Friday, 4 November 2011

Work-Life Balance


I recently read 'How Successful Head Teachers Survive and Thrive' by Professor Tim Brighouse. It's available here. It's a really interesting read about the key tasks of being a headteacher and ways to manage the job.

Seven ways to hold on to your sanity when all around you are losing theirs:

  1. Manage your diary
    • Build 'down time' into your diary so that you can choose what you do in this time.
    • Make sure that every half term you spend some time off site to go and talk with another friend or acquintance doing a similar job.
  2. Find allies
  3. Have a 7-10 year service
    • Then take some time out before returning with a fresh pair of eyes, or consider moving on to another headship.
  4. Stop doing one of your regular tasks for a term to allow someone else to do them. Keep our of their hair and review things once at half term and then at the end of term.
  5. Remember to be the 'Jack' or 'Jill' of all trades and master of none
    • You need to be the utility player, who can fill in to do a leadership task in an emergency and you need to grow that capacity in others. Being the 'expert' can be very disabling for others and exhausting for yourself.
  6. Become an expert 'driller' and a lepidopterist
    • Drill right down on a particular issue that will allow you to see the whole operation of the school from a different vantage point. When you do you can find the things which cause irritation and loss of energy, both for you and others.
    • Spot the small things that make a disproportionate difference - 'high leverage and low effort practices'. The drilling down process exposes the reverse.
  7. Collect hyacinths
    • The explanation for this comes from a short poem:
"If of fortune thou be bereft,
And of thine earthly store have left
Two loaves, sell one and with the dole
Buy hyacinths to feed the soul."

    • Successful heads avoid stress and burn-out in themselves and their staff by being keenly aware of their hyacinths and ensuring they have enough of them.

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