Demonstrating leadership in school (and probably in any other organisation) has got little to do with position.
Consider that the senior leadership team in your school are desperate for ideas to move the school forward.
At least – any decent leadership team would welcome ideas.
But not just any old idea. It needs to be a proposal. And it should:
- Identify a specific problem
- Outline consequences of not addressing it
- Provide solutions
- Examine short/ medium/ and long-term effects
- Have a strong evidence base
“Writing proposals is a powerful way to demonstrate leadership in your school…when you’re not in a leadership position”
But before you start drafting your proposal you need some deeper ‘mindsets’ in place first. Here are three.
1_Clarify why you’re doing it
Your idea is not about you. It’s about your ‘why’. It’s about your purpose.
If your proposal is about chasing a more senior position, or getting others to notice you, or some other reason – it will fail to get off the ground.
It’s too small.
You’re a teacher who got into this profession for a reason.
What was it?
The boy didn’t know what a person’s “Personal Legend” was.
“It’s what you have always wanted to accomplish. Everyone, when they are young, knows what their Personal Legend is.
“At that point in their lives, everything is clear and everything is possible. They are not afraid to dream, and to yearn for everything they would like to see happen to them in their lives. But, as time passes, a mysterious force begins to convince them that it will be impossible for them to realize their Personal Legend.”
Melchizedek, The King of Salem in The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho
You have an idea and want to turn it into a practical proposal. But without a clear, unique, expressive purpose driving it, you’ll never get it done.
This kind of mindset shift is a big one – and it takes consideration, effort, and discovery through action. I think it’s one of the most important because it’s the background against which writing a proposal happens.
If the background context is inappropriate, the foreground action will be ineffective.
Taken to an extreme – losing touch with our purpose as teachers can be a reason for ending up in bitchy conversations about senior management in the staff room.
Here are some ideas for making it practical:
- Make a list of the teachers/ people who inspire you – what qualities do they have?
- Why did you enter teaching? What’s your origin story? Write it.
- Have a conversation with a trusted colleague about their origin story.
- Do the ‘7 levels Deep’ exercise here
There are any number of ways to find your purpose.
Crafting yours will make your proposal exponentially more effective.
2 Let go of “when I have time, I’ll do it”
You won’t have time to write your proposal.
Have you ever said any of these to yourself (or a similar version)?
- “I’m just waiting for the right time”
- “When things calm down, I’ll have enough space”
- “It’s really busy at the moment, it’ll be easier in the summer”
- “I should be taken more seriously”
- “If only I could get the time from my line manager, then I’d be able to…”
If you have…I question how serious you are about taking an idea to senior management.
One of my colleagues uses one phrase to sum up this thinking “shouldacouldawoulda”.
Teaching is relentless. It’s demanding. And it’s all-consuming during the school day.
Here are two strategies to begin.
a_start saying “I choose to…” instead of “I have to/ must/ should/” etc.
I asked a colleague to do this for a week as an action from a coaching session. It’s a very subtle but powerful shift from being thrown around by external circumstances to ‘being proactive’ (as Habit One from Stephen Covey’s Seven Habits of Highly Effective People).
She was surprised how often she noticed her actions were driven externally, when in reality – she was choosing them.
We chose teaching. We are choosing our actions daily. It’s a much more empowering way to view things rather than feeling there’ssomuchtodoandneverenoughtimetogetallmymarkingdoneandplanninganditsnevergoingtohappensowhatsthepoint.
b_work on your idea in 20m sprints
Entrepreneur and author John Williams calls it microblocking.
To make progress on your idea and proposal work on it for 20m. Wedge it in wherever you can. Then get back to whatever else you need to do.
This is how got six different ideas in front of different members of senior management between May 2021 and September 2022 covering areas as diverse as: improving our reporting system, through to commenting on our school’s strategic plans.
If you’re serious, you have to wedge in the time to work on your ideas. It’s not going to magically happen.
3 Think ‘whole-school’
It’s disappointing for me that I know colleagues who have a National Professional Qualification for Senior Leadership (NPQSL) but cannot and do not think whole-school.
They also have no idea about writing proposals.
Now granted – there could be other reasons for this (perhaps only ever having been a teacher being one – but that’s another post) – but it undermined any respect I had for the qualification.
I see thinking ‘whole-school’ requiring several habits or regular actions:
- Talking to staff outside your department
- Asking questions of and listening to middle leadership
- Noticing any difference between what senior leadership say and do
- Listening to and interacting with pupils outside the classroom setting (but still in school)
- Finding connections between these
(There are more – and as I articulate my approach to ‘whole-school’ thinking I’ll write another post.)
Most likely though, if you start doing these, you’ll naturally start to view your school as a network of connected ideas and conversations.
They will become a never-ending source of ideas for where you can contribute.
Keeping these conversations informal allows you to get the real experiences of the group. There’s a story that Steve Jobs used to hide in a bush outside an Apple store so he could observe how customers really interacted with the products. Because he wanted to create great experiences.
Of course I’m not suggesting hiding in bushes and listening to pupils…it’s listening and connecting with the important stakeholders that’s key.
With these three mindsets, I suggest starting by ranking them in order of difficulty from least to most. Then play with it for a week. Here are some ideas…
- …write some quick daily thoughts in your planner
- …have an intentional discussion over lunch with a colleague
- …reflect on appraisal objectives
- …brainstorm a bunch of ideas and share them with a trusted colleague
The point is to take a small action – and build.
James D'Souza 