Due: 9th June
He aha te kai a te rangatira? He kōrero, he kōrero, he kōrero.
What is the food of the leader? It is knowledge. It is communication.
Module Objectives:
Upon completion of this module, participants will be able to:
- Understand the key elements of high-performing teams.
- Develop strategies for building trust and fostering collaboration within teams.
- Understand and apply the principles of shared accountability within a team context.
- Identify and address potential barriers to team effectiveness.
- Develop and implement strategies for creating a positive and supportive team culture.
High Performing Leaders are ‘Networked Leaders’ who build leadership capacity in individuals, and in institutions, through enhancing professional relationships. Partnerships are based on the importance of maximising potential, and harnessing the ongoing commitment and energy needed to meet personal and professional goals.
High Performing Leaders follow a process of reflection, introspection and then connection. Through coaching and guidance, they decipher their strengths, areas for development and focused improvement.
As school leaders reflecting on your own leadership, and ways in which you can more effectively facilitate learning, the goal of this korero is to work with each other as coaches and mentors, creating deep learning relationships within professional practice.
One of the essential ingredients of high performing individuals, teams and organisations is creativity (Basadur, 2004). Being creative means releasing talent and imagination. It also means taking risks and, in some cases, standing outside the usual or accepted way of doing things. High performing leaders push boundaries; they seek new ways of seeing, interpreting, understanding and questioning.
Relational Trust
“High trust relationships exist when leaders are respected for their deep educational knowledge, their actions and values, and the way they engage respectfully with others with empathy and humility, fostering openness in discussions. Leaders have good emotional intelligence and self-awareness.”
– Educational leadership capability framework, Education Council, 2018.
Trust provides a strong foundation for effective working relationships which, ultimately, has a positive impact on student achievement. Trust has been shown time and time again to have a huge benefit in leading change and in creating great teams. Teams and schools with trusting relationships have staff who are open to sharing practice, taking risks and sharing what is and isn’t going well in their teaching. However, it does not happen by accident and it is not built in the same way for every person, depending on their personal narrative. As a middle leader, it is important to intentionally work to build trust with colleagues, whānau and community.
- Reading 1: Trust in educational leadership settings – https://www.educationalleaders.govt.nz/Leadership-development/Professional-information/Leadership-capability-framework/High-trust-relationships#:~:text=High%20trust%20relationships%20exist%20when,emotional%20intelligence%20and%20self%2Dawareness.
- Reading 2: “Trust in Schools: A Core Resource for School Reform” B. Schneider. – https://www.ascd.org/el/articles/trust-in-schools-a-core-resource-for-school-reform
- Reading 3: “How the Best Leaders Build Trust” S. Covey. – https://www.leadershipnow.com/CoveyOnTrust.html
Collaborative Teams
Reading 4: https://www.arts.on.ca/oac/media/aire/Documents/IdeasIntoActionBulletin3.pdf
Reading 5: Collective teacher efficacy – https://visible-learning.org/2018/03/collective-teacher-efficacy-hattie/
Additional Resources:
– Working effectively with iwi and hapū, Melanie Taite-Pitama: https://vimeo.com/242861287
– Legacy – 15 Lessons in Leadership, by James Kerr (2013). Chapter 6 pp 74-83
– Open-to-Learning Conversations- Relationships and Trust, Viviane Robinson, 2014: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0_l5-HKIR1s
Optional Resources:
– Connecting with Māori Communities; Whānau, Hapū and Iwi, Mere Berryman and Therese Ford, 2014:
https://kep.org.nz/assets/resources/site/module8-v20a-up-16Apr15-w-image_5Jan16.pdf
– Robertson, J. (2015). Think-piece on leadership education in New Zealand. Leadership for communities of learning: Five think pieces. https://teachingcouncil.nz/assets/Files/Leadership-Strategy/Leadership-for-Communities-of-Learning-Five-Think-Pieces.pdf
- “Five Faces of Trust: An Empirical Confirmation in Urban Elementary Schools.” – W. Hoy and M. Tschannen-Moran. – https://drive.google.com/file/d/1NBTBXVSjokVr_RPx3Qlze-Ao3E1m6XWI/view?usp=sharing
Task:
Reflect on the readings and identify one thing that you could do in your role to improve the function of your team. What would you do and what impact would you expect that to have?
Assessment:
- Completion of all readings.
- Participation in the online forum discussion.
- Submission of reflection on the forum.
4 Responses
My understanding of effective leadership from the readings is that it involves fostering a genuine collaborative culture, focusing on transformative practices that yield improvements in both teaching and student learning outcomes. For me a focus engaging teachers in decision-making processes that directly impact their work, such as curriculum development, reporting, school policies, and professional development. Through this I would hope to foster a sense of ownership, trust and mutual respect. It’s also important to maintain a clear vision of the desired outcomes of collaboration—improved teaching and student achievement—rather than merely viewing collaboration as a trend or process (I felt this was a great point presented in the article, Ideas Into Action).
One thing I can do as a Team Leader to improve the function of the team is to facilitate more opportunities for staff to learn from each other. I plan to rejig our team meetings to focus more on shared learning instead of always admin! I plan on reshaping these meetings so that team members are given more time and space to learn from each other, have more open discussions about their practice and challenges they have, and then invite others in the team to share possible solutions to these problems. To also support this, I will encourage more peer observations which I will make happen by covering teacher’s classes on my own release day. This will give the team time to observe colleagues outside of their usual CRT allocation.
This will have a positive impact on both the individuals and the team as a whole. It will help build relational trust, grow individual capacity, and create a culture where curiosity, vulnerability become the norm.
To improve the functioning of my team, I am going to address a situation with a teacher who is underperforming in her role. Using the knowledge from the previous module I have confidence that I can effectively communicate with her, address the issues, find a collaborative direction forward and set clear measurable goals. The impact I expect to see is, improved performance, a positive relationship moving forward with our underperforming teacher, students needs being met and trust built with all staff. Viviane Robinson states ‘education is a team business’. Our underperforming teacher not only affects the students but the other teachers. By addressing the situation I am building trust with other staff by showing them I can address and find a way forward with challenging situations.
With the disestablishment of Kāhui Ako, I believe that it is imperative that Networked Learning continues to occur. “Networked learning: occurs when people from different schools engage with one another to learn together, to innovate and to enquire into their collective practices.” (Ideas into Action Bulletin, https://www.arts.on.ca/oac/media/aire/Documents/IdeasIntoActionBulletin3.pdf ) I would use the connections that I already have to actively maintain meaningful collaboration with other schools, so that ideas and best practice are shared, critiqued and refined. I think that connecting with; colleagues and students from other schools, experts, mentors and coaches will have a powerful impact on morale and can only strengthen my team’s practice.
Networked Learning, to me, is about gaining insights and improving our team’s function by observing others and troubleshooting conversations outside my own school.