn, and grow. A coaching approach would have slowed the conversation down and encouraged deeper thinking, ownership, and professional growth.
In hindsight, I could have asked:
– What’s the real challenge here for you? – to get beneath the surface frustration and uncover the heart of the issue.
– What have you already tried, and what’s been the impact so far? – to validate their efforts and encourage insight.
– What would success look like in this situation? – to shift the focus toward solutions and desired outcomes.
These questions align with Growth Coaching International’s approach of turning challenging conversations into opportunities. Coaching isn’t about avoiding hard truths—it’s about holding space for others to find them with dignity and purpose. By asking, not telling, I would have supported my colleague to feel more heard, capable, and engaged in their own problem-solving process.
This experience has deepened my commitment to embedding coaching conversations into my leadership practice. The next time a colleague comes to me with a challenge, I’ll be more mindful of listening, staying curious, and resisting the urge to jump in with solutions.
It’s great that you’re reflecting on your “advice monster” and looking for ways to empower your team! It’s very easy to fall into the trap!
As you have already identified, the question “What’s the real challenge here for you? and “What else?”
In a recent kōrero with staff about challenges with student engagement, instead of giving solutions, I offered questions drawing from Michael Bungay Stanier’s emphasis on curiosity over advice and align with the GROW model (Reality → Options → Way Forward).:
1. “What do you think is going on for the students in your class right now?”
2. “What have you tried already, and what impact did it have?”
3. “What’s one small step you could take this week to test a new approach?”
Question 2:
Recently, while implementing a new PB4L initiative—a booklet system designed to gather data such as student attendance—we found that clear and honest communication was key to building trust across staff. We anchored our messaging in our shared school vision: Kia U, Kia Māia, Kia Manawanui. By actively listening to staff concerns, acknowledging their reservations, and following through with action, we demonstrated the values of Kotahitanga and Whanaungatanga.
When communication was clear, empathetic, and consistent, trust deepened and collective commitment grew. Equally, moments where messaging lacked clarity led to small gaps in confidence, highlighting the need for culturally grounded communication at every level. Through this process, staff emphasised the importance of having clear expectations for students. By setting goals around aspects like attendance, students were given ownership, and staff were empowered with a platform to guide and support positive change.
At a recent Leader’s meeting, one of our leaders interrupted a conversation with the remark, “Oh great, another thing from the ministry to confuse us more” Some team members laughed nervously, but the tone of the meeting shifted. Having recently had team discussions around interrupting others, it was important to have a separate conversation with this team member away from the group.
Two statements/queries I made after the meeting were:
Question 1. Hey, just checking in on you. During the meeting this morning, I noticed you interrupted Jo with your comment about the Ministry, and it kind of shifted the tone of the meeting. I’d like to hear how things are going for you and your team and find where you guys are at.
The staff member had already self reflected before I had spoken to her, and she wasn’t feeling great about her comment, as she knew the tone had changed and stated she was feeling a bit embarrassed. She did open up that she was feeling the number of changes was a bit overwhelming, but more her concern was for how heightened her staff were and how she should be leading them through all the changes when she knew they were already under considerable pressure.
Question 2. Okay, I understand this is a lot this year, and I hear you’re concerned for your team, which is one of your strengths, your care for the people in your team. What can I do (without interfering with your leadership) that would support?
I think it was important to empathise. This year has been a lot for all our staff. Not all of them have vocalised this, but neither had our leader, who simply blurted it out from frustration. We now need to go back to the team leaders and really look at what is going on for our staff and how we, as a leadership team, can gatekeep/protect our teams from outside noise. The team member’s interrupting statement came from a genuine point of concern, and she had already realised the way she handled it wasn’t ideal, but in hindsight, someone probably needed to say it.
I intend to address this at our next leader’s meeting in a way that lets the group know that although it wasn’t brought up in a way we would have liked (from the leader’s point of view as well), it was an important discussion to have. I plan to say to the leader in front of the group that although I know she didn’t like the way she brought this topic up (letting all leaders know its not the way I would like our meetings to run but also acknowledging the leaders remorse), it was an important conversation, and I would like to check in with everyone before we move on. I will probably let the leader know this before the meeting.
Kia ora Claire,
Thanks for sharing. Firstly I love the fact that you had already had team discussions around interrupting others. I think it is important to address those sort of behaviours so everyone feels heard and their opinions valued.
My coaching question to you (as per the task!) is – how might you create space for this kind of honesty and concern to surface earlier or more constructively so that team members feel safe to speak up before reaching a breaking point?