Three Things Preventing Middle Leaders from Leading Learning
Shouldn't schools, principles, teacher teams and teacher leaders be experts in learning? Usually they are, for student learning. But what about leading the learning of adults?
In my last newsletter, I positioned two central ideas:
Teacher Teams have a singular mission - to continuously improve the craft of teaching and learning in service of better outcomes for kids
It then follows that Teacher Leaders are responsible for leading the learning of the Teacher Team, in service of better outcomes for kids.
I’ve also been writing, over on The Learning Catalyst, about how deep and transferable learning requires generative conversation, action, learning relationships and an embracing of discomfort.
With this in mind, let’s explore three phenomena that get in the way of Middle Leaders in schools leading the learning of their team.
We Need to Help Our Teacher Leaders
One of the great ironies of our Education System is that schools, themselves, are often not learning organisations. They are teaching organisations. Just do an inventory of the time spent delivering classes, ‘in the game’, compared to time spent ‘on the game’, getting better at the craft of being a teacher. It’s not a good ratio.
Teacher Leaders play a central role in helping transition from a ‘delivery’ culture to one of learning. However, they need both a skill set and an ‘upgraded’ set of mental models, dispositions if you like.
Think of it through this model:
If this model holds as a frame for what a Teacher Leader should focus on, then this also frames broad and individual development pathways.
As global teacher shortages grow, the development pipeline for Middle Leaders also diminishes. This results in younger, less experienced leaders of teams in schools, and the three common ‘blocks’ that get in the way of model above.
Each Leader Has A Unique Challenge
Two examples of young leaders I have recently worked with come to mind (names are changed).
Jackson is a relatively new leader of a teaching team whose driving values are compassion and honesty. He faced a ‘bad apple’ in his team - a person who was once a leader themselves. This person was presenting with behaviours including entitlement, closed mindedness and simply ignoring team focus and decisions.
Knowing Jackson well through coaching conversations, I asked “What would your values say you should do here?”
His reply: “I should have a 1:1 conversation that challenges these unwanted behaviours.”
“What is getting in the way of you doing this?”
“Well, who am I to do this - they are older and way more experienced than me.”
He knew how to give feedback, we had worked on this skill together. However, his leadership world was framed by this disposition, and prevented him from leading a conversation that really mattered.
Elaine encountered a different obstacle. Though relatively new to her role, she had made a strong start in leading her team. She continues to have high standards for herself, and some months in she was feeling exhausted and confidence was waning.
Two features emerged in coaching conversations with her:
The self narrative of “I should be better than this by now!”
Her taking on a default “command and control” approach in the quest of proving herself, to both herself and her team.
While team purpose was well established, a team culture of empathy, trust and knowing was underdeveloped. This added friction to any challenging conversations (which she was happy to have).
In these, and other conversations I regularly have, insight exposing the ‘disposition atmosphere’ a leader is ‘inhaling’ unshackles the Teacher Leader from limiting assumptions.
If you are a leader, do you grapple with any of these three? I’d love to know which of the three is most dominant in your world, regardless of your time in leadership.
I work both as a Middle Leader Coach-Mentor, and as a PD program creator/leader and I’m especially passionate about helping our leaders change the game for their teams.
I’ll be linking some of those programs in future posts, with one soon to be released: Your First 30 Days. [I will update this newsletter with a link in the coming week.]
I’m always keen to learn more - subscribe, share or comment to help activate this conversation to better help our Middle Leaders.