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
As Ya Team Leader, one thing I want to focus on is building trust through greater integrity and vulnerability.
Bryk and Schneider highlight how relational trust depends on respect, personal regard, competence, and particularly integrity, keeping your word and prioritising the best interests of the children. Covey’s behaviours such as “Talk Straight,” “Right Wrongs,” and “Keep Commitments” align closely with this. If I want to strengthen trust within the team, I need to lead by example and demonstrate that I can be relied upon.
What I would do is become much more transparent when handling decisions and commitments. I would openly acknowledge when things do not go as planned, take responsibility without shifting blame, and provide clear, honest updates on next steps. I would also make it a regular practice to follow up on all commitments (big or small) and report back to the team so they can see that my words are consistently matched by actions.
I believe this approach would have a meaningful impact. By openly acknowledging setbacks rather than trying to appear infallible, I would create a safer environment for honest conversations. Trust would grow as team members see that I am not avoiding responsibility or shifting blame. Over time, I expect more open professional dialogue, greater willingness to experiment with new strategies together, and a stronger team culture. This should enhance our collective teacher efficacy and support more consistent, high-quality teaching and learning in literacy, mathematics, and across the curriculum.
Ultimately, it is about walking the talk and fostering a team where we trust one another because we know we are all acting with integrity and vulnerability, while genuinely supporting each other.
I think one thing i could do to improve the function of my team is in line with building high trust relationships and that is to do with sharing the workload/delegating tasks to my team.
We have a great system with our collaborative planning and sharing the planning load across the team, but at the moment i take on a lot of tasks that are not strictly ‘team leader’ jobs, but historically have always been done by team leaders. I have been doing this, probably for the same reason many team leaders have, because it is easier to do it yourself, and surely as team leader you just do all these extra tasks.
I think at a long term though this does leave both myself and my team at a detriment, as i have a large workload, trying to get through everything while also still trying to appear like i have everything under control, while my team is less informed on everything happening, as they have not been involved in its organisation.
By sharing these tasks out with my team, I am showing them that i trust them to have the knowledge and skills to complete the task, or that i am am there to teach and support them if they don’t. It means i have more time to support my students and my team with the important stuff, and my team is more involved and feels a sense of ownership over our systems and processes as well.
In my team, I try to lead from a place of vulnerability by being open about the fact that I don’t have all the answers and by asking others to bring their strengths and ideas in. I actively ask for their thoughts around the execution of things and share my own thinking too, rather than pretending I’ve got it all figured out, when I genuinely don’t. I think that helps build trust because people feel heard and valued, rather than just being told what to do.
One area where I think there’s still a gap in trust is with the “clients” – the parents and students. Teachers often feel like they are communicating with parents through notices, apps, emails, conversations etc but sometimes it still feels like things aren’t being read or passed on, or that some parents aren’t really hearing what their child is saying about school. Rather than sitting in frustration about it, I think one actionable thing would be to actually pull the parent in and try to understand what the barrier is. Is it overload? Language? Time? Confidence? I think sometimes we assume disengagement when there may actually be something else underneath it.
More broadly across the school, I think a lot of staff (including myself) are feeling really under the pump at the moment. There’s this constant pressure to churn through content because the goal posts around curriculum expectations and standards keep shifting, while also trying to meet every achievement objective. A lot of teachers feel like they’re skimming the surface just to get coverage rather than actually teaching for depth, understanding, and mastery. Then on top of that, extra expectations or changes get added in last minute, which means reworking plans all over again.
I can see a small way forward in terms of communicating this honestly with curriculum leaders and senior leadership and advocating for more intentional backward mapping when forward planning. Also, in understanding that planning for a term and all the events that happen within a school as well as inter-schools, takes a lot of time and has a domino effect, which may or may not be in our court to control at times. At the moment there feels like a mismatch between the push for integrated learning (to ensure we fit everything in) and deep understanding, while also expecting full coverage across every learning area. Teachers are trying to integrate authentically, but often at the cost of depth because there simply isn’t enough time to do everything well.
At the same time, I also recognise that some of this sits far beyond our school itself and comes from a government and system level, so it’s not something I realistically think we can fully “solve” as a team.
So for me, improving the function of the team isn’t necessarily about pretending everything is fine or forcing toxic positivity. I think it’s more about creating a space where people can vent when needed, feel heard and know others are sitting in the same reality. But also helping each other move forward instead of getting stuck dwelling in the parts we can’t change. At the end of the day, sometimes just knowing you’re not carrying it on your own makes a big difference (at least to me it does) – which will hopefully mean that we are much more likely to collaborate honestly, problem solve together and keep showing up for each other and for the kids.
Your reflection beautifully captures the essence of what it means to lead a team through complex, high-pressure times. By intentionally creating spaces where staff can honestly share, feel heard, and problem-solve together without getting stuck in what they can’t control (or just moaning!), you are fostering a resilient and collaborative team culture.