Helping Teachers Become Leaders

Leveraging psychometric assessments, 360s, and coaching conversations to help teachers become leaders within their schools.

Situation

We have been working with several different schools for several years now, many of whom have been facing a common challenge in identifying and developing their teachers and staff into leaders for their schools. These challenges have been driven from many different sources including changes in the needs and demographics of students and therefore the role of leaders within schools, the expectations from parents on schools, a shortage of teachers and leaders to fill roles, as well as the broader societal shifts.

Schools have been trying to adapt and change, being more innovative in meeting students’ and the broader community needs. For many, the approaches and training they have relied upon for years are no longer as effective, and schools have seen some teachers and leaders either struggling or leaving the profession. Not only teachers themselves are needing a new and different skillset, but the role of the leader within schools is quite different to being a teacher and continues to change into the future.

Challenge

Several schools have approached us over the last couple of years for assistance in both identifying the right people (whether internal or external candidates to the school) for leadership roles, as well as helping current leaders understand their own strengths and development areas, in the current schooling environment.

The role of a leader within schools has become more ambiguous, complex, and requires significant time in building relationships and engaging with a range of different people.

Solutions

Each case has required a slightly different approach, depending on the individual school and department’s needs.

For most, we have created an approach that involved first administering an assessment (in most cases this has been personality and emotional intelligence questionnaires), with a tailored written report, and developmentally focussed feedback to follow. For some, they have engaged in a 360degree process (most in situations where leaders have been in their role for some time).

Depending on the school, we have created reports and provided feedback where the assessment results are interpreted against the school’s leadership framework, allowing both the school and the leaders to see their strengths and development opportunities from a preference and/or potential perspective.

The development feedback with the leader and our Senior Psychologist provided them with an opportunity to discuss openly with an external person their current challenges in the role, their strengths in managing this, and then some strategies to manage the aspects of their role that come less naturally to them. For some schools, they have provided ongoing feedback and coaching and action planning to support the leader.

Results

The results from these solutions are two-fold: the leaders of the individuals participating gain greater insight into the person’s personality and natural leadership style, and tips and strategies to support the leader.

Secondly, this process provides the individual themselves with greater self-awareness, and gave them a confidential space to talk through their struggles, concerns, and areas for development. Having an external person provide feedback helped them to feel more comfortable being more open during this discussion, as some had felt worried about talking to their own leader due to a fear of being seen as less than highly competent.

Participants were able to create concrete action plans for development, including what they wanted to achieve, the barriers they might face, and how to present these to their manager.