A coaching way of leading: relationships

To get anything done you need to have relationships. When people feel listened to, feel their opinion matters, believe that you want them involved and are acknowledged by you then they will feel like they are in partnership with you. Outstanding leaders perceive relationships as the route to performance. They give huge amounts of their time and focus to people and the climate of the organisation. When there are issues and challenges it is the power of relationships with a plurality of people that ensures opportunities for reflection, success and support.

A coaching way of leading necessitates developing a wide network of relationships, working beyond institution boundaries and potentially spending time outside of your traditional place of work when possible to enable learning. School leaders increasingly need to develop relationships, networks and partnerships with other school leaders as part of their role. This area of collaboration is crucial to facilitate change in the larger systems of which they are a part, in a meaningful way.

Communication

In schools, social relationships are fundamental and the most significant factor in relationship building. The behaviour of leaders will be a key determinant in creating a conducive environment. As outlined in a previous article, developing an awareness of how you yourself operate will support your relationship with yourself, so enhancing the quality of relationships with others.

The Fundamental coaching skills such as listening, acknowledging and empathising are particularly relevant here to support and promote engagement. As a leader you also want to ensure you are consistently clarifying to make sure you understand issues and challenges. If a member of staff tells you that that the workload is ‘too much’, you must understand what they mean by ‘too much’.

Once you have effective communication in place you can then begin to develop relationships. Good communication allows you to challenge the people you work with and your teams in an effective way – not overwhelming but strengthening and uplifting.

Emotional intelligence

Effective leadership communication requires emotional intelligence which can be described as:

·????? developing self-awareness

·????? self-management

·????? social awareness

·????? social skills

Using emotional intelligence in your communication allows you to build relationships across your school community: with your board, staff, parents, students as well as with the local community and fellow schools. It also requires you to be engaging in dialogue with people across your setting.

As leaders we need to ensure that we have open communication across our places of work. In education, it sometimes feels like we work in our own worlds, going down a subject specialisation route that can in fact hinder communication and the sharing of best practice or development.

Our greatest strength is the exact opposite of specialisation, it is the ability to integrate broadly. For a coaching way of leading we are looking for less isolation and more collaboration and union. We can then begin to enable learning across all areas of your setting, explicitly:

• People – acting as a coach and creating a great learning environment
• Teams – acting as a facilitator and focusing on drawing out and using the best thinking in teams
• Institutions – acting as an integrator and focusing on building the structures and processes needed to best share and use learning across the institution

Final thoughts

Relationships are the second stage towards implementing a coaching way of leading. This builds on developing your self-awareness. You can begin to develop this area through:

·????? Enhance communication by utilising your Fundamental coaching skills to developing positive social relationships in your setting.

·????? Build a culture of trust and respect by demonstrating behaviours that provide you with credibility and integrity.

·????? Create the right conditions to foster effective dialogue drawing on your fundamental coaching skills.

·????? Building high value teams by promoting psychological safety and collaboration.