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Working with your Head to build an effective Leadership team
Aims of the session
Make the case for being the best leadership team you can be
Explore what it takes to be an effective leadership team and notice when its not working
Enable you to take away practical ideas for your own team
Teams in practice?
Why an effective SLT is so important
Successful leadership practices, influence pupil outcomes through their proximal effects on such key school conditions
as, for example, school culture, academic focus in the school, the school’s behavioural climate
Effective leadership relies upon an increasingly close and collaborative relationship between head teachers and the
SLT
The four key leadership practices that make the difference
1. Building vision and setting direction
2. Understanding and developing people
3. Designing the organisation
4. Managing and supporting the teaching and learning programme
The overwhelming case
The Same “Basic” Leadership Values And Practices Are Enacted In Contextually Sensitive Ways.
E.g. Disadvantaged school and community contexts both required and received more intense leadership effort by heads and others providing leadership in schools.
School Leaders Improve Teaching And Learning Indirectly And Most Powerfully Through Their Influence On Staff Ability, Motivation And The Conditions of Teachers’ Work.
E.g. Head teachers’ perceived involvement in the promotion of CPD activities and the
encouragement of teachers to think innovatively about their practice.
School Leadership Has A Greater Influence On Schools And
Students When It Is Widely Distributed.Distributed leadership cultivated a sense of ownership and agency on the part of staff, helped develop a vision for the school shared by most staff, increased staff understanding and sense of responsibility for whole-school matters, buffered teachers from non-teaching responsibilities, and developed the leadership potential of other staff.
The overwhelming case
Some Patterns Of Distribution Are More Effective Than OthersE.g. Variation in staff readiness could provide justification for quite different patterns, a
consultative pattern for staff with less leadership capacity and a pattern providing for more decisional authority for staff with relatively well-developed leadership capacities.
A Small Handful Of Personal Traits Explain A High Proportion Of
The Variation In Leadership Effectiveness.In particular, the extent to which leaders feel self-efficacious (self confident) about their work.
Self efficacy is linked to persistence in the face of sometimes daunting challenges and initial failure.
Department of children, schools and families research report 2007
Building Blocks for Effective Teams
• Roles match members abilities
Balanced roles
• Goals are clear and agreed with. Team norms encourage high performance, quality, success and innovation
Clear objectives and agreed goals
• The team gets, gives and uses feedback about its effectiveness and productivity
Openness and confrontation
• Members are tolerant of and embrace differences in the team
Support and trust
• The team is cohesive. Conflict is frequent but brief and the team utilise effective conflict management strategies
Co-operation & conflict
• The leadership style matches the teams development level
Appropriate leadership
• The team evaluates its decisions and regularly reviews its effectiveness
Regular review
• Individuals are encouraged and enabled in their development
Individual development
• The team cultivates constructive working relationships with other teams
Sound inter-group relations
• An open communication structure allows all members to participate.
Good communications and Sound procedures
Based on the work of Wheelen, S. Creating Effective teams
Create the conditions
Build and maintain the
team
Coach & Support the
team
The 3 central leadership tasks of a team
Shared valuesA clear taskResources
....
Through:Developing skills
Appropriate processes -decision making-problem solving
-conflict managing...
Give them direction & support
Be sensitive to climate Encourage information
exchange
Watch out for
Calling the SLT a team but managing members as individuals
Leadership imbalanceGiving too much autonomy
or exercising too much authority
Skimping on the support available to the team
Assuming the team will develop and become
effective as if by magic
What do teams need?
Storming
Start upNorming
Performing
Performing
Norming
What do teams need?
Start up
Eagerness, AnxietyWhy are we here? What’s my role? What are we supposed to be doing?
Collaborative Working,Task success, Confidence, Ambition & EnergyI’m proud to be part of this team. The sum of the whole is greater than the individual parts How can we do better?
Sharing responsibility, Developing trust, Establishing a positive team cultureLets get down to business. What can I do to help?
Storming Testing boundaries, Competing, ClashingExpressing dissatisfaction, Surfacing Differences, Who has control here? Are my needs being met? It’s not working
Start up Phase
Start up
What most needs attention at this stage?
What is likely to happen if these needs are not met?
How can these needs best be met?
Storming Phase
Storming
What most needs attention at this stage?
What is likely to happen if these needs are not met?
How can these needs best be met?
Norming Phase
Norming
What most needs attention at this stage?
What is likely to happen if these needs are not met?
How can these needs best be met?
Performing phase
Performing
What most needs attention at this stage?
What is likely to happen if these needs are not met?
How can these needs best be met?
References
Gold, N. 2005. Teamwork: Multi disciplinary perspectives
University of Nottingham interim report on behalf of Department of children, schools and families in conjunction with National college for School Leadership. 2007. The Impact of School Leadership on Pupil Outcomes. Research Report DCSF-RR018
West, M. 2004. Effective Team work: Practical lessons from Organisational research
West, M & Markiewicz,L. 2004. Building team based working: A practical guide to organisational transformation
Wheelen, S. 2010. Creating effective teams. A guide for members and leaders