Leadership Training 1


Leadership Training in Lockdown

Background: 

I get the privilege of working with 10 school leaders each week to organise hui waiata (music assemblies) and sports for our school. One of the best parts of this role has been seeing how the Year 6 students have thrived with this responsibility. 

I thought I would have to wait until we were back at school under Level 2 before I could work with these leaders again. However, a family member (who is an experienced leader) suggested I could work with these leaders during lockdown to practise leadership skills. He gave me some tips and a helpful structure to frame the conversations. 

When I had received the OK from the teachers in Totara Studio, I started getting in touch with our leaders via email, Google Meet and phone calls.  

I decided to organise Google Meet 'workshops' in small groups based on who I could get in contact with. So far I have been able to organise three of these 'workshops' including 9 out of 10 leaders. One of the great spin-offs has been positive phone calls to parents while getting in touch with these leaders. I was able to share with whaāau the success their kids have had as leaders.

Content

In the video call conversations I explained three levels of leadership:

1. Lead yourself 

2. Lead teams 

3. Lead leaders

I explained that before we get to the next level of leadership, we need to practise the skills needed. E.g. before you lead a team, you need to practise handling our emotions, because when you lead a team you can't yell and swear if someone makes you angry. Before you lead leaders, you need to practise handling criticism, because anyone who leads leaders, will have to deal with leaders criticising and questioning them. 

I showed the students my leadership journal with notes I've been taking over the last 3 years. I encouraged them to keep their own paper or digital leadership journal (I shared a template with them via a Google Doc). Finally, we set ourselves some challenges to practise leading ourselves, so we are ready to lead our teams when we get back to school. At first, I thought everyone could have the same challenge, but I quickly realised that these needed to be tailored to the individuals. Some challenges included:

- listening to your own self talk. Encouraging yourself, so you can encourage others. 

- doing a job or going to bed before you are asked by a parent

- making your bed every day

- not talking back to an adult - just saying ok. 

I encouraged students to note their progress in their leadership journal. 

Next steps 

This week, I am planning to meet up with the leaders again and discuss the challenges. Also, if we have time we will discuss a leadership topic/key understanding. The first one is going to be about playing to your strengths instead of trying to become a well-rounded leader. Prioritise. Let other people do the things that you don't like doing. In preparation for this, I've encouraged the students to think about their strengths (what they find easy that others find difficult) so we can discuss how they can use these and work together as a team of leaders. 

I'm really excited to be on this journey and I'm looking forward to catching up with the leaders again this week. 

Students performing the haka (self initiated) before Capture the Flag. 

Comments

  1. Michelle20 September 2021 at 10:12

    Wow Simon. That sounds really exciting. What a great opportunity for our akonga. Sounds like an excellent framework for learning about leadership.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Alida20 September 2021 at 10:45

    This is amazing Simon. Thank you for using the opportunity during lockdown to strengthen our akonga in their pathways to becoming leaders. I love the little challenges or goals you've set for them. So practical and easy to help their understanding of the concepts.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Gretchen20 September 2021 at 13:41

    Kia ora Simon - this is awesome, thank you for providing this opportunity for our students and connecting with whānau. Have you seen the sparklers resources - I wonder if they might be of use? - you can filter activities by wellbeing topic - topics such as managing emotions, strengths, resilience and growth: https://sparklers.org.nz/activities/
    I'm really really impressed with your initiative and innovation :)

    ReplyDelete

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