The problem with being busy . . .

When you’re a busy leader, you don’t always realise the problems that ‘busyness’ is creating. For example, when you’re doing things at high speed, you’re unlikely to be doing them in an optimal way. You’re very unlikely to be looking for innovation, risk-taking and creativity and you’re probably focused on finding rapid answers, speedy delivery and quick wins.

In our education system, we often get pushed into ‘busyness’ by the environment we work in. Lots of things can urge us to move faster and try to pack more in:

·??????? Worries about our workforce being stressed and overloaded

·??????? Staff absences and tight budgets restricting backfill

·??????? Being confronted by angry parents demanding more than we can give

·??????? A rise in children engaging in behaviours that are challenging and sometimes dangerous

·??????? The intense accountability system we work within

When you look at that, it’s a recipe for leadership overwhelm and burnout.

Brene Brown describes overwhelm as ‘an extreme level of stress, an emotional and/or cognitive intensity to the point of feeling unable to function’. Jon Kabat-Zinn, the master of mindfulness, says it happens when our lives are ‘unfolding faster than the nervous system and psyche can manage it’. He suggests that the only cure is ‘non-doing’. Good decisions can’t be made when we’re in this emotional state.

That resonates with me. In my experience, the only way forward from overwhelm is slowing down, giving myself some space to do nothing and offering myself a bit of kindness.

To prevent things getting as far as overwhelm, there’s some real benefit to having ‘headspace’ from all the pressures outlined above; some time to let the nervous system and psyche be free of all those constraints outlined above and pressures to ‘do something’. I’ve known lots of very effective heads who have achieved this through running, cycling or some other form of physical exercise. Meditation and mindfulness practices are another way.

Coaching is a great way to achieve headspace and then move it on to the next step, zooming out and seeing the bigger picture. An effective coach creates a safe and non-judgemental space where a leader can share the troubling thoughts and emotions and begin to let go of them. They are then in a better place to do that ‘zooming out’ practice.

As a headteacher, I experienced this. There was a point where I felt really overwhelmed in my day to day work. There were so many different challenges – finance issues, HR conundrums, low pupil outcomes, challenging behaviour, angry parents – all at the same time. But I had a tendency to ‘power through’ and just keep on moving from task to task. I was trying to maintain the exterior appearance of calm to my staff and community, but actually I wasn’t performing at my best. I was hanging on by a thread. A leadership coach I was working with at the time brought in a really useful military metaphor. He talked about the way that I was spending all my time down in the trenches, and not enough time up on the top, looking around at the landscape and getting the ‘bigger picture’. By zooming out, I could strategise and see how the whole organisation was doing. I could work out how to help other team members to do their best work – the real task of a leader. That really made sense to me. His questions helped me to understand why I was spending all my time down there in the trenches: the self-limiting beliefs I was carrying around. My concept of a good headteacher was unrealistic. It involved being the hardest worker, and not letting people see my vulnerability. In the safety of the coaching space, I could gently explore ways forward from this, allowing myself to let go of the limiting beliefs and move into a different kind of leadership style, more in line with my deep values of compassion, empowerment and creativity. To find creative solutions to the intense problems our school community faced required ‘headspace’ for me and the ability to think out loud with the team.

So, if you’re a leader who experiences overwhelm in their work, or wants to prevent it getting that far, leadership coaching could really help you to slow everything down, look at your situation with kindness and then zoom out to see the bigger picture and find a fresh perspective. I’m here to support you with that. My headship experience helps me to bring the compassion for what you’re going through, and my coaching skills help me to create a unique thinking space where you can safely look at things in different ways and explore options.

You can use this link to book directly into my calendar for a free, no-obligation consultation chat, where we can talk through coaching options, and you can get a feel for whether I am the right coach for you. My 4 x 1 hr session package is a great place to start, and costs just ￡300.

?