Unsolicited Advice For Educational Leaders, In No Particular Order
Mistakes I’ve made, and things I would like to have known sooner.
The title of this post should be pretty self explanatory, so let’s dig in:
Never “just be you”. In the space of a single day, you may need to get on the stage and sell your vision to hundreds of people, fire someone because of poor performance, and still smile and say ‘have a great day’ to everyone (and actually mean it). Whether you like it or not, leadership involves a degree of acting, because chances are not everything you have to do is simply you “being you”. I am not suggesting that a leader shouldn’t be sincere or show emotions, far from it, but transparency and authenticity are not the same thing.
Communication is hard. Find your own style of communication, emphasize your strengths and capitalize on them. If improvised storytelling in front of a large crowd is your thing, make it work to your advantage; if walking around the office with a coffee mug talking to everyone is your way of gaining trust, own that coffee round like nobody’s business. Whatever you do, not everyone will like your style, so you may as well stop trying to please everyone. Communicate with purpose and lean in. People will respect that and begin tuning in to your voice.
Change management is also hard. It is really, really hard. Construct your narrative, over-communicate, enable the positive agents in your organization and all that jazz you’ve been told for decades. Fine, but chances are you will fail anyway. That’s a sad fact. There is so much change management literature out there, and you’ve probably been through the slush pile, but if you haven’t already you may want to check out Chip and Dan Heath’s smart little book ‘Switch’ which addresses human behaviour with deceptively simple and actionable methods. It might just offer a fresh perspective on the job you’re about to do, and how to do it. I am rooting for you on this one.
Read books, for goodness’ sake. In a comparatively short amount of time, reading books will enable you to gather valuable leadership insights that you simply cannot accumulate on your own in just one short lifetime. Much of this list would be redundant if I had absorbed the knowledge elsewhere and sooner, in books. Biographies of great leaders are fine, but be sure to balance things out by reading biographies about failures, too. Oh, and great leaders read fiction as well. Not only does Henry V have a great deal to say about motivation and leadership, reading Shakespeare will also force you to concentrate, as reading requires focus. I guarantee, the rewards will be huge for you personal leadership development.
Trust people unreservedly. This one is admittedly controversial, but my take is this: With mutual trust and honesty, I have achieved pretty amazing results in terms of turning bad work environments and subpar performance around to having happy employees take responsibility, as a team, and propel organizations forward with tremendous efficacy. The flipside of the coin? I have also gotten in severe trouble for trusting people with malicious agendas close to me. Mainly leaders. I may have fine tuned my alarm systems a little bit over time because of it, but the benefits for an organisation, and all those well intentioned people who inhabit it every day and put their energy into it, far outweigh the downsides. I pick trust any day.
Don’t insist on solutions when people bring up problems. Unless you work in a nuclear submarine, I fail to see why you would insist that people should bring you solutions instead of problems. Problems equal ideas, and essentially you miss out on opportunities for meaningful conversation. A while ago, a former colleague recommended David Marquet’s ‘Turn The Ship Around!’ to me, but I found it underwhelming. The world is a complicated place, and while the no-problems-approach might seem appealing, the organizational context is often too complicated for quick solutions. There are no quick management tricks or fixes here. Sorry.
Be innovative, and kill your darlings. Nobody wants a leader who is uncritically enthusiastic about every new idea that pops up and keeps piling up strategic initiatives and action plans. Ideally you should move your organization forward with innovative ideas, but you should also be great at closing projects that do not serve your purpose anymore. You can’t realistically go forward with your strategic plan without doing both at the same time. Unless resources are not an issue, of course.
Think about what you leave behind, when you leave. If your workplace will desperately miss you when you leave, you’ve likely done a poor job in one or both of two areas: a) you haven’t created the necessary redundancy in the organisation for it to function and thrive without you, or b) you have created a culture and a story line in which you are the hero who can save people from office politics or other shenanigans in the organization (perhaps unwillingly). Neither is particularly sustainable or respectful to the people you leave behind. Trust me, I’ve made this mistake more than once.
Trust your gut feeling over data. This is a pretty bold statement coming from someone who is all about data informed decision making. However, I have sometimes regretted not following my intuition more, and especially sooner, but I have very seldom regretted not following the available data enough. Don’t fall in love with (the idea of) data. Good decisions consist of many things, data being one, gut feeling and experience being another.
Insist on focus time. Carve out chunks of Outlook for yourself to block out noise. How much, when and where will be different for everyone, but make it a priority to reserve time to be produktive and to think. Unless, that is, you would rather spend all day running around with a fire extinguisher to solve everybody else’s problems.
Be a connector. As a leader, you are a fulcrum point of ideas, of people. I see too many leaders obsessing about KPIs, for obvious reasons, but with fairly minimal effort leaders can facilitate innovation just by bringing smart people together. Some leaders are (still) afraid of being wrong or not being the smartest person in the room. This inhibits progress. Don’t be that person.
Exhibit self awareness. The foundation for any outstanding, durable leader is the ability to continuously reflect on their own role as a leader. I don’t necessarily believe in working on improving your weaknesses; but I do think it is valuable to be mindful of what they are, how they come across to the people around you, and how to mitigate them in different types of work situations. While this may seem obvious, I have come to the surprising conclusion it is not.
Engage in conversation. In an age dominated by digital communication, be sure to capitalize on the power of genuine human connection. Make it your priority to engage in meaningful conversations around you. In my experience, it is often through conversations that ideas are challenged, refined, and ultimately lead to new ways of doing things.
Whatever you do, have a moral compass. And don’t deviate. I do not want to speculate what your individual compass should look like, but make sure it aligns with your institutional values. Otherwise, get outta there and find a place that respects your integrity and values. This one is about you behind the leadership armour. Every day you have a choice to make when you park your car and get ready for another day in the office. Don’t compromise your values, or you will most certainly end up becoming a leader nobody wants to follow. Better save everyone the trouble and retire early if you plan to fly under the radar in the values department. It won’t work.
Resources:
Heath, Dan & Chip: Switch: How to Change Things When Change is Hard. Crown Business, 2010.
Shakespeake, William: Henry V. The RSC Shakespeare: The Complete Works, 2010.