Season 2, Episode 4 Resilience and the right glasses - Developing the skills for school leadership

Resilience and the right glasses - Developing the skills for school leadership

Episode Transcript

Eleisha (00:08):
Kia ora, and welcome back to The Principals, a
podcast series for aspiring andcurrent senior leaders and
tumuaki in Aotearoa New Zealand.I'm Eleisha McNeill, and I'm
back with Jacqui Brown,Principal of New Plymouth Girls'
High School, Prisca McDonald,tumuaki of Tawa Immediate School
in Wellington, and Elena Moretti,D of Engagement and Impact in

(00:31):
the Evaluation Centre at theEducation Review Office. We've
been talking about differentpathways to principalshhip, and
the differences between being asenior leader and sitting in
that big chair. Anotherdifference is that when your
principal, you're not onlyleading a team or a department,
you're leading a community, andthat's quite different. What

(00:53):
does that mean for you, Jackie?

Jacqui (00:56):
I mean it's a great privilege, it really is. And yes
there are some difficult momentsin that. But it is a huge honour
to be working in a space where alot of people have a connection
to either in the past or thepresent and to be able to be
part of that and making it theplace that they're proud to be

(01:18):
either working or learningwithin. And while you could say
that happens in a team or adepartment, I think it's just
the size and the scale of it interms of the community. It does
come with a potential negativeside to that as well of course
in that there are more peoplewho might dislike what you're
doing as

Eleisha (01:38):
Mm.

Jacqui (01:38):
well. I tend to be quite a fan of the 80/20 rule in terms
of if you've got 80% of thepeople with you, you're doing a
pretty good job. But of courseif there's only 10 people
involved then that means the twothat aren't with you, you can
get alongside and talk to.Whereas even when we're talking
about our staff or our students,even without thinking about our

(02:01):
wider community, 20% is a littlebit overwhelming to sit
alongside. So there is that aswell, in terms of leading the
community that you know that noteveryone will agree with the
decisions you make. And from mypoint of view I just hope that
I've explained my decisionsclearly enough that they'll see
the point of those decisionseven if they don't necessarily

(02:25):
agree with them. But overallit's it's an honour to try and
work with a group of people toachieve the outcome together.

Eleisha (02:34):
That's very cool. Prisca.

Prisca (02:36):
Yeah it's interesting one. We've just celebrated our
fiftieth birthday as a schooland it occurred to me on the
night we had a big kind ofcommunity picnic and asked you
know people from all and sundryto come and hang out with us and
eat some kai. And we had somestudents who were foundation
students turn up and

Eleisha (02:53):
Wow.

Prisca (02:54):
they had traveled for a couple of hours to come back and
it just made me think againabout the school long after I'm
gone and long before I was there,you know, and and you know,
principals might get theirpicture on a wall perhaps or in
some kind of archive, but thereality is is that it's the
people that you serve and theimpact you make on them that is

(03:15):
actually where your leadershipsits.I think it's easy to get
spayed by some, I kind of callthem glory projects, but you
know, big, big kind of flashthings, but in the end it's that
voice of, of your community, beit like Jacqui was saying staff
or students, or whānau, iwi,but you know how do you best
serve what they need and whatthey require from you. And
that's different, it speaks tothat kind of multiple

(03:38):
relationships again and and thebreadth of those that you you
just always having to come backto and and keep in touch with.
Yeah, that that's quitedifferent from a department
leadership and you know, or asmaller school leadership, I
think in terms of DP etc, teamleadership

Eleisha (03:55):
Yeah, yeah. Being on that continuum. And you've all
talked about, you know that whenyou're in the role, it's a bit
watching a pinball machine, youknow, you can be moving all all
around the place, right? And 50different things in a day. And
so you have to be able tooperate on multiple levels. So,
you know, you have to be able tolook at strategic vision know,

(04:15):
all the way down to that kind ofdaily operations. how do you
zoom in and out as you need towhile keeping moving forward? I
imagine it's quite difficult.Jacqui.

Jacqui (04:27):
One of the fun challenges, it's a fun challenge
this one.For me, and I thankeverybody finds their own way
through this, but for me I liketo chunk things together that
are a bit similar. So sit downand do a whole bunch of the
admin type things all at once sothat your brain is working in
that space and then sitting downdoing some more strategic

(04:50):
planning or some reading. Andthen when I can feel myself
starting to form an idea, Ideliberately try to seek out
those who I think will have theexact opposite view to try and
challenge me, to avoid the echochamber and to keep me zooming
out. So I think having thosekinds of conversations on
multiple different levels isgood. And Prisca talked before

(05:14):
about the shiny projects and forone of the things for me is to
keep coming back, does thisalign to our strategic plan,
does this align to our corebusiness because if it doesn't,
maybe that's a really nice tohave but not something that we
need to put out energy intoright now and that helps us to
keep moving forward as well.

Eleisha (05:34):
Yeah, Prisca, do you have a similar approach?

Prisca (05:37):
I agree, I think that I spend a bit of time on a Sunday
evening just actually planningmy week in order to just sort of
chunk out things, but of course,you know, best laid plans. You
arrive on a Monday morning andthere's a flood or you know
there's some issue so thatthat's always a bit of a
challenge, but in general, Ithink using the calendar and and

(05:57):
actually also having to learn tosay, look, I'm really sorry like
someone wants to meet you andyou could because you're just
doing some work on your own, butyeah, it's actually like this is
actually really significant andI need to, you know, sort of
spend the time thinking aboutthis. So, you know, holding
yourself true to the calendar,which I don't think I'm actually
very good at, but I do try andit's my intention every week to

(06:18):
get a little bit better at. AndI think also I've come to look
at board meetings instead ofjust sort of a compliance thing,
more as an opportunity forreflection, so we have two board
meetings a term and they are areally great chance for me to go,
okay, we are on track here,where are we up to on the
delivery of this particular, youknow, objective or, and what do
we need to do better I enjoythem believe it or not as an

(06:40):
opportunity to to really thinkabout what else we can do or
what else is needed. So I thinkthat helps me move in and out a
little bit more.

Eleisha (06:49):
Yeah.

Prisca (06:50):
I also have a fabulous leadership team that just tell
me if I've got the wrong lens onat a particular moment and I
think that's worth its weight ingold to have people around you
who can just tell you to put thecorrect glasses on like whatever
issues in front of you.

Eleisha (07:06):
And resilience, you know, you both seem like very
resilient women. And it's, Iimagine quite crucial for school
leadership because, you know,you're obviously dealing with
pressure, there's decisions thatyou have to make and, and you're
accountable too. So, did youneed to build your resilience
when you moved into theprincipal role? And if you did,
was there anything that youconsciously focused on to help

(07:27):
you with that, Jacqui?

Jacqui (07:29):
It's interesting isn't it? I we all build our
resilience every single day inthe things that we do. And when
you're starting a new job, youcall on the resilience that
you've learned and built up overtime. But

Eleisha (07:41):
Yeah.

Jacqui (07:41):
for me there are three things that help me stay
resilient. And the first isknowing what my values are and
then acting in accordance withthose. I think doing that means
that if I've stayed true to that,then even if I've made a
decision that may be perceivedas unpopular, I know I've acted

(08:02):
with the right intent and forwhat I see is the right reasons
and the greater good. So I thinkknowing your values helps you
build your resilience through. Ithink the second thing is just
approaching everything one stepat a time, you know, in life, no
matter whether it's as aprincipal or our daily lives, I
think we can all face thosemoments that are a bit

(08:25):
overwhelming and so just takingit one step at a time and I've
had two really great presidingmembers in my time at the school
and being able to talk with themoften helps to with that just
what's the next step. And thethird thing is probably the one
that keeps me going the most andthat's celebrating the wins.
Even if it's a tiny little win,those, those wins actually build

(08:48):
your resilience and they canflip the whole world around, you
know, Prisca talked aboutputting the glasses on and the
right glasses at the right time.I think when you look through
for looking for the wins,everything seems better and your
resilience goes up.

Prisca (09:03):
I I have the fortune of having had a magnificent father
who unfortunately passed awayquite suddenly several years ago
when I was in my first DPs rolebut it was sort of a crucial
moment for me and my brothertalked about how my dad more
unfinished projects in hisgarage than a small city council,
which was quite true but hedidn't have one unfinished

(09:27):
relationship. So even though hepassed quite suddenly, he had
complete relationships there'snobody with any sort of thing,
you know any hatchets to bury orany things left over and for me
that's it talks about that thingthat Jacqui talks about with
values that people and valuesyou know we know these are the
most important things in lifeand I think being resilient is
about being able to make surethat you are where your feet are

(09:49):
and that you know that you arehonouring people first and then
you can come through hard times,you can come through challenges
to your decision-making orprograms or whatever, yeah I
think those things are reallyimportant for you know bedrock
baseline level for resilienceand the only other thing I would
say is I think you need toremember to socialise and to
laugh lots um and laugh yourselflots you know and I think if you

(10:13):
can do that then then like I sayyou'll I think you can meet
those sort of challenges.

Eleisha (10:18):
Yeah, absolutely. Um, looking back, is there anything
that you wish you had known orunderstood better before you
stepped into the tumuaki role

Jacqui (10:28):
I'm really pleased I didn't. If I'd known everything
I might not have stepped in andthen you'd have missed out on
all of the wonderful parts thatgo with it, but that might have
been a problem. In reality, Iactually don't know that there
is too much more that couldhappen. It may be a stronger

(10:49):
induction process, a moreplanned process, being
introduced to people within yourcommunity that it was important
you knew etc, but the reality aswell is that board members are
volunteers, they're busy, theyhave other lives as well, and
sometimes as we've said youcan't really know what's
happened in the school becauseyou weren't there. You know,

(11:12):
knowing it, but feeling it canbe two different things, so I
don't know, maybe I was luckyand had a pretty smooth
transition, but I don't reallyknow that there's much that
could have been done to improveit. Sometimes you've just got to
do it to find out

Prisca (11:28):
I do and there's things that I guess I knew but that, so
for example you know theimportance of a team that is
aligned with your values and isaligned with your direction and
you know we've we always knowthat that's really important um
but I think that's significantlyimportant in the principal's
role um so I guess there'sthings like that about making

(11:49):
sure that when you step into aspace that you have got a team
with you or that the peoplethere are people who grow and
who are, you know, share thosesort of same values

Eleisha (11:58):
How do you help the staff in your school who are on
the leadership pathway? Whatkinds of things do you do for
them

Prisca (12:07):
Buy them copious lollies and encourage them. No, no, not
really. We've been talking aboutthis a lot lately just from the
concept that everyone's a leader.And so one of the things that we
do do, is like we use theleadership capability framework
a lot to just talk to teachersabout their own particular
leadership role so that they cansee that, you know, it's not,

(12:27):
not, leadership's not somethingdivorced from,from your
everyday kind of experience withpractice. So we talk a lot about
that. And we have, you know,professional learning has been
one of the biggest areas of yourschool budget. It's, you know,being
able to, to encourage people totake on professional learning
around, and around theleadership space and being able
to put out opportunities forleadership. Some they're quite

(12:50):
small, but just giving peoplethat chance to kind of step in
and have a bit of a play withthings. And we do like to sort
of wrap around people who dostep in, so we tend to kind of
put them with a mentor orsomebody who they can talk to as
they grow as well. Yeah, it's aninteresting one because lots of
people can shy off positionalleadership. when you make them

(13:12):
aware that it's not so differentfrom a lot of their daily
practice, I think they'll becomemore open to the suggestion that
they might take on a positionalleadership role at some point

Jacqui (13:24):
In a similar way, trying to meet people where they're at
in their stage of leadership. Soit might be offering something
small, it might be workingalongside someone or asking them
to work alongside anothercolleague to implement a project
.For our senior leaders, itmight be presenting to the board
or it might even be theopportunity to try and

(13:46):
initiative themselves that linksto the annual implementation
plan. For our middle leaderstalking each term about the
frameworks that exist forleadership and exposing them to
different leadership strategiesso that they can open their eyes
and hearts and minds todifferent ways of doing things
as well because we can alwaysgrow in our leadership.

Elena (14:10):
Uh, one of the things that we did look around the
pathways - one of our majorfindings is that the
identification and support foraspiring principals is much too
often left to chance. Many ofthe, you know, confident,
excited, you know, naturalleader fabulous new principals
that I spoke to, could traceback their inception of the idea

(14:34):
to somebody, usually a principalwhen they were, you know, in a
previous role spotting themgoing to them and saying, hey,
you should think about becominga principal and an alarming
proportion of those that I spoketo about this, it had never
occurred to them before and theysaid, I don't think it would
have occurred to me if thathadn't happened. And I think
there's a lesson in there for usaround the power of principals

(14:58):
suggest and promote and sharesome of the awesome things about
this role, like Prisca said, noteverybody likes the idea, at
first thought of that positionalleadership. we have a real
opportunity when it comes makingit feel doable, making it
something that could and shouldaspire to if that's the way that

(15:20):
they're inclined and if that'swhere their skill set sits. So
that identification and supportfor those, um, teachers and
middle and senior leaders that,could maybe grow into a
principal space, that'ssomething that we do a bit more
prod nudge support.

Eleisha (15:38):
Well Jacqui and Prisca, you clearly love your jobs. So,
is there anything in particularthat keeps you energised or is
it just everything about thecrazy lot of stuff that you have
to do every day?

Jacqui (15:49):
And it's everything and all of it in one package. I
think it is seeing the resultswhen you've been working toward
something and seeing that happenas the result of a whole team
working together. it's kind ofthat whole sense of purpose in
what we're doing. The outcomesfor students, you might be a

(16:10):
little more distanced from themthan you were as a classroom
teacher, but you know yourimpact is wider across a larger
group of people. So I love it.And I think one of the things
that keeps me energized isknowing that we'll never finish.
The are so many morepossibilities and so much more
that we could do. That's whatkeeps it fun for everyone, I
think

Eleisha (16:30):
Hey, Sarko

Prisca (16:32):
There is definitely good work stories like I think you
can't, you know, you turn up,and you have a plan in it, and
it goes awry, but there's achallenge in it, and a beauty in
that, because you're dealingwith humans, ri? And we're not,
can't be organised into boxes,and nice little tidy tick charts,
so I think that's, that's reallyenergising. And I think there's
a quite attributed to CS Lewisabout children are not a

(16:55):
distraction from the moreimportant work. They are the
most important work, and I think,you know, to have a job where
you are, you know, engaged inthe most important work is, it's
really inspiring for yourself,and you know, you live with
purpose and live with a clarityaround that. But I also think,
seeing like Jacqui was saying,I'm, you know, smaller school in

(17:15):
a, in a primary kind of seating,I do get a little bit of a
chance and I have to make sure I,I take those chances to kind of
hang out with the students, andlisten to them, and watch their
student voice, and watch themgrow, and I just think, 'Gosh
that's why I'm here! And this issuper cool!' Small things, you
know, changes to uniforms thatthe students initiate, or we
have this sort of Duke ofEdinburgh style programme at

(17:36):
school, a sort of merit systemthat, that when you see what the
children are doing, and, and howthey're participating with their
families and others, like thosethings all just go, 'Yep, this
is, this just really resonatesall the time.' So I have to say,
some of the property andbudgeting stuff doesn't light my
fire, but I just need to popthose children in the front of
my head and think about themwhile you're doing it. And like

(17:57):
I said, it has a purpose, andit's, yeah, it keeps you
energised and it helps drive youforward.

Eleisha (18:03):
That's so cool. So what are some ways aspiring
principals can set themselves upfor successful principalship?
Jacqui, do you want to start

Jacqui (18:13):
I think it's about being open to every opportunity that
comes your way, whether it'sjust viewing something from a
different perspective, whetherit's taking the chance to shadow
someone, or if it might be doingyour own reading, or even study
if you think that will help yougo forward. I think alongside

(18:34):
that, like I said, it's aboutknowing your core values. And
part of the reason that Imentioned that as an aspiring
principal is I think knowingyour values means that as
decisions are made by otherleaders around you or in
different schools, you could beconsidering 'what would I do in
a similar situation'. And it'snot about trying to consider it

(18:57):
because you think that leader iswrong, but it's what would I do,
and most importantly, why,because we all are different
leaders and we all bringourselves to the role. So
knowing that and almost havingthe chance to consider what
those important decisions wouldbe before you have to make them
is that way to set yourself upfor success, just watching,

(19:19):
learning, and thinking aboutyour own situation. And maybe a
way to do that would be to havea leadership coach. And I think
somebody who can explore withyou the strengths and weaknesses
that you might not be as awareof, some of the times, our
strengths are the things thatare most invisible to us. And

(19:41):
having somebody there to walkalongside you with that before
you need to sit in theprincipal's chair, I think,
would be a really strong way toset yourself up.

Prisca (19:53):
I think that thing about knowing your values, knowing
yourself's really important, and,and um, thinking about how to
strengthen those things that areyou. So, you know, if you're
passionate about something, thenfollow it. You know, develop it,
enhance it, become great at it,that's always going to be the
thing that provides you withenergy. So it's good to grow it
and, and, and know what it isthat you can bring through your,

(20:17):
to a potential principal role.And I think the other thing is,
is reading, or podcast listening -there is a huge amount of sort
of organisational psychologystuff out there that I've just
found so beneficial, um, simple,as simple as sort of thinking
about how to make decisions, um,all the way through you know,
strategic planning and forminghabits, um, some of James

(20:37):
Clear's work and Adam Grant'swork, I just think are really,
easy ins, uh, they're writtenwell, they're easy to access,
and they have just given, again,a different lens to that space.
So I think there's loads of, uh,loads of opportunities to grow
leadership thinking, um, beingable to shadow tumuaki, but also
find other inspiring people that,people that really, you know,

(20:59):
float your boat and you go, yep,I'm going to, what is it that
makes this person tick andgetting to know them I think are
important, important parts of,of growing into a space where
you could look at principalship.

Eleisha (21:09):
Cool. Alina.

Elena (21:12):
We identified four key things that aspiring principals
could look at doing to supporttheir preparedness based on the
things that we found. The keyone, of course, because it makes
such a difference topreparedness is to get some
school leadership experience soany of roles around, um, you
know, being a senior leader or amiddle-management role, like a
deputy principal, a syndicateleader, head of department, dean,

(21:36):
anything along those sorts oflines, we heard that there were
fabulously useful and made areally material difference to
that preparedness. And gettingexperience across key areas of
practice that principals workacross, so things like organized
school events or work onproperty or resourcing projects
at the school, uh, joining theschool board as a staff rep, a
few people spoke about howvaluable that had been in terms

(21:58):
of exposing them to that biggerpicture, managing teams of
teachers, being a principal orobserving meetings about finance,
staffing, property, that sort ofthing. Um, seeking development
and support opportunities,particularly, we found that the
most impactful ones werepostgraduate programs and
coaching and mentoring. Uh, andthe fourth is just to access

(22:18):
development and supportopportunities in those areas of
the role where principals tendto be less prepared. So working
in partnership with whānauMāori, hapu and iwi to develop
localised curriculum, how tomanage school resources,
finances, employment, timetabling anything that you can do
in that space, and understandingthe legislative and policy
requirements for schools. Soagain, that's about being alert

(22:41):
to opportunities to learn aboutthose very principal-specific
and occasionally challengingareas of the role.

Eleisha (22:50):
Go wild, become the property manager. Hey thank you
all so much for your time today.I really appreciate it.

Elena (22:57):
Thanks so much, guys. That was a great conversation. I
loved it.

Jacqui (23:00):
Lovely. Thank you all.

Prisca (23:01):
And it was great. Good learning.

Eleisha (23:03):
See you later. Jacqui mentioned in that chat the value
of having a great coach, andthat's what I'll be talking
about in the next episode, withJan Robertson, author of
'Coaching Leadership'. Mā tewā.