“Have you got a minute?” Productivity Advice
And the answer, although sometimes I dearly wish to say ‘no, sorry’, is always ‘yes, of course.’
As a leader, you find yourself in the middle of everything, the go-between, bridging the ‘gap’ between the teaching staff and the Head. This can be quite an interesting place to be, to say the least.
At times, in any school, hard questions have to be asked and you can find yourself having challenging conversations. Finding the best way to deliver a difficult message takes diplomacy and sensitivity, the more constructive you can be the better. Remembering to temper tough issues by reinforcing the positive and praising can make a difference when trying to support others.
Sometimes this can make you popular and well, not so! You have to resolve yourself to the idea that you cannot always get everything right for all people, but I know that you always need to have an open door, a box of tissues and a listening ear.
The place of a leader is an exceptional position to be in. And whilst you can be the buffer for the staff to share their worries with, you and the Head must be there to back each other up too. Relieving tension by having the occasional moan can be supportive, as can finding things to laugh about.
To do or not to do?
Like many teachers I love a good to-do list – I have long handwritten ones, colour-coded ones with deadlines on my iPad, collections of scribbled Post-it notes and even a bedside notebook or two. But I know, that how you manage and organise your time as a leader is crucial not only to your output in school but also to your work/life balance at home.
Leaders and managers will all have their strategies for making sure that they get all their jobs done in a timely fashion. We all work in different ways and the pressure that can be felt in schools can be a motivator and hindrance. Something that works for me is the four Ds which is just a way of prioritising what must be done and when:
Do – These are the things that need to be dealt with that day or week.
Delegate – As a leader, it can be difficult to relinquish control, but it is beneficial to yourself and the development of others to sometimes ask for help or give tasks away.
Delay – Not all things have to be done straight away. Honestly, they don’t, you can put some things off… just don’t forget to come back to them.
Dump – Also known as “I’ll file that in the (recycle) bin”.
However you organise yourself, the principles outlined above are so useful. Everything does not need to be done immediately by you, just done well and in good time.
As a profession, teachers are always tinkering and assuming that there is always room for improvement. For many teachers there is a very real feeling that the children won’t learn well enough without that little extra tweak to planning, having a few more sparkly resources or using 6 colours to highlight improvement points. This can be true for leaders too.
So much of what I do is self-directed that the trick is to know when to stop and be content that you have done a good job.
Charging the battery
There are different points in the year which expose the condition known as ‘teacher tiredness’: the festive, nativity-filled run-up to Christmas; halfway through the year when the mornings and evenings are dark, and daylight is at a premium; the long, long summer term stretch and any time when there is an imminent phone call from some friendly inspectors. Whilst I am in no doubt that this job is highly rewarding and worthwhile its all-consuming ‘everythingness’ can also be relentless and test your powers of resilience.
I use an analogy to describe how this condition works for me. I have huge internal stores of motivation, commitment and enthusiasm much like a mobile phone battery. But I know that without a good, full 100% charge my work output can begin to operate at about 45% and instead of whizzing through my jobs, my productivity gradually lowers.
Not only that, but you can often be the barometer for the feelings of the staff picking up on the overall stress level in school. Being able to recognise this within yourself and around you is important for the emotional climate in school.
Exploring the things that will help you and the school recharge can ensure a happy and healthy life for all.
Certainly, celebrating successes is vital whether that is an individual child progressing well or a positive outcome for school improvement. For me it’s also about finding pleasure in the little things in life which help me to get through – walking my dog on a bright, sunny day, treating myself to a brownie at lunchtime. For school, it can be encouraging staff to take a break and get together socially or reflecting on those things that are going well.
Benefits of Coaching
managing change more successfully
improved resilience and the ability to work more effectively
improved strategies for leadership issues
more confidence in managing performance
greater ability to prioritise and manage demands
renewed enthusiasm for the job
insight from other school environments
Priorities:
Following on from One of Those Days – Let’s Prioritise – by @LeadingLearner, I quickly adopted the Stephen Covey model for my work. What I have yet to decipher, is what information is not ‘Important and Urgent’, as I find most of my workload is … and what to place in the bottom-left-hand section of the diagram below; ‘Urgent But Not Important’.
I wonder if it is because I view/determine that all ‘my work’ is important, but have yet failed to distinguish what is a priority and what is not.
Image: LeadingLearner.me
Important and Urgent:
Appraisal across the school – to inform performance management and pay progression in
A Learning Policy which will define all things teaching and learning across the school. The overall goal is to define an expectation and set a level of consistency.
Important But Not Urgent:
There are many important tasks for me to complete in this section. All important, yet not pressing until the deadline looms nearer. If I could choose two priorities from this area, t
They would be;..........
Urgent But Not Important:
I have no idea what to place here at the moment. Do you?
Not Important and Not Urgent:
I have listed all my creative projects here. Ideas that I’d like to revisit, introduce or consider developing further.
I aim to take the school through …….