Developing Leaders Presentation Day Reflection

Developing Leaders Presentation Feedback

Firstly I had a really positive experience listening to all the presentations (thank you everyone); there was lots of food for thought and things that I heard from other departments/curriculum areas that could be really beneficial in MFL. I particularly like the idea of mentoring within a subject – though we are limited to the number of A-Level students we could use as mentors I am sure that this could be something that could be beneficial for Year 11 students or high ability Year 10s who could support Year 9s. This is definitely something I would be keen to look into.

Feedback from my peers on my challenge and presentation
Strengths & Development Points:
Reflection – all the feedback I received commented on the reflection that I had done on my own learning preferences and leadership style. I feel that I have come a long way not only on this course but over the years I have been teaching in Greece and the UK. When I was initially asked to complete a reflective journal in Greece I was rather sceptical as to the benefits of doing this when it would take away from my preparation and marking time. However, as I aim to progress as a classroom practitioner and a leader within school it is clear that this element of reflection and being able to look at my practices critically is the key to driving me forward.
Data Analysis - Due to my own learning style, data analysis is something I relish and I am only too happy to drill down into data to look for trends and identify gaps within the department, which the feedback picks up on. It is interesting that some of my peers suggested looking at soft data when I continue with my challenge and perhaps get some more feedback from the students more formally about how they found the extraction groups. I have some examples of the more vocal students expressing an opinion but I did not look at the feelings of the entire cohort which is something to build into the challenge moving forward.
Leadership Development – All the feedback I have been given states that I have a clear understanding of my strengths and weaknesses, which having completed the sessions and writing the blog I would agree with. During my challenge I did aim to move away from my preferred style and develop my areas of weakness and improve upon my level 1 & 2 competencies. I feel that I have come some way to doing this yet there is definitely more work to be done. In future when I work in different teams on other projects I am sure that putting more focus on other leadership styles will be key. Whilst I did strive to take the role of a co-ordinator with my challenge, and try to move away from my preference for pacesetting, being a pace setter wasn’t too much of an issue due the high level of competency my colleague has and also the extremely high standards she sets.

Whilst listening to other presentations I was interested to hear that some people thought, that when they took on a leadership role, they imitated the styles of leaders they had worked under. Whilst I do think I have come from an educational background where my teachers were pacesetters, I have worked in a number of different sectors and under various leaders that used different styles. Looking back I have found coercive and democratic having the least effect on myself as I like clear direction but I also have a way of working that I would find hard to give up altogether. I have been drawn towards a pace setting style simply as I was always told to lead by example and that you can’t expect people to do what you yourself are unwilling to do. Whilst I see that there are benefits to this, seeing others’ Leadership Challenges and their ways of approaching Leadership has further demonstrated to me that there is no right or wrong way of being a leader. However, there is a right or wrong way of being a leader within a certain context, to analyse it and approach it in a way that enables you to not only get the best outcome but respond to the needs of others, whatever kind of stakeholder they may be. In getting the best out of everyone you in turn empower them to lead. There are definitely situations where pacesetting can be useful but I have also seen that this needs to be used in collaboration with other approaches if I am to be a successful leader.

Questions
Impact of giving up free periods?
Neither member of the department raised any concern about this. I think the challenged worked as the department works so well together. There is no every man for himself attitude and staff want to help each other so that they can get the best outcomes for the students we teach. As a department resources are shared and wherever possible we cover lessons and assist within other lessons.

Complaints of pupils?
Throughout the period that the extraction ran only one student complained. The rest of the students were fully on board and understood the rationale behind the foundation and higher tier groups. The student who did want to be included in the higher group was offered additional one to one tuition and their parents were contacted, however, their attendance was sporadic and after a number of weeks they understood the reasoning behind their exam entry. What did not happen was a drop in expectations or academic challenge in the foundation group. The main difference in the exams is the skill set required to achieve maximum UMS points so there was academic dialogue in both groups, neither member of staff wanted to lower the standards or expectations by extracting the different ability groups.

Stepping on toes
Before the challenge began I was a little apprehensive but this was completely unfounded. At no point during the leadership challenge did I feel as though I was treading on someone’s toes or going above them. Although I tried to adopt a more affiliative and democratic approach to ensure this didn’t happen, the main reason for this was due to the leader I work under. As a Leader my HoF is excellent as she allows others to take a leading role and fits into a team by moving away from her own modus operandi to empower others to act and lead.

Developing Leaders

 

Management is doing things right; leadership is doing the right things.   (Peter Drucker)

O     A leader leads based on strengths, not titles.

O     The best managers consistently allow different leaders to emerge and inspire their teammates

 

Leadership in Education

Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Schools has said that outstanding provision in schools and colleges is ‘strong governance and leadership’. Leadership within schools is not simply the senior leadership team but also leaders within departments who try to make a positive impact upon the area in which they work.

The National College for Teaching and Leadership states that a leader

·         motivates people to develop new ideas

·         shapes

·         opens up horizons

·         behaves with emotional intelligence

·         does the right thing

·         is concerned with ends and future direction (transformational)

·         empowers people

·         is dynamic

 

Leadership within schools should not just be considered to be the Headmaster and the Senior Leadership group but thought of as a collective capacity including School Leaders, Middle Leaders and also Leadership within the classroom. Total leadership accounts for a significant 27% of the variation in student achievement across schools, therefore the quality of leadership is key to school improvement.

Good leadership inspires others, it is empathetic to their needs and it makes people feel valued. In my own educational setting there are numerous examples of good leadership at a classroom, departmental and a whole school setting.

My own leadership challenge needs to target not only the gap I have identified at my school but also the areas of improvement for my own leadership.

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Developing Effective Teams

Good Teamwork: means responding to the needs of others, thinking collectively and working as one to achieve a common/shared goal. Playing to each member’s strengths and acknowledging weaknesses whilst compensating for them.

What makes a good Team?
Kolb’s Inventory can be useful in assessing the way different members of a team operate. A team’s learning profile can determine how well any given team is able to work. Teams are often most effective when they encompass a range of different learning styles. As a leader understanding the different profiles of people within your team enables you to understand the individual and collective potential with your team, to ensure that all aspects of a task are covered and that the outcome is successful. The idea of different learning styles can also be useful for conflict resolution by allowing team members who lie at opposing ends of the continuum to understand each other’s approaches to the task, and to help them to realize that a combined approach incorporating different styles is far more effective than any individual style alone.

In my own setting I have witnessed tension caused by a lack of understanding and appreciation of different styles from Kolb’s inventory where an assimilating colleague was left frustrated by the response of an accommodating manager who was unwilling to discuss the detailed analysis of school data which the accommodating employee had gone to great lengths to prepare and then analyse in close detail.

BELBIN

Belbin set out nine team roles: success depends on contrasting behaviour fitting into the mix. A successful team needs a variety of roles but it is vital that all team members can work together.

·         co-ordinator

·         plant (ideas)

·         resource investigator

·         implementer

·         shaper

·         completer

·         specialist

·         team worker

·         monitor/ evaluator

My preferred roles : monitor/ evaluator , completer/finisher, implementer. These roles are action and thinking roles rather than people roles which is an area for my development.

Considering myself as part of a team, the above roles would be how I prefer to contribute.  As a leader of a team I asked myself if it is acceptable to ask a team member to work outside of their preferred role. Having reflected upon this the answer would be yes, provided that support is provided. Working outside of one’s comfort zone empowers people ‘to reach their full potential’ and part of a leader’s role under operational management competency is to develop other members of the team.
During my leadership challenge I want to take on the role of a co-ordinator and delegate tasks to others rather aim for total perfection.

 

LEADERSHIP STYLES – Daniel Goleman

During a three year study with over 3,000 middle leaders in business Goleman identified six leadership styles that each bring their own advantages and possible issues.

Style	Key characteristic	Advantages	Possible Issues
Pacesetting	sets high standards of performance do as I do	set high standards conscientious drive to achieve	demand for excellence can overwhelm others poor feedback – take over when things go wrong
Coaching	Develops people for the future try this…	help improve performance plenty of feedback improves flexibility commitment and loyalty	time consuming does not work if people are resistant to change or learning leader must have expertise too much coaching can turn to coercive
Coercive	demands immediate compliance do what I tell you	drive to achieve only way to break habits associated with failure shock people into new ways of working	reign of terror – plummeting morale lack of new ideas, motivation and co-operation
Visionary	mobilises people towards a vision come with me	generates confidence and empathy motivates people flexibility maintained	can be overbearing and exhausting disrupt the work of an experienced and already effective team
Affiliative	builds relationships and creates harmony people come first	values individuals, which creates loyalty, a sense of belonging and good communication strong on positive feedback	poor performance goes unchecked thus implies poor standards are acceptable lack of clear direction
Democratic	consensus through participation What do you think?	collaborative, builds trust, respect and commitment  so high morale	does not work with inexperience crucial decisions are put off feeling of lack of leadership

 

Before undertaking an assessment of my leadership style I was quite convinced that my result would be ‘pacesetting’.  My assumption was correct and I also scored highly on coaching, which is unsurprising as a teacher, followed by visionary, affiliative and democratic. I scored lowest on coercive, which I did find somewhat surprising, as I prefer to feel as though I have complete control of a situation and am sometimes unwilling to delegate due to my pacesetting preferences. To be an effective leader it is necessary to be able to deploy a range of different styles of leadership to fit the situation and the team you are working with.  For example when working with a new and very inexperienced team a completely affiliative or democratic approach may leave team members feeling as though there is a lack of leadership and no sense of direction. Whilst employing a coercive approach may lead to lack of morale and no sense of loyalty to the team or team leader.  
Whilst working in a team to complete my closing the gap challenge a pace setting approach may work well due to the level of experience the department has, it will be necessary to also employ other styles of leadership to get the best out of the team.

 

LEVEL 1 & 2 Competencies 

Educational leadership competencies can be divided into three specific fields: Educational Excellence; Operational Management; and Strategic Leadership. In each of these fields there is an area that I have identified as an area for improvement throughout my leadership challenge.

	Educational Excellence	Operational Management	Strategic Leadership
Area for development	Partnership working	Holding other to account	Impact and influence

 

These areas for development also link to my preferred roles when working as part of a team and to an extent my preferred pacesetting leadership style. By aiming to be a co-ordinator within a team it will allow me to delegate tasks and improve my ability to work in partnership with others, so too will avoiding a pacesetting style of leadership as this can lead to me attempting to take over. However whilst adopting the role of co-ordinator I need to ensure that I do still take on my fair share of the work as I myself have been deeply frustrated when working in teams where people offload their fair share of the work to others.

 

 

 

My Challenge

Looking through the Department’s data, overall the number of pupils reaching an A*-C grade at GCSE compares favourably to the national average, however this is not the case when A*/A grades are examined.  Year on year the percentage of students achieving the top grades is below the number reaching the same mark nationally.

Year	National A*/A	BHS
2015	23.3%	14%
2014	23.1%	18.9%
2013	24.2%	16.5%

 

GCSE German has been taught largely in mixed ability groups, however in previous years where more than one class run at the same time the department has run an informal setting system based initially on target grades and in Year 11 operated on Higher and Foundation Tier exam entry.

Class	A*/A Target	Actual	+/-	A*-C  Target	Actual	+/-
Foundation	0	0	0	100	80	-20
Higher	69.2	34.6	-34.6	100	100	0
Mixed 1	60.7	3.6	-57.1	100	85.7	-14.3
Mixed 2	36.8	15.8	-21	100	84.2	-15.8

 

The data here shows that groups with comparable A*/A grade targets benefitted from being taught in ability groupings (compare Higher with Mixed 1). However, there was a negative impact on the students in the Foundation group compared to in the mixed ability groups as fewer attained the benchmark C grade at GCSE.

Sutton trust – Closing the Gap

According to research undertaken by the Sutton Trust overall setting/streaming appears to benefit higher attaining pupils, whereas it can be detrimental to the learning of mid-range and lower attaining pupils.

Higher attaining learners make between one and two months additional progress when grouped with pupils of similar ability and they benefit from a range of different kinds of grouping including pull-out classes accelerated classes and promotion. These programmes potentially provide an advantage for these pupils of between 3-12 months.

Conversely, routine setting can undermine low attaining pupils’ confidence and discourage the belief that attainment can be improved through effort. However there are some exceptions where setting or streaming has benefitted all learners.

The Sutton Trust make a number of recommendations:

·         Within class setting is preferable

·         Current attainment not a measure of potential

·         The impact of ability grouping on attitudes to learning and their engagement needs to be monitored.

 

Gamoran (2002) also highlights the potential issues of setting and streaming pupils as when pupils are divided by achievement they also tend to be segregated ‘by race, ethnicity and social class’. He also states that lower ability classes are ‘more often afflicted with interruptions and student misbehaviour. He also states that high level classes on the whole had ‘more discussion and open- ended questions about academic content’. Gamoran notes that setting can be beneficial for even lower attaining students because students could have ‘incentives to perform well at a level that was mangeable for them’ (Ayalon & Gamoran 2000). He attributes this to teaching staff having high expectations, a refusal to dilute the curriculum and an extra effort to 'foster discourse with low-achieving students'.  It is therefore clear that it will be necessary to systematically monitor the progress of students who are not extracted to ensure that there is no negative impact on them when higher ability students are extracted.