It has been a hard year. It has been a lot. It has been a year of chaos and Jumanji like problems popping up everywhere and you, my friend, have withstood it all. You are continuing to weather the storm and that requires a moment to reflect. Have you stopped to do that for yourself lately? As a leader, have you stopped to pause, breathe, take a moment, and shine the flashlight back to reflect on this very difficult year? Have you measured the progress you have made and used that to motivate you and your teachers to keep moving forward? If not, then this is your chance.
Think about the very first day we learned about livestreaming, Covid, and shutting down our schools. This was scary. Now think to where you are now, with a year of the pandemic under your belt, and how far you have come. No matter what, we have come a long way. We should be proud of that and use that to build momentum, motivation and strength.
It is so important to reflect on those milestones because they will reveal the progress you are making even when it doesn’t feel like it. In fact, this is one of the important components in effective leadership and can be THE KEY to motivating and engaging teachers to take action and get results.
Phenomenal leadership involves engaging your audience, helping people to get results, and taking action in a clear and inspiring way. The whole focus is to help your community get the results they are looking for– even amongst a pandemic. The same goes for you when you are learning from a mentor or a leader. You want to learn from them, but not be overwhelmed by the amount of content or ideas they are throwing at you. You want less info and more progress. You want convenience and speed and you want direction. The same goes for your teachers. They want exactly the same thing, so as a leader, we need to reflect on that and give it to them. They don’t want a thousand things thrown at them with a million different directions. That will only stir up overwhelm and disengagement. Therefore we need a content strategy so that we can simplify and streamline. Having a system also helps as the leader to get off of the content and problem solving treadmill as well, so let’s get started on figuring this out.
To recap, there are 4 things that teachers want from their leaders:
- They want more from you
- They want less from you (less info and more progress)
- Teachers want convenience and speed
- Teachers want direction
I learned these four ideas from Stu Mclaren who is a giant in the leadership and membership field. I have adapted these ideas to fit into school leadership and they are completely relevant and game changers in this platform as well. In fact, they have driven my own leadership and have given me that much needed clarity as well as my sanity and life back because I realized I was trying to do too much. It wasn’t until I pulled back and developed a roadmap that had clear milestones, time to implement and time to reflect, that our entire school community started to finally make progress. It finally got us out of the learning mode and into the doing mode. It built momentum and motivation too.
For example, when our schools got shut down due to Covid, the teachers determined that their top priority was to figure out how to livestream and set up an effective virtual learning classroom that moved the learning forward. Once we had clearly identified our top priority we got to work figuring out the action steps and mile markers with the intention to measure progress. Our action steps were: 1) figure out how to livestream 2) use google classroom and learn 3 ways to get kids engaging online 3) learn how to use Notability with our ipads so that we could have interactive slides and whiteboards. We set deadlines where we had to complete actions and be intentional about reflecting and measuring our progress about how far we had come from our last check in. We conquered that priority in two months and have moved onto other priorities keeping these same four ideas at the forefront of our leadership.
People Want More From You. Teachers want your support but they do not want more content or more ideas. Too much content, too many initiatives, too much of anything creates overwhelm and frustration. Not to mention, it does not give them a clear path on progress. The things that I used to think teachers wanted was exactly what they didn’t want. They didn’t want 14 different ideas to try. They didn’t want an endless list of strategies to solve a problem, nor did they want pages and pages of research that backs up the next best thing to try. They just wanted clear expectations, one thing to focus on at a time, and a step by step roadmap that could steer them in the right direction. They want access to you as needed not forced.
People Want Less. They want less info and more progress. They want to see the steps. They want to look back on how far they have come and celebrate their progress. It is important for leaders to bring the learning and the progress to the surface rather than just moving onto the next thing. Highlight the transformation that is happening and how your community or an individual felt at the beginning to how they feel now. Think ‘before and after’ or ‘from and to’.
People Want Convenience and Speed. They don’t want to have to sit and listen to an endless powerpoint presentation or sift through pages of reading. Convenience and speed are the key to engaging your audience. Let them know what is in it for them so that it matters to them. Be assertive, to the point, and clear. Keep your presentations or mini lessons in meetings to 10-15 minutes maximum. Anything more than that, you have lost them. Then get them doing the thinking, talking, and learning. The person who is doing the most talking and work is doing the most learning…
People Want Direction. Having a roadmap with a clear destination and mile markers along the way is so important. It provides those clear steps and expectations to get them from where they are now to where they want to go. It is also important that the leader takes into consideration that the destination is actually where the community or individual want to go. I know I am definitely a person who needs simple, streamlined and clear steps that will move me forward or else the overwhelm creeps in and I tend to not make progress and I lose momentum and interest. In meetings, leave them with a decision or an action to take and set deadlines to create that sense of urgency to take action. Having clear pdfs to support your mini lessons highlights the info and take aways in a clear way so that your audience has clarity on what you want them to take away from this and what their next steps are. It is so important to get them out of the learning mode and into the doing mode.
As you consider your messaging or how you want to lead, with these four ideas in mind, think – what kind of deliverables, strategies, or messages could you offer your community that would get them to where they want to be faster? Think templates, checklists, frameworks, guides, visuals, planners, supplies, lesson plans, meeting agendas, support strategies in the classroom that would give them clear direction, less stuff, more support, convenience and speed. Phenomenal leadership is one that engages your audience, helps them get results, and takes action efficiently. The whole purpose is to lead your community in order to get a result.
By keeping these four ideas in mine, it will help to create a success path that gives people clarity and direction about how to go from where they are now to where want to be. You are looking to create a measuring stick of progress so that the value and messaging you are sending becomes blindingly obvious. It stirs up excitement, simplicity, and action taking from your community. It is important to make the progress visible and that is what builds momentum and motivation. Anytime you can get feedback or measurement do it so that it brings the progress to the forefront. If people know they are moving forward then they will keep going. You can do this in many ways. Surveys with effective questioning or scales from 1-10 are great ways to measure progress. Gather evidence through pictures, anecdotal notes, or before and after indicators. Think what are some of the indicators that you could measure and then create metrics that you can measure and realize the progress. Lastly, it is so important that leaders don’t make meetings, messaging, or professional development as a place to get or do a bunch of stuff but rather a place to reflect back on the progress that they have made. It is time to get out of the talking about it and learning about it mode and into the doing mode!
And check out my website for even more ideas!
PS (We even have a podcast that my students have created that is all about wellness for kids. Subscribe to Even If You Miss on Apple podcasts or Spotify or check it out here!
Even If You Miss..... 