MAINTAINING THE MOMENTUM OF YOUR LEADERSHIP

I especially used to enjoy these beginning weeks of a new school year! By now, new kids are settling in. The shine may have come off the eager faces of the new Year 7s – or at least off the toes of their new school shoes – and they are beginning to master their timetables and the fastest routes to move between classrooms and buildings. Even the youngest children – if you have them at your school – seem more willing to let their parents go at the school gate and trot comfortably to their new classroom. The old hands in secondary years pretend indifference, but even they seem to have new energy this year, not least because they are actually back at school and seeing their friends each day live and not in a postage stamp-sized image on their iPad screen.

And in the staff room, by now new teachers seem a touch less nervy. They are finding their way around the school more confidently, and are mastering names of new colleagues and of some of their students – though it is harder to learn their names when half the kids’ faces are covered all the time!

Your Exec team is gelling nicely too – especially if you have new faces amongst them – and you have given yourself permission to relax a little now your endless round of commencement assemblies and your presentations to groups of new parents and students have concluded at least for now.

But you can’t relax completely. The momentum of a new school year is a precious resource we exploit every year. New beginnings are potent in the lives of humans of all ages, and the momentum you have generated at the start of this school year - drawing as you have upon both the excited energy of your newest students and also upon the eager anticipation of new staff commencing a new year, while not overlooking the harnessing of the quiet strength and unstinting support every school draws from its solid core of senior staff and other longer-serving teachers well familiar with your school and how it works – the momentum you have generated needs to continue. It needs to be maintained.

How?

Selena Wilson has just taken over as the CEO of the East Oakland Youth Development Center (EOYDC), which provides educational and personal support to socially and financially disadvantaged young people, setting them up to thrive as well as equipping them with life skills and preparing them to become leaders in their own community. Drawing on the approach of Regina Jackson, her immediate predecessor, from whom she says she herself benefited significantly as an adolescent and as a young woman, Wilson shares some important lessons that can benefit any leader – a leader like you – who is seeking to maintain their leadership momentum and make a lasting difference in the lives of those they lead, especially in the lives of young people (in A true leader actively does these 3 things every day, in Fast Company, 11 Feb 22).

Wilson’s three things you actively need to do are:

CREATE OPPORTUNITIES FOR OTHERS TO LEAD

Strong leaders do not wait for others to rise to the occasion, Wilson asserts, continuing, They create opportunities that show people the potential that lies within them. She goes on to explain that one of the most powerful aspects of Jackson’s leadership approach at EOYDC is the way she intentionally created opportunities for others to lead in meaningful ways.

In your school, you and your staff take every opportunity to seek out young people amongst your students who appear to have elementary leadership skills together with the character and presence to enact them. You most likely already have student leadership positions at various levels. Some schools have a focused and well-supported leadership development program. That was not Wilson’s experience, but as she explains:

By the time I was a sophomore in high school, I had enthusiastically completed every section of the series of free computer classes offered at EOYDC. With no classes left to take, I wondered what to do with my desire to continue learning. I am so grateful that, where I saw an ending, Ms. Jackson saw the beginning of a new opportunity to explore my potential. She created the first-ever youth computer instructor position at EOYDC, and I proudly taught classes to younger students for the next two years.

Now, more than 20 years later, EOYDC has dozens of youth serving in instructional positions each year. By creating a leadership opportunity for me, Ms. Jackson helped create similar opportunities for countless others. The impact of true leaders has a compounding effect on the organisations they lead, she adds.

Schools like yours have endless opportunities to create situations in which peer leadership can be fostered and nurtured, ranging from sporting teams to co-curricular programs in the performing arts, service learning and many other contexts. Opportunities for leadership development exist in external organisations operating in schools too, such as the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award Scheme, ADF Cadets, and faith-centred organisations such as Crusaders and the like.

You maintain your own leadership momentum as you create, foster and support the programs and activities within your school’s broad curriculum, in and out of class, where young people with a heart to lead and serve can be nurtured and encouraged to commit to learning and growing as emerging leaders. What was also key in the EOYDC context was that the CEO found leadership development opportunities there in spontaneous and serendipitous ways. You can also maintain your own leadership momentum by encouraging your executive team and other staff leaders in your school to be alert to potential leadership development for individual students as and when they may arise, however ephemeral or short-term they may be.

SET THE BAR HIGH AND OFFER SUPPORT

You know how important it is to success in schools that we set expectations. In fact, if you and your executive team fail to set expectations, you often frustrate your staff team members as well as your well-intentioned, aspirational students, and undermine the quality of personal and shared outcomes. As leaders, we must establish and communicate clear and achievable expectations for those we serve, but we must not stop there. True leaders not only set expectations; they also provide support and guidance to ensure that others have the necessary tools to succeed in meeting them, Wilson points out.

Recounting her own experience again, Wilson says, The importance of guidance and support factored most prominently for me as a public school student in East Oakland. It was no secret that academic expectations for me and my peers at school were often low. However, at EOYDC expectations were always high. Ms. Jackson not only communicated that she expected more of me, but she also took the time to show me the way. If I turned in an assignment, she did not just hand it back to me with mistakes highlighted. Instead, she saw mistakes as opportunities to improve, and she remained by my side to help me make corrections.

If all of your teachers are on board with supporting and insisting on your shared high expectations, the strategy adopted by EOYDC will transform the student experience in your school in the way Ms Jackson did for Wilson.

For Wilson, true leaders meet those they lead and serve where they are, accepting them as they are, and offering them support to help them along the way. Just as this works for children and young people, it also works for teachers and executive staff leaders too. You throw enormous force behind your momentum as a leader when you also meet your professional colleagues where they are, also offering them support by creating a culture in your school where offering support is ‘the way we do things around here.’ This approach not only enriches the lives of others, but its benefits are also twofold, Wilson avers; The goal is also accomplished and the person receiving support gains valuable knowledge and confidence to complete similar goals independently in the future.

In other words, when you adopt an approach that supports, helps and encourages people, the people you lead and serve grow as a result of your leadership. Robert Greenleaf affirmed that the true servant leader is concerned above everything else to ensure that through their leading, those who are led grow and develop towards becoming the best that they can be. In Wilson’s words, Leaders who guide and support the people they serve inspire them to do more and be more—and that is the greatest accomplishment of all.

CULTIVATE AN ECOSYSTEM WHERE EVERYONE THRIVES

Leaders who create a culture within their school where all people – teachers and students alike - are nurtured and encouraged to continue to grow, are ensuring that their leadership momentum will be maintained, because leadership – especially in a learning community like a school or like EOYDC for that matter - involves shared responsibility for ensuring everyone within that learning community is able to continue to grow and learn. Leadership in this kind of setting is a team effort, as Wilson points out, noting that no truly successful leader will ever tell you that they accomplished great things on their own. One of the things Wilson admires most about Ms. Jackson is the way she cultivated an ecosystem of support at EOYDC that is sustained by the culture of leadership it produces.

Everyone who walks through our doors is encouraged to explore the depth and breadth of their own capabilities, Wilson explains. Staff members are empowered to use their unique talents and passions to deliver on the organisation’s mission. Youth are encouraged to balance big dreams with an even bigger commitment to doing what it takes to achieve them—to “have dreams with feet,” as Ms. Jackson often says. As a result, the EOYDC ecosystem is a place where a growth mindset flourishes and people believe that they have the ability to develop their talents, abilities, and skills.

Wilson offers a further illustration of how this culture worked: When I was in seventh grade, I was responsible for walking my sister to dance class at EOYDC. I often sat in the lobby waiting for her class to end. One day, the EOYDC receptionist, Marcia Thompson, asked if I could assist her with a few things. Bored and with little else to keep me busy while waiting (we didn’t have smartphones back then), I agreed to help. Shortly thereafter, I became a part-time receptionist at EOYDC. Looking back, I realise that Ms. Marcia didn’t need my help, but she saw that I needed to be connected to a larger purpose and she provided me with an opportunity to realise that for myself.

I don’t know where I would be if she had not taken a moment to look up from her own work and see me, Wilson concludes, but I am grateful that she felt empowered by the culture of leadership at EOYDC to create an intentional leadership opportunity for me. Leaders are only as successful as the teams we lead. By cultivating an ecosystem where everyone thrives, there’s no limit to what we can accomplish together.

So, as this school term continues to unfold, I encourage you to maintain the momentum of your leadership. It will be obvious to you from Wilson’s observations that you probably do not need to change very much about what you are already doing. After all, creating opportunities for others to lead is second nature to true leaders like you do. And schools are such easy places in a way to create such opportunities.

Then as an educator, you are also well accustomed to setting high expectations and then ensuring that support is available to ensure that every student, and every teacher for that matter, can develop the self-awareness and sense of self-efficacy that will enable them to commit and achieve. From there, you are only a short step from cultivating an ecosystem, a culture in your school, where leaders at all levels focus on providing opportunities, through the quality of their leading, for every teacher and every student to grow and learn every day, and thus where everyone can thrive and continue to strive towards being the best that they can be.

True leaders lead by nurturing leadership in others; through nurturing leadership in others, the momentum in our own leadership is maintained!

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