by André Double
Context
At the pinnacle of any leader’s career, is an ability to plan for succession – consistently developing leaders. It isn’t easy, for it requires a leader to develop outstanding relationships, and build trust – both while consistently getting stuff done. John Maxwell cites it as a consistent practice of ‘Level 5 Leadership’. When leaders and their organisations get this right, they empower their people to be more, to think more and to achieve more – all for the benefit of our students. A former Principal in the UK has developed at least ten principals – probably more by now. Yet we’ve all worked for schools and leaders who didn’t quite seem to have the time, desire or the skills to be able to develop people. Why? One answer lies in the fact that some still believe to bring about change and lead people they don’t have to develop relationships. How wrong they are. As the Wallace Foundation points out, highly effective leaders “make good use of all the skills and knowledge on the faculty and among others, encouraging the many capable adults who make up a school community to step into leadership roles and responsibilities”. This article highlights the critical importance to our schools of developing leaders, in every corner of our international schools. It also reflects on the recent UNESCO ‘Leadership in Education – Lead for Learning Report 24/25.
Essential Question: How do leaders develop people, and what are the pitfalls along the way?
Why is Leadership Development So Important?
People join great schools. They often leave due to poor leadership and a lack of opportunity. Within our international schools, cultivating and developing leaders is not just important – it is critical. Teachers, HR Staff, Librarians and our wider school staff expect to be developed – and why shouldn’t they? In a recent study, it was revealed that around three-quarters of Gen Z employees want to be given opportunities to learn at work or develop their skills. Nearly two-thirds (61%) of those surveyed want to advance in their careers or ‘increase their responsibilities’. Developing people isn’t just an intrinsically valuable tool to improve employee motivation, solve complex challenges and raise outcomes – it is also a positive tool for recruitment for our international schools. In the COBIS Teacher Supply in British International Schools – 2022 survey, 63% of schools responding to the survey said they had attempted to enhance teacher professional development to increase teacher retention. So how do we do develop leaders?
Developing Others Starts with Great Self-Awareness
Before you can consistently develop others, you need to have a deep sense of self – knowing who you are and how comfortable you are with yourself. Are you comfortable with your capacities, your practices, how you respond to challenges and failure, for example? Developing others requires an underlying psychological safety in yourself and the acknowledgement that those you are developing are likely to out-succeed you in nearly all aspects of your role. The New Zealand Rugby team has for years encouraged a mentality that expects its players and coaches to leave the jersey in a better position than the one they inherited.
Action: On a piece of paper, write down how many people at your school are ‘Ready now’; ‘Ready in one year’ and ‘Ready in 18 months or more’ for leadership. In your next senior leadership team meeting, map out the concrete steps that you would take to move each group of people between the stages. You’ve just written your next staff development plan.
You Can’t Develop People Without Loving People
As leaders, we should never set out to be liked. We hope to be respected, valued as effective at the practice of leadership, entrusted for our decision-making and noted for our hard-work. However, you cannot hope to lead and develop people if you don’t love people, their unique personalities and nuances. Early on in my leadership career I thought I could bypass some people I didn’t particularly like or even respect professionally. Buoyed on by change management literature – I was convinced that you only needed to get the momentum of a small group of people to get the ball rolling and it would soon turn into a critical mass. How wrong I was. Each and every time I started a new leadership position, as Maxwell points out, although I saw myself as a leader, in the eyes of many, you are still unproven. So, you have to start again and invest considerable time, effort and energy in building relationships with people who may not see the value in who you are and what you do.
We are all different and many teachers I have worked with in international schools are experts at separating their school lives from their work lives. So my advice is – find ways to connect with people not just in what you want them to do, but in what they also enjoy and find harmony in.
Highly effective leaders “make good use of all the skills and knowledge on the faculty and among others, encouraging the many capable adults who make up a school community to step into leadership roles and responsibilities”. Wallace Foundation, 2012
Expect People to Do the Job Before They Get the Title
There is an observable trend I am witnessing before my eyes: people want to lead. They want the title and the responsibilities that go with it. Yet some think that the journey starts with a title. It doesn’t. Leadership starts before you decide it is the journey you want to take. Positional leadership is the lowest form of leadership and I’ve worked for leaders who did little else but lead with their title. My own mentor Gráinne O’Reilly never stops reminding me that leadership is not a finite process with a clear start and end. If you want to develop leaders in your school – expect people to demonstrate the values and behaviours that go along with it – before they get the title.
Action: Provide a list of ‘leadership actions’ that staff who are looking to become leaders can become involved in. Bus duties, supervision, opportunities to review the curriculum, exam revision sessions, a piece of important action research or help in solving complex challenges. Don’t wait for people to become leaders before expecting them to act like leaders.
Use Frameworks Not Structures
When it comes to leadership and its development, our default mechanism is often to create structures when what we really should be developing are frameworks instead. In our international schools, leadership needs to be agile. It needs to be responsive to our climate, culture and needs. Create leadership frameworks for your staff that can be developed, contextualised and staff can have ownership of. Take Leighthwood’s (2016) ‘Department Head Practices’ as an example in practice and have your Middle Leaders come up with their own version of what highly successful Middle Leaders do in your school. Have HR and Senior Leadership Teams collaborate on the skills, practices and behaviours they require, and are developing. Always remember that leadership is something that can be worked on throughout all of your departments and never just something only teachers do.
In Summary
- Effective leaders recognise they don’t have all the answers. Use a diagnostic, skills audit or the LYIS Leadership Framework to see where your staff strengths lie.
- People expect to be developed, and research demonstrates it. If you don’t develop them – other schools will.
- Find ways to develop leaders outside of school just as much as you do inside school.
- Use the Ready Now – Ready In 12 Months – Ready later model as your latest leadership development plan.
- Expect your staff to ‘do the job before they get the title’. If it is only a title that motivates them – they won’t get very far.
- Devolve meaningful responsibility – purposefully.
As Dean Croy pointed out in his Principal’s Blog, “today’s Middle Leaders are tomorrow’s Senior Leaders”. What are you doing to ensure that your school and our international school global village makes the most of this leadership pipeline?
On the 28th and 29th of May next year Michael Iannini and PD Academia join hands with LYIS in delivering our first Middle Leadership Professional Development together at CWA Changshu. We look forward to developing those in attendance and supporting them on their journey of leadership.
Thank You for Reading
André Double is the Founder and CEO of Leading Your International School. If you would like LYIS to support your leaders, their growth and development, email: andre@leadingyourinternationalschool.com
WeChat ID: AndreDouble
Next week’s blog is written by Benjamin Derrick, Principal, Kids ‘R’ Kids International, Inc. Shanghai
References
ExtensisHR. What Does Gen Z Want in the Workplace?
Kenneth Leithwood (2016) Department-Head Leadership for School Improvement, Leadership and Policy in Schools, 15:2, 117-140, DOI: 10.1080/15700763.2015.1044538.
Maxwell, J (2011). The Five Levels of Leadership. Center Street
The Effective Principal: Five Pivotal Practices that Shape Instructional Leadership. The Wallace Foundation. (2012).
UNESCO ‘Leadership in Education – Lead for Learning Report 24/25
End Note:
The recent UNESCO ‘Leadership in Education – Lead for Learning Report 24/25 suggests:
School leaders should not be heroes. Sharing leadership builds better schools.
“Sharing leadership throughout the school creates a collaborative learning environment.
It empowers teachers to lead within their classrooms, students to be active leaders with their peers, and parents and community members to be involved. Yet collaboration is the most underemphasized of the four leadership dimensions in training programmes.
School leadership is too often hierarchical.
Assistant principals and teachers can help achieve school goals when enabled with clear roles, training and incentives. But only half of countries explicitly emphasize teacher collaboration in their leadership standards and barely one third of leadership training programmes focus on it. Some 81% of countries require school boards to include teachers and 83% to include parents, 62% community members and 57% students.”
LYIS is proud to partner with WildChina Education
