Leadership Lessons from Henry V Part Three: Leadership Styles

I recently attended a superb training session on Inspirational Leadership from Ben at Contender Charlie. The messages on leadership were based on Shakespeare's Henry V.
You can find handouts from the course here.

Over a series of posts I'm going to share some of my learning from the course.

Part of the day was spent considering leadership styles. Whilst not directly related to Henry V, this was one of my favourite parts of the day. 

Parts of my research for this post is based largely on: 
http://docmo.hubpages.com/hub/Effective-Leadership-Skills-4-Situational-Leadership-Styles

Carl Gustav Jung, the Swiss Psychiatrist and the founder of analytical psychology,believed that deep underneath our unconscious mind, lie character traits that can be certain models or roles derived from fables and mythology. He called them archetypes. Of all the archetypes he proposed, four are well known:

• Great mother
• Warrior
• Good King
• Medicine Woman/Witch

Jung was heavily into Eastern and Western mythology and believed these archetypal characters represent humanity's collective unconscious. Knowing our archetypal influences really helps to understand our leadership styles and our personality in interacting with people and teams.

A leadership continuum

The Autocratic style is more the warrior archetype and the Democratic style is akin to the Earth Mother approach.

Truth is, neither style is a perfect one. To be a good leader is to be polyphonic. You need to way up your situation, weigh up your team and the task, assess the immediacy of what needs to be achieved and then pick your approach.

Another way successful leaders execute tasks is to incrementally move from one end to the other. Some may start as Democrats and then move to autocratic approach as the deadline approaches and task completion needs to be imminent. Some may adapt a more autocratic approach initially and then offer support and counsel after the task is completed.

This approach is called Situational Leadership.

The Situational Leader

The Situational Leader knows the mood and the efficacy of the team. They observe, reflect, analyse and act. They have a variety of tools at their disposal. some they may be naturally good at, others they have learnt as a necessity.

Situational demands should influence a situational style. Sometimes a mixture of styles may be needed for the task to be completed, or for different team members!

Most leaders find one or more roles more comfortable to wear and may feel uncomfortable with the others. Therein lies the development of a leader.

They can choose to assume the traits of one of the leadership styles. Be aware that each style has a shadow - an extreme of the trait where good intentions may lead to bad results by overdoing it.

Leadership Style	Positive Traits	Characteristics	Shadow (Negative) Traits	Poor Leadership
Warrior	telling, instructing, ordering, punishing, leading, visioning and ruthless in achieving the task, takes action, leads from the front, likes competition	Powerful, Decisive, Leading, Visioning, Determined, Successful, Inspiring, Rewarding, dynamic	Destroyer, collateral damage, others are expendable, win at all costs, selfish, Punisher	Tyrant
Great Mother	nurturing, guiding, mentoring, training, helping to grow, rewarding, emotionally intelligent, has rapport	Nurturing, supportive, encouraging, pastoral, protective, kind, shows empathy, listens	Overnurturing, supportive when challenge is needed, no discipline, no completion, poor growth due to low challenge, lazy team	Weak Mother
Medicine Woman	giving ideas, creating, visioning, inspiring, dazzling, mercurial, quick witted, lateral thinking, loves blue sky thinking, stretch/bend the rules	Mercurial, full of ideas, creative, visionary, lateral thinking, outside the box, innovation, thinks "what if?", innovative	Too many ideas, none completed, transient, incomplete, flitting, random, restless, distracted.	Mad Woman
Good King	delegating, sharing, participating, democratic decision making, involving, encouraging, strategic, considered	Democratic, Decisive, inclusive, benevolent, sharing, involving, encouraging, calm, balanced	Indecisive, slow, overindulgent, consults too many, insecure	Weak King

(Ideally I would use different colours to organise this table better, but I don't know how!!)
asdas

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.

LEGOland Discovery Centre

Today we had a good day out with our Year Fours at LEGOland Discovery Centre at the Trafford Centre in Manchester.

The day began with a short tour of the 'factory'. We then had a go at Kingdom Quest, which is a shoot'em up game. This was my favourite ride of the day!

We had a workshop which was intended to teach the children about the forces of friction. It was a bit rushed for me and I didn't feel it stretched the children. They built race cars and then raced them against each other on tracks.

After lunch we explored the other ride - Merlin's Apprentice and explored Miniland. Miniland is a world of UK attractions built out of LEGO. The attention to detail is fantastic! We also watched a 4D film and gave the children chance to try the soft play area and complete a Master Builder course where we made a Red Arrow plane.

The members of staff were really helpful and looked after us well.

It was a good day out but I'm not too sure about the education value of the day, at least for our Year Fours.

Classroom Management

Ten Tips for Classroom Management is an interesting read. You can download it for free here.


The ten tips are:

1. Build community
2. Design a safe, friendly, and well-managed classroom environment
3. Include students in creating rules, norms, routines and consequences
4. Create a variety of communication channels
5. Always be calm, fair and consistent
6. Know the students you teach
7. Address conflict quickly and wisely
8. Integrate positive classroom rituals
9. Keep it real
10. Partner with parents and guardians

The advice is practical and there are links to resources for further support. It would be particularly useful for NQTs and trainee teachers.

Leadership Lessons from Henry V Part Two: Vision

Part Two: Vision
I recently attended a superb training session on Inspirational Leadership from Ben at Contender Charlie. The messages on leadership were based on Shakespeare's Henry V.

You can find handouts from the course here.

Over a series of posts I'm going to share some of my learning from the course.

Vision is the core of leadership. It's about spotting the talent in other people and helping them to achieve their potential. Vision must always deal with life's qualities, not with its quantities.

When building your vision, don't get vision and strategic targets mixed up. A vision doesn't necessarily change. Everyone should know it, and senior management should live it. It's the big picture. It's why we do what we do.

Ben explained that one of the best vision statements he had come across was in a hotel, where the care shown for its guests was exquisite. The vision for the hotel was, "We are ladies and gentlemen serving ladies and gentlemen." It's simple and clear. It is not measurable by conventional standards. One of the most famous visions was shared in Martin Luther King's I Have A Dream speech. It wasn't measureable.

A vision should be entirely aspirational and is absolutely what we stand for. Everyone involved in the organisation should buy into it. They should connect with the vision. It should unite people.

"Whatever you can do
Or dream you can, begin it.
Boldness has genius,
Power and Magic in it."
Goethe

The Six Tasks of Headship

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.


The six tasks of headship:

• Create energy
• Build capacity
• Meet and minimise crisis
• Secure and enhance the environment
• Seek and chart improvement
• Extend the vision of what's possible

The five time expenditures:

• They sit on the wall not the fence - be visible
• They are 'skalds' not 'scolds' - tell positive stories and remind people of great deeds and future triumphs
• They teach, learn and assess for most of their time - continue to be involved in teaching and the day-to-day routines and workings of the school
• They spend their evenings, weekends and holidays... working... socialising and being member of a family - manage time well within the school day so that time spent working outside school is enjoyable
• They spend two hours a week in acts of unexpected kindness - showing the personal touch

Good advice for when I'm a headteacher

I gathered these pieces of good advice at a recent Senior Leaders Conference. The ideas will help me when I become a headteacher.

Managing People
Maintain professional relationships - it's better to have respect than to be a friend
Value your staff - value people; small things make a difference
Be fair
Be aware if someone feels undervalued
Pre-empt problems
Give people time for things that are import to them, e.g. to go to their child's school assembly
Buy the tea and coffee for the staff (it makes a big difference)
Value CPD and INSET - use professional venues
Go out of your way to give praise
Cards and flowers used appropriately mean a lot.

Time management
Prioritise your management time
Deal with things as they arise
Prioritise things you want to do
Pupils and parents always come first; then staff; then everything else
Have the ability to say 'no' and mean it
Find a way to switch off - this gives you time with your family which makes you a better teacher

Working with parents
Always get back to parents within 12 hours

Being a head teacher
You don't always get it right - particularly in the first year of headship (when no one likes you!)
Be yourself

Schools Fantasy football

Something that has gripped the pupils and staff in our school this year is the Schools Fantasy Football. This year it's free for anyone to take part. We paid £25 to set ourselves up as a school so you can enter a special PIN code so that you can become part of our school and compete against everyone else.


As well as just being lots of fun, I'm hoping it will provide real data for use in Maths, and provide a real stimulus for writing. I'm confident it will get everyone talking!

Leadership Lessons from Henry V Part One: Being a Leader

Part One: Being a Leader
I recently attended a superb training session on Inspirational Leadership from Ben at Contender Charlie. The messages on leadership were based on Shakespeare's Henry V.
You can find handouts from the course here.

Over a series of posts I'm going to share some of my learning from the course.

Some messages for being a leader:

• Own the leadership role - don't apologise for it. Every teacher or teaching assistant is a leader. 
• When you walk into a school you are effectively on stage - performing for pupils, staff and parents. Use your opportunity to shine.
• Always hold true to your sense of purpose. It's why you do what you do. Protect it - do what you believe in.
• Control your body language.

Good leadership 1: Steven Gerrard

After attending a course about leadership it got me thinking about people whose leadership I admire. Over a series of posts I will write about people who I think show good leadership. (Just to be clear though, I don't necessarily agree with their behaviour in their private lives.) First up is one of my favourite footballers.

Steven Gerrard
For me Stevie G is the most inspirational of all football captains in recent history. As well as being the complete footballer he has many qualities that I look for in a leader.


Optimistic
Stevie never gives up. He has literally changed the course of matches, often in the most desperate of situations. 


Knows the big picture
He recognises the big picture of what it means to play for Liverpool. He appreciates the history of the club and he understands the desire of the fans. 


Energy and motivation
He brings an energy to the team which can be the catalyst to motivate others. He doesn't give in to challenges and he never gives up. 


Influence
Gerrard pushes the player to perform to their full potential at all times and accepts no excuses. He leads by example with the effort he applies.


Accountability
He will accept blame for the team after a poor performance. He never seems to get too big for his boots and become complacent.


Image: http://www.soccerway.com/news/2009/May/13/gerrard-wins-player-of-year-award/