Leadership lenses? Interdependencies? Mindsets? Priorities? Emotional intelligence? There are so many components because developing as a leader—not just mastering management skills but engaging everyone in effectively working toward a meaningful shared purpose—is very difficult. In fact, most leadership development programs have little or no impact on actual leadership practices. However, if you use this book’s process, you will become a more thoughtful, balanced leader who is capable of adjusting to an ever-changing educational landscape. You’ll be using all of these components to maximize your strengths while avoiding your blind spots. As theologian Richard Rohr (2013) puts it, “We do not see things as they are; we see things as we are” (p. 82).
Your journey begins in this chapter with exploring five elements crucial for effective leadership development along with learning a holistic leadership development process for establishing your focus on whole-teacher instruction and whole-child learning.
Five Essential Components for Effective Leadership Development
McKinsey & Company is a consulting firm heavily involved in understanding and implementing what works best in leadership and change initiatives. Its deep analysis of what it takes to develop leaders identifies four key components (Gurdjian, Halbeisen, & Lane, 2014). The fifth essential component that you’ll find in the following list is something I believe is a crucial addition to the mix.
1. The skills and dispositions you need depend on your context: What works in one learning community may not fit with the needs, values, or chemistry of another. You’ll be using the tools in this book to choose the right focus for your context.
2. Skill development happens not in isolation, but while working and reflecting on real responsibilities and issues: Case studies and retreats may have their place, but combining leadership development with important workplace projects and initiatives fosters real growth. As you will soon see, it’s ultimately about setting a specific goal to focus on, and that will derive from your real work. (See Choosing Your Development Focus, page 14.)
3. Leaders need to unearth and address mindsets: We all have unconscious beliefs, biases, assumptions, and other mindsets that keep us from changing, keep us from hearing other viewpoints, and keep us from being free to see new solutions. Perhaps you’ve heard of some of the sources of biases, those blind spots that influence our thinking and actions. Jonathan Haidt (2012) summarizes some of the most important ones that keep us from seeing other points of view and courses of action.
• Our moral judgments come before our rational decisions, without cautious processing. We then reason to justify what we’ve already concluded. Paradoxically, the more education we have, the better we are at building one-sided arguments.
• Our genetic makeups, cultural backgrounds, and life experiences influence our instant reactions to people, things, ideas, and more.
• We’re all guilty of outcome bias, a tendency to judge a decision by the outcome rather than by how the decision was made.
• We all have confirmation bias, a tendency to seek out and interpret new evidence in ways that confirm what we already think. Haidt (2012) summarizes research showing that it takes only one piece of evidence for us to say, “See? I’m right!” But it takes ten or more for us to consider changing our minds.
• Only through dialogue with people who think differently do we examine our beliefs and evidence that contradicts them—and through tools that point out when we can’t see the other side.
The tools in this book are designed to help us see what we don’t see. You’ll know you’re unearthing them if some of the exercises cause you to squirm as you realize, I was wrong…. I misinterpreted their motivations …. There is another way…. I need the wisdom of that person who kind of drives me crazy!
4. Leaders need to measure whether they’re developing: You’re investing time and effort in becoming a better leader—and the McKinsey research (Gurdjian et al., 2014) indicates that people don’t really take it seriously unless they’re gathering evidence as to whether that investment is paying off.
Perhaps you’re relying on the SMART acronym for setting effective goals—goals that are strategic and specific, measurable, attainable, results oriented, and time bound (Conzemius & O’Neill, 2014). Supposedly, such goals are motivating and lead to higher performance. Many schools use the SMART goal framework to set goals and action steps based on student assessment data. However, these criteria will not help you measure whether you are improving your skills with empathy, nor whether you are mobilizing your staff around a common purpose, or if you are successfully reframing the questions and contributions of teachers whose backgrounds and strengths are very different from yours. Each chapter in this book has examples of more immediate ways you can constantly check whether you are continuing to focus on the right priorities to reach your goals. If this sounds time-consuming, keep in mind that you’ll be following this process while focusing on your real work—both leadership development and your core responsibilities. However, from my experience in coaching leaders, this concern unearths one more component (number 5 in this list) that isn’t on the McKinsey list (Gurdjian et al., 2014).
5. Set aside time for reflection: We don’t actually learn by doing. We learn by taking action and then reflecting on whether the action had the impact we desired, by examining how others were affected, whether we might have done something differently, what we’ve learned for the next time, and so on. In the busy life of a school leader, it’s easy to overlook the necessity of reflection. Write it into your calendar like any other responsibility, or as if you were taking a class. If you can work with a leadership coach, do so; leaders in the business world have long recognized the worth of an objective, skilled outsider who can facilitate reflection. Or, find an accountability partner and schedule regular check-ins—someone with whom you could talk about your progress, frustrations, and next steps.
Before you dive into the journey of effectively leading for the whole child, let’s understand the leadership development process this book uses.
The Whole-Child Leadership Development Process
The leadership development process in this book is one you can use again and again, for different development goals (short-term and long-term) that let you gain the skills, wisdom, dispositions, and understandings you need to lead a school that truly meets the needs of the whole child. Be intentional about using it. Before you run into difficulties with new people or new responsibilities, use the process to identify the potential focuses you will need (the right goals), and then coach yourself to a plan for action. The six-step process works like this. (You will find more detailed supporting material for these steps in the sections that follow.)
1. Choose an appropriate development focus or goal as I describe in the next section (page 14).
2. Sort your leadership priorities using the list in Choosing Your Priorities (page 16).
3.