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.
15 Responses
Reading Ashleigh’s comments and Jeremy’s reply, I also find myself again thinking about Brene’s thoughts especially on chapter 2, Clear to be Kind. Rumbling with vulnerability as she refers to it is about setting a culture where honesty and vulnerability is at the forefront of a leaders relationship with their team. By doing so, I guess having the difficult conversations becomes easy as everyone knows there are no personal attacks or agendas, and the desire to deal with an issue is 100% focused on team efficacy and student achievement.
One area I am actively working to develop is competence as a driver of relational trust. While I have a strong understanding of the curriculum, particularly Phase 1, I have yet to work in a senior class (Years 4-6). I have taken opportunities to extend my expertise, such as leading school-wide curriculum change and marking university maths papers. However, I often question whether this lack of teaching ‘Phase 2’ impacts how competent I appear to teachers in Years 4–6, and in turn, whether it influences the level of trust we share.
Bryk and Schneider identify competence as one of the four key components of relational trust, alongside respect, personal regard, and integrity. To strengthen this area, my goal is to be proactive in growing my understanding/teaching of the Phase 2 curriculum by observing experienced colleagues, contributing meaningfully to professional discussions, and continuing with opportunities like university paper marking. Covey supports this approach, stating that when leaders model a commitment to learning and self-improvement, they build credibility and trust with others.
By becoming more visible and involved in Years 4-6, I aim to demonstrate genuine investment in the whole school’s success, not just my area of expertise. Over time, this will help foster stronger relational trust with teachers, as trust grows when colleagues perceive both integrity and capability. According to the Leadership Capability Framework, leaders who develop deep curriculum knowledge across levels show strategic thinking, promote coherence, and build confidence in their leadership. Ultimately, this focus on competence will support a more unified, collaborative team culture.
Leaders building trust is a long process. From the first reading, my main takeaway is that leaders often will say build trust first, then aim to get high quality results. However, the reading suggests that building and maintaining trust never stops, and actually a leader’s competence and integrity is being looked at at all times. Not addressing moments of incompetence or not addressing moments of a team member failing to meet basic team expectations has a ripple effect, and damages trust too. This is also reflected in the second reading:
Instances of negligence or incompetence, if allowed to persist, undermine trust.
In the second reading, as a leader, it is important to keep this at the forefront of every interaction:
As individuals interact with one another around the work of schooling, they are constantly discerning the intentions embedded in the actions of others.
In addition, each interaction with community members (students, staff and whānau) is an opportunity to foster the desired culture of trust. Holding people in high personal regard is extremely important:
A leader’s openness to others, and their willingness to reach out to parents, teachers, and students were signs of effective leadership. A leader’s efforts can help cultivate a climate in which such regard became the norm across the school community.
One thing the second reading also pointed out was the need to be ‘vulnerable’ when talking about what is working and what is not. Acting like the perennial expert is dishonest, and counterproductive. As the reading points out, it does mean exposing vulnerability and learning from others. This is something I have been actively trying with other areas of the school for my own benefit, mostly. However, it is also to build trust and relationships with staff and students in the wider school.
In summary, I will be looking to increase deliberate and meaningful interactions with other areas of the school. With this, I will be seeking opportunities to work with people from the wider school to observe, discuss learning and receive feedback from them too. This will undoubtedly build my competence too (I am a little out of touch with life in other year groups after 4 years in Year 6).
This may seem basic, but it’s probably something I have neglected in my practice as a leader and teacher for a while.
What a week of readings – so many different perspectives to look at, at first as I started reading I found the reflection hard to complete as a lot of the time I felt I was between a rock and hard place as being in middle management a lot of what I work with is decided by others and then I do the mahi to make it happen – whether we agree with it or not. Also my Deaning role has no team attached to it. However as I moved into the options reading etc I found there to be a lot more perspectives in the reading that one can use through ‘being’ rather than being at the forefront of decisions.
1. I found the reading focusing on connecting with our Māori learners and whanau enlightening and challenging. It pushed me to consider the power imbalance and struggles and to reflect on the place that schools consistently come from. Engaging our Māori whanau has been a challenge for me, as history in my kura shows a disconnect and for some reason distrust! These readings sparked in me to take a step back and approach these whanau and through further reading all whanau from a different perspective and like everyone has mentioned in their reflections build TRUST.
– Connect informally – whilst reading this I instantly stopped and contacted two whanau informally simply to comment on how their child was doing. Also making sure the relationship is reciprocal and sometimes one sided in the favor of the minority – simply having a meeting without a purpose for myself but simply to listen.
-Connecting and sharing with whanau, empowering them to be a part of the learning journey not just with what is happening but how they can be a part of the learning and facilitate this at home – this had me reflecting on how much I currently do this as teacher myself but also how we do this as a school. I feel I constantly inform, however again their is that power imbalance so now it has me pondering how I can pivot and allow them to be a part of this process.
2. The idea of building TRUST being partially about competence also resonated with me. Whilst I believe I show this within my approach with both my students and fellow staff around how I act and do the day to day obligations of my job. I believe I focus a lot on the job itself, connecting, solving problems and tracking students effectively. Through past modules I have even been challenging myself to have the hard or awkward conversations and I find it quite empowering to be ticking these off. However! where I realize I lack and I have mentioned this before but the readings around simple and complex systems really had me thinking… I don’t give myself enough time to research and be informed up to date around what is happening outside of my own environment, I know my subject and my own role well, I feel I am an expert in that, I have up to date date etc. What I am not allowing myself to be an ‘expert’ in my field and therefore my ideas are limited in their concepts and potentially their success too.
Response to others comments about putting students first. I agree with the concept that students should be put first. As the reading states the key purpose of our job is to support success in our students, that is the product of our work, the evidence we grow is the success of each of our individual learners. Therefore, putting staff first, ahead of this, I feel is a detriment to our job being successful, so to speak. I think if you are needing in an individual case to put a staff member first, there is a need for reflection in systems and processes that lead to this issue – and again this is where my point came in above about complex systems.
Kia ora Rebecca
Your whakaaro around researching and being informed resonated with me; I also struggle to do the same unless I deliberately book time for professional reading/research into my schedule WITHOUT guilt. Yes, there are always things that need to be done/started/completed and most of them can wait until the next day… I now consider this an investment in myself which directly benefits my team and therefore our ākonga.
I also felt a bit isolated when I took on my current role in terms of professional upskilling/research etc as I don’t operate as a Leader in the curriculum space in my Kura and for a while I seemed to find more resources aimed at curriculum development & pedagogy and less with a pastoral focus. After attending a Ulearn conference I joined a couple of Education centered Facebook groups (e.g DisruptEd) and used the resource/readings suggestions from those forums for my own professional reading. Another useful suggestion came from a course I attended which is to carry the book/text/current article with you everywhere so you can make use of trapped time in a waiting room for example to read another section, chapter, page. I’ve found that this does not always work for me if the text is too detailed or requires immediate recall of the content covered in the preceding sections, but if I have a pencil and scribble notes to myself in the margins (yup, I like physical texts not online stuff where possible) then this works OK. Podcasts are another awesome resource if you have to commute for work – I don’t like listening to these at the gym as I want to make notes as I listen, I know it does work for some people… I can usually manage to jot the key points from a car podcast session into a notebook when I arrive home/at work.
Richard Branson of Virgin fame is of the opinion staff come first as without the right staff in the right place with the right mindset, with the right training and resources, then they cant deliver on their role’s expectations. While I agree the learners are at the heart of what we do as educators, staff must be motivated, resourced and supported to enable to do the best by their students. Rob Rush, the principal we watched to prepare for PLG 2 says as much. His approach is to ensure his staff are heard and given pld and career opportunities to keep them interested, challenged and valued, as to not do so, the learners successes will be compromised.
An element that comes through all the readings, including others from past modules, is trust. Having a high level of trust within a team is essential for high performance. I agree with the statement, ‘leaders find maintaining trust as more problematic than building trust’. Building trust within a team is easy at the beginning of the year, it’s as the year goes on and challenges arise, that it becomes harder to maintain that. I think that open and honest communication plays a big role in maintaining trust as well as knowing your team well enough to know how to approach difficult conversations.
My team is already a very close-knit team with half of the team staying intact from the previous year and all of us having worked in the school for a couple of years. My team has difficulty with being vulnerable about struggles they are having that can affect them mentally and emotionally. This has been a big learning curve for me as I often struggle with being vulnerable myself, so I have to really open up with my team for them to be comfortable to do the same. As my team is quite young, we have a lot of discussions about when situations happen in the classroom, how it can affect us as teachers and how we shouldn’t take it personally. This has really helped with their mindsets if something happens that is out of their control.
I agree with Jeremy’s point from the first reading that in some instances, staff need to be put first. The students are the main focus of what we do but as staff, we need to focus on ourselves at times to make sure we have the capability to do our best for our students. Looking out for my team is important for the overall success of staff and students.
Self reflection, connection, creativity, imagination, challenge, be happy living outside the box, understanding, question, culture, trust.
Trust has a high level impact on not only student achievement but also staff achievement. This comes from the basic fundamental of the fact that you know what you are talking about. Be it when you are dealing with students in the classroom, providing them with feedback on assessment or extension in teaching beyond reading notes off the board. To staff looking for support with challenging students, admin or a range of other possibilities both in and outside the classroom. This trust then makes the challenging conversations that may need to be had with staff or students far more easier as there is that relationship that has been established but also keeping mana for staff, student and you intact. The approach will be different for each person or student and will take time to foster.
An interesting point was made in the first reading about relational trust putting the students needs first, before staff when both are in conflict. I would challenge this that it needs to be approached based on the individual situation rather than a general approach. Overall I agree students need to be put first but there are some instances where staff need to be considered first.
Smaller communities and schools foster a tighter and closer community. Making relational trust an easier thing to achieve. Comparison of high schools to primary schools and having the time, means and ability to make that a priority sees benefits. I compare this to high schools where assessment and student outcome, be it academic or vocational, is the driving force of most high schools. Considering this it can make relational trust between school and community and students a challenge. I am envious of primary schools as they just seem to be a brighter place to be. That in it self making a welcoming, warm, colorful environment develops relation trust without having to say a word.
We have tried to make this happen at our school by making houses be the focal point. A bit of a Harry Potter Hogwarts approach, “while here your house will be your home”. The smaller amount of students really allowed me to develop strong relationships with students and whanau over many years, I had earnt students and parents trust. It was outstanding. This year we have change our system to be an approach that was more teacher focused and this has seen an immediate and unexpected change where there has been a rapid decrease in trust among students and teachers but also deans. Those tough jobs that were talked about in almost all reading and videos have become much tougher, almost not possible in a very short period. Getting these relationships back is something that I am struggling to do, as this is across school rather than just focused around my area. However, this has given me a place to reset, establish new relationships, new communications with a new larger group of students, staff and whanau.
From the readings & articles there are 2 that stood out for me the most: p83 of Legacy “Great leaders ruthlessly protect their people, encouraging connection, collaboration and collective ownership, nurturing a safe environment of trust, respect and family” and Viviane Robinson’s summary (Youtube clip) that Leaders are trusted on the basis of their judgements: how they do their work (competence, respectful, integrity), tackling the difficult stuff, how they treat people, how they support risks (what happens if the project/initiative fails?). I had a light bulb moment when Viviane explained that embedding relationship building into the important tasks builds trust (trust is not a precursor). I realized that at present I am not using our in-person team hui times to best effect; I have been keeping the important stuff (project updates, initiatives, brain storming solutions etc) and relationship building separate. So the one thing I am going to build in to our team hui is keeping our “why” visible: ākonga at the centre of all that we do. This could look like acknowledging kaimahi efforts and successes in our hui (this happens “organically” at present, in a more ad hoc manner) and inviting the kaimahi to share how they feel the outcome has assisted/benefitted that ākonga. It could also look like me checking in with each team member in person every week, informally (as I see them in the office) in addition to our scheduled 1-1 catch ups.
The impact I think these actions would have is to show everyone in the team that they are seen and their efforts are valued, and hopefully will create a space when they feel comfortable acknowledging each other’s contributions and assistance.
Completely agree with your point around Vivianes korero regarding both integrating relationship building and doing our roles – I especially love incorporating the ‘why’ element. I have largely been a part of two schools. My previous had a huge ‘WHY’ in its culture, all students knew the values of the school, the expectations and the ‘way we do things’. This set the tone and in every meeting whether that be with students, whanau or staff we knew our why, we would also connect goals to our ‘why’ – their was collective vision that we all worked in upholding.
My current school does not have this – I am known as the teacher with ‘high standards’ which my students live up to but also shake their heads at as my current school does not have its own set ‘culture’ that has been strategically set to get us all on the same waka, to have us all working towards and from our ‘why’.
So I love that you are creating the opportunity to do this!
These readings emphasise how critically important trust is in effective teams. Being the leader of a fluid team due to the year level that we teach, having an effective team is critical and trust underpins all that we do. Building a relationship with new team members is really important, while also upholding the relationship with current team members. The readings demonstrate that trust leads to collaboration, innovation and a willingness to take risks. This ultimately leading to improved outcomes. As my team is quite inexperienced, I would like to focus on working towards a stronger team cohesion with collaboration, more independent problem solving, greater buy in and commitment (that can be hard if people are on short term contracts) and an improved learning culture. To do this I think I need to be more vulnerable myself. I feel that I need to focus on being open about areas where I need support myself, for example in Te Reo Māori. I also need to be more transparent about my own learning journey.
Kia ora Michelle
Yes – the vulnerability of self as a colleague can be a powerful situation! I had a great kōrero in a team hui when I shared that I was struggling with my Te Reo journey and asked for ideas on good websites, youtube channels and apps. Several team members had fantastic resources to share, and the whole team benefitted from the discussion, not just me.
That’s awesome!
After completing the readings and looking at Brene Brown’s leadership assessment to help clarify, identify and guide my next steps I have chosen to work on Braving Trust. Brene highlighted I have both strengths and weaknesses in this area. From doing this course and the readings I know how important TRUST is in any leadership role and that is why I have chosen this to work on, develop and try to excel in.
The biggest part of the trust inventory (BRAVING by Brene Brown) that I have highlighted that I need to work on, is having the hard conversations, choosing courage over comfort (INTEGRITY). Sometimes I shy away from challenging conversations, which can lead to conflict due to past trauma, and this is holding me back from challenging my team to be accountable, reliable and collaborative. My goal will be to confront decisions I may not agree with and ask for it to be reasoned, discuss challenging ideas and be honest in what I think is best for not just our team but the tamariki.
By working on this I would expect my team to have higher trust in my leadership knowing that I can have these hard conversations with them when I disagree or need to discuss an area of concern. That these conversations are being had because of the expectations and boundaries we have set as a team. Alongside this, I think we would be able to see non-judgemental mutual acts of respect as we dive deeper into knowing each other and supporting each other.
Hi Ashleigh, I to have struggled with the challenging conversation in the past and still do, sometimes they go well other times not so much. Often I delay to limit the damage that I may receive, be it a grumpy parent / caregiver or even student. It never worked, if anything it made the situation worse. So my work on like you is to not shy away from those tough conversations. Even if those conversations are putting across ideas or disagreeing with your peers in your team. I have examples of this at my school where there are leaders who are very good at those conversations. Definitely gives me a how do they do that so well moment.