Coaching and Mentoring for Change Leaders. Jan Robertson, Wellington. 14 June 2017

Importance of mihimihi

• Making connections
• inclusion of dialogue
• sharing / being aware of context
• finding commonalities
• transition - 'here'
• expectations / active listening, etc
• participants forming questions - self-directed - what questions do our teachers come to ther staff meeting with?
• coaching paradigm
• sense of responsbility
• "Who did you bring here today?"

"Why Should Anyone be Led By You?" - Book http://integralleadershipreview.com/1687-book-review-2/

Be yourself more...with skill - have to know who you are

Leadership is about your learning relationships with others.

Jan Robertson's Reseach asked...

"What do you want from your leaders?

• Authenticity - not 'playing a role' - not 'principal'
• Significance
• how does that add to the bug picture?
• how do you give people feeling that their work is significant - relationships, feedback
• Excitement
• people who inspire, are filled with awe - about ...prof learning? student learning? inquiry-minded teachers?
• Never going to learn it all
• Belonging
• people who care. Sense of belonging

If you know what the vision is, you can all work together in the challenge



Three Key Questions:

What are you doing currently, that you need to do more?
What are you currently not doing, that you need to do?
What do you need to stop doing to take you closer to your vision?



Bee Keeper Analogy
Not being prepared to be a bee keeper - not ready when the bees arrived for the hive

• had to learn from and with the bees
• every day is different - do not know what might greet you when you arrive at the bees
• if take too much honey, the bees won't have enough for the winter
• sometimes can problem-solve what need to do, and sometimes can't (Wasps) - can look in books, find a coach
• Hoping hive is strong enough to kill the wasps, and survive

When did you learn something new, recently, out of education, that was outside your comfort zone?

Why did I ask that problem? Awe, Wonder. What do we have in our lives that creates change?

Leadership is about being outside of comfort zone, and learning from this - from unknown

• keeping status quo running is not enough
• challenged to learn about yourself
• know self well - to know others
• "coaching leadership is a waying of 'beeing'

What might we learn from the Beekeeper about the Change Process?

• always unknown - be comfortable without knowing
• not always in control - sometimes need to react to the situation, to observe
• people dealing with might know a lot more than you
• can't be scripted - keep reacing, striving, vision
• understanding all aspects - trust in ability to learn, patterns
• build a story - how is the context changing?
• Bigger vision - world-wide / community-wide - reach out for help, reach out to support - care as much about the school down the road, as own school
• sometimes need to be pushed into it - will never be 'ready'
• Care for people and how they are going

How do we create the conditions that cause others to achieve their potential?

• children's learning - adults learning
• what does Ako mean, in that relationship?
• Partnership - Treaty Partnership Model
• How do we model that we honour the partnership?
• EG Modelling culturally responsive practice in our own leadership (also Modern Learning Environments, Literacies, etc)

Whakatau

Ngā hononga - reciprocal responsive relationships

Nā tō rourou
Nā taku rourou
Ka ora ai te iwi

What would it look like if the change relationship was a partnership?

Learning Relationship

What do you expect from a partner?

You say what you mean - what do they hear?

 

Do I know how my colleagues see their learning relationship with me?

 

Own it - don't apologise for reaching for the vision? Who are my treaty partners?

 

Ako - sensitivity, honouring, teachers open to admission that they don't know it all. Co-construction. Teachers - learners = both teachers

Going into the space between people / groups - innovation happens.

 

Adult Learning Theory

Most work only above the line:

 

Active Experimentation              Concrete Experience

_________________________________________

 

Abstract Conceptualism           Reflective Observation

 

(Jan Robertson, 2016)

 

 

Learning will only happen when reflectively observant about their concrete experiences (Question self) - so that will try different things to take into their practice

 

Coaches:

• ask fantastic questions to helps us
• work to take us into the change process

Bee... A learner from your practice

• What are you are doing differently today?
• be an adaptive learner from the 1001 things exerienced in a day
• Who is your coach?
• Wanting MORE than status quo - from new generations of leaders
• Coach the coaches - to be more  than you've been able to be
• Work in creative spaces - and learn from others
• leaening = change
• asking schools to re-examine their understanding of what a teacher leader really is - undoing a lifteime of one-way relationships, to two way

Bee... Willing to change first

 

Resistance in relationships - examin own language instead of blaming others

Values, beliefs, Assumptions - step aside and examin own. EG "Māori parents never come to our meetings"
Assumptions:

• should come to me
• they don't care
• our meetings are good
• they need to change
• meetings are at a good time
• children will learn if they come to talk with me

Bee...Focussed on Self-Awareness

Doing, thinking, being - often stay in a figure 8 between doing - outcome - doing - outcome.
Need to invest emotional engagement to move to being - thinking
need to start to change

Bee...Open to new learning opportunities

• encourage teachers to be dissonance
• great, it means thinking
• new learning opportunity when being challenged

Levels of Reflection

ask what might be

ask why

ask what, ask how

professional practice

 

 

Bee...The model for change

• Professional partnerships = relationship
• Not a model of a Principal coming in and telling them how to run their school
• learn from observing
• caring about
• shared responsibility
• Talk about it:
• getting the balance right - amount of challenge
• name the elephant in the room
• taking aside quietly. leading to reflective discussion
• "When we come to a staffroom ... I've noticed you always seem to... I'd like it if you could...

How do we become great leaders at coaching leadership?

• Be coached
• Be a coach
• reflecting on our coaching

Reflection...

1. what do you personally believe are the three really important aspects of change leadership that will lead to transformation of teacher practice?

2. what is the evidence of these three things in my own practice?

"leading transformative change of teachers' practice requires me to change my own practice in response to what I experience, hear and see"

 

Active Listening

Keeping the space open in order to allow a colleague to justify, clarify, explain...

 

Listening = 80% of the time (Asking questions takes the power away, then they can never be clear and succint)

• Be comfortable with the pause
• create space for someone else to articulate and justify their practice

 

Reflection: What are 2 or 3 challenges you are currently facing in leading transformative changes in teacher practice?

Reflective Questioning - want them to think deeply...why? what might be?

 

Doesn't have to be linear...

• Clarifying information
• Exploring - reasons, purposes, outcomes
• Surfacing and understanding - philosophies, bliefes, values



• Aim for drawing out thoughts about the BIG IDEAS first: What do you think is the main aim of education?
• play with the metaphors (on a journey, ground down) - what do you mean by "on a journey?"
• Be careful not to wrap up advice in the form of a question ..."do you think that...?"
• More effective, "What would you ask yourself at this point?"

Take opportunities - 3 mins while visiting a class "Tell me about what is behind this activity?"

What can I learn from this colleague that might help me?

Mentoring new teachers - setting up to do what??? Does this mindset change?

What shifts teachers from being good teachers to great teachers?

• teachers getting feedback from the students about their own practice - and changing their own practice accordingly (Hattie). Ako: Reciprocity

How can we bring these skills to a meeting context?
How do we get them into an inquiry mode?
Boundaries - rules of conversation - criteria for type of discussion / what to share

Teacher inquiry often focusses on the children, and what they need. Will get the biggest change in practice is focusses on the teacher, and what they need to learn from / change in practice to improve in supporting the children.

watch that the process doesn't become superficial

challenging conversation - an opportunity to learn

Quick Coaching Opportunities: WHOA to Go Model: