You would not have reached
where you are today if you didn’t know how to harness the power of hope to help
you overcome the stresses of school leadership.
We know that hope can be
incredibly elusive. When external demands and pressures mount and crisis
follows crisis, the light at the end of the tunnel can appear to be very faint
and distant glimmer. In such times, hope is just as essential for your own well-being,
as rain is for flowers in the desert.
As you seek to move
forward in your endeavour to create brighter futures for our young people, here
are five tips for keeping hope alive and reducing feelings of stress when the
challenges arise…
Tip 1:
Learn to keep one eye backward and another eye forward
In order to live more
fully and to make progress in our lives, it is helpful to have a process in
place that enables us to develop a greater understanding of our own
personal/professional journeys. Such a process enables us to develop a greater
understanding of where we have come from and where we are heading and to
hopefully move forward with deeper levels of insight and wisdom.
When this becomes a
regular pattern of behaviour, it becomes much harder for you to be knocked off
course by the challenges of school life – you have a wider perspective for
viewing events and understanding how they relate to the bigger picture, both
personally and professionally.
Tip 2:
Stay Connected
School leadership does
not happen in a vacuum. Leaders need people, not only to follow them, but also
to help them on their journey. The connections that you make as you move
forward will have a great impact on the degree to which you are able to deal successfully
with the challenges of school leadership.
Paying attention to the
relationships that you invest in and develop outside of school is just as
important for your health and mental well-being, as is the amount of time you
spend developing relationships in school. Be wise in your affiliations;
relationships that drain your energy (although sometimes, if not often, this is
unavoidable in a professional context) take great care in your personal
relationships, to ensure there is a balance and that you have relationships
that give back to you and do not leave you emotionally depleted.
Tip 3:
Learn the art of Selfless Leadership
Nelson Mandela’s
Biographer, Richard Stengel wrote, “We become our best selves through unselfish
interaction with others”. In stating this he was referring to “the African
model of leadership, which is better expressed as Ubuntu, the idea that people
are empowered by other people.” Quite clearly this can only happen when Ego is
put to one side.
The Selfless Leader is
one who has outgrown the needs of the Ego for constant external praise and
affirmation. The Selfless leader is one who understands that constant seeking
of the approval of others only leads to greater stress and an increased
distancing from one’s true identity. The Selfless leader understands that when
all such things are put to one side, hope prevails, stress is reduced and
greater bonds are formed with those you lead.
Tip 4:
Bend, do not break
You may be familiar with
the phrase ‘bend’ do not break, which some say has its origins in either one of
Aesop’s fables, The Olive Tree and the Reed, or an old Chinese proverb that
relates to the capacity of the bamboo to bend (and not break) even in the
severest of storms. For too many school leaders resilience has meant putting on
a brave face while becoming detached from all feeling and emotion, they have
become so ‘brittle’, that when the storms come, they have forgotten what it
means to ‘bend’.
If you want to be able to
withstand the storms of school leadership, you have to be able to bend. You
have to be able to allow yourself to feel and in so feeling, to be receptive to
what your mind and your body are telling you – and take action that shows you
are have understood the message!
Tip 5:
Know you have a choice
During everything that
the life of a school leader throws at you, it is important to remember that you
have a choice as to how you respond. When we understand this, we put our
conscious selves back into the driving seat of our lives. We stay in control of
ourselves, as opposed to life’s events taking control of us. It is not always
easy.
It takes discipline and
conscious effort to choose how we respond to life’s calamities. However, when
we master the art and become better at taking control of our lives, we
experience the peace that comes in no longer letting others unduly influence
our experience of school leadership. We also promote hope in ourselves and
promote it in those who are close to us.
Taking
Back Control of School Leadership
It is our belief that
over the last few years, our education system has lost sight of one of its
strongest and most important assets – its humanity.
Values more akin to the
business world have seeped into the system with schools encouraged to see
children as data, other school leaders as competitors and results as the
ultimate goal of education. We have seen too many school leaders
‘disappear’ with many being forced out, sometimes on the back of just one
disappointing set of results.
Consequently, we’ve
noticed a growing culture of fear within in our education system. Increased
levels of public scrutiny and personal accountability have only served to
intensify this. As have new structures and roles which have added
unnecessary layers of complexity and ambiguity. Many heads now feel they are in
a constant battle to prove they know what is being asked of them in this new
era and prove that they are “good enough.”
That’s why in October 2020, we will
once again host Headteachers & School Leaders from across the country for
our very special “Education for the Soul” conference.
This conference will feature a new
selection of expert speakers and workshop hosts, who will be sharing their
insights into how school leaders can look after their own well-being, get the
most out of those they lead and deliver the best outcomes for their pupils.
The conference will aim to build on the
outcomes of our previous “Education for the Soul” conferences and seek to
explore how school leaders and teachers can learn to lead with integrity,
depth and purpose.
As part of this, we will look into how
individuals can stay connected to their “why” and their deepest values. Above
all, “Education for the Soul” 2020 will aim to help school leaders and
teachers:
– Foster a deep sense of vocation and purpose
amongst all staff
– Increase their understanding of the
relationship between school development and personal development
– Keep hope, joy passion, commitment and
creativity at the heart of their school and relationships with self and others
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