Sing with the might of the wind in your lungs. Do you hear me now? Do you hear me now? (Donovan)

Photo by Scott Webb on Unsplash

I'm finishing the school year with this piece from Marshall Manson on leadership, which I present without commentary.

For the next 6 weeks or so I'm on holiday so I will keep Baggy Trewsers ticking over with some favourite quotes and stray thoughts, then be back to it in February 2024, inshallah.

Marshall sums up his key principals for leadership and I agree wholeheartedly. 

I love how much integrity, people, relationships, collaboration, trust, common sense, and a sense of fun figure in his list.

Here they are:

Most important: Do the right thing for the right reasons. If that goes against someone’s rules, be ready to explain or face the consequences. Be as transparent as possible about your decisions and reasoning with anyone who shows interest.

Care about your people and look after them.

Create an environment where everyone feels comfortable expressing their view.

Be nice. Say yes until you absolutely can’t.

Recognise that real collaboration requires some confrontation and disagreement. Better to disagree openly than to be passive aggressive. Resolve disputes clearly and openly. Seek compromise and build common ground.

Communicate frequently and openly. Doing so builds trust and earns the benefit of the doubt when things get tricky.

Relentlessly apply common sense. Be pragmatic, even at the expense of perfect outcomes. A fast, good result is better than a slow, perfect one.

Develop and voice strong opinions, but hold them loosely. Be ready to revise or reverse views in light of better facts, deeper expertise, new circumstances, or a different perspective.

Be decisive and avoid the temptation to relitigate. But be ready to change course if an approach isn’t working.

Be enthusiastic and let others feel that enthusiasm. Getting people excited and believing in something they can do together is a powerful motivating force.

Have fun and create an environment where everyone else can have fun.

Be curious and reward curiosity. Innovation and great ideas are impossible without curiosity.

Teach, but without pomposity. And encourage others to be teachers.

Share everything: Ideas, work, learnings, clients, food, chocolate, and especially credit. Encourage others to do the same and reward them for doing so.

Recognition is a powerful motivator, often far more powerful than money.
Keep the spotlight where it belongs: on the people doing the work. Show appreciation early and often.

Avoid jargon. Making an organisation accessible makes it possible for more people to offer views.

Follow the rules studiously about 95% of the time, especially on the non-negotiable stuff, in order to earn latitude to bend or break them in the handful of cases where doing so would make a big difference.

Measure a few key things that matter rather than trying to measure everything. Spreadsheets are time consuming and soul destroying. Key numbers and measurable underlying forces must command focus, but exponential growth of spreadsheets comes at the expense of exponential growth for the business itself.

This is the way. 

How many miles will it take to see the sun (Leon Russell)

Leadership examples abound in the FIFA Women's World Cup (to which I am currently addicted as the Strine/Nu Zild time frames are spot on for nightly peak viewing).

I'm loving watching the way coaches interact with players and how players interact with each other - clear leaders emerge, or don't.

Seems to me that on some teams there are some natural leaders, who the women follow. 

In one game I watched a young goalkeeper explaining to her much older, more experienced team mates, some tactical points. And they listened!

Teams without natural leaders don't tend to stick around for long in these kinds of competitions.

A leader is one who knows the way, goes the way, and shows the way (John C. Maxwell)

Photo by Joshua Hibbert on Unsplash

 

Productivity begins when you extend trust to competent people (Dan Rockwell)

Photo by krakenimages on Unsplash

Leadership and trust are inextricably linked. 

In my experience it's a binary thing.

People either grow to trust you as a leader, or they don't.

No half measures.

If staff give you their trust, all can weather the storms.

Micro-managers don't use trust to get things done. But leaders do.

I firmly believe that when you employ competent people you should trust them, and get out of their way. 

Those who think they know, don’t (Edward de Bono)

While recuperating from covid-19 this week, I enjoyed reading this post by Dan Rockwell looking at four ways to improve your leadership.

First - Quiet your ego. 

Relax! You aren’t better than others. You don’t control the world. The universe won’t flinch when you’re gone.

Second - Embrace learning.

Compared to all the things that could be known, you’re a moron.

“Those who think they know, don’t.” Edward de Bono

Learning and relearning are more important than the things you know.

Third - Lift others.

Arrogance puts people down. Greatness lifts people.

How do people feel about themselves after spending time with you?

Fourth - Stand for something that matters.

Being great requires unbending commitment and unquenchable tenacity.

Great to be reminded of those things.

Talk is cheap, that's what I heard... Actions speak louder than words (Johnny Winter)

If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader. 

John Quincy Adams

Creativity is the magical human act of doing something that might not work (Seth Godin)

Photo by Alice Dietrich on Unsplash

In these turbulent times of working from home during lockdown, Seth Godin's words take on a fresh resonance for me.

He says that Creativity and Leadership are related (yes, upper case):

Management isn’t. Management uses power and authority to get people to do tasks you know can be done. Management is needed, but management is insufficient.

Leadership is voluntary. It’s voluntary to lead and it’s voluntary to follow. If you’re insisting, then you’re managing…

And creativity is the magical human act of doing something that might not work. If you know it’s going to work–then it’s management.

I love the challenge in those ideas and the element of risk in creativity.

An expression I often use in challenging situations when we are short of solutions is to say to my team: Hey! We're teachers! We're creative people! We can lick this!

Good things can come from that kind of stance.

Becoming a leader is synonymous with becoming yourself. It is precisely that simple and it is also that difficult (Warren Bennis)

Thinking of my wonderful colleagues at OneSchool Global New Zealand and specifically those in the Hastings and Gisborne campuses today - hope you are all enjoying a terrific family time!

I don’t look at the passport of people; I look at their quality and their attitude (Arsène Wenger)

If you're looking for a leader to learn from, may I suggest you consider Arsène Wenger, the former manager of Arsenal F.C. for 22 years.

He has a new book out (today in fact) that I can't wait to read, and learn from.

Yes, I am an Arsenal fan, but I am also a leader and if I want to improve (and I do) then I need to learn from the best.

This Guardian article is a good place to start. It features a terrific interview with Wenger, the questions coming from a wide range of celebrities, including a certain Chelsea and now Spurs manager.

But I still want that book!

It's called My Life In Red and White. Brilliant title. I need a copy. Fast!

Imagination is more important than knowledge (Einstein)

Photo by Karine Germain on Unsplash

We're knee deep in election coverage in New Zealand; everywhere I go there are billboards advertising political parties and leaders; all the noise is about the changes that need to happen! So buy our brand!

An aspect that is sometimes forgotten when change is mooted in any forum is the one that articulates a dynamic vision for the future.

It's always advantageous to provide a vision story, one that explains where we're going. It grabs people's imagination and let's them board the train to a worthwhile destination.

According to Paul Smith, “A vision is a picture of the future so compelling, people want to go there with you.” 

All it takes is a story that captures the emotion of the vision and connects people to what life will be like when you get there.

As Einstein knew in 1924, "Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited, whereas imagination embraces the entire world, stimulating progress, giving birth to evolution".

Pretty simple really, but it's a story that is not often told I find.

Meet the new boss, same as the old boss (The Who)

Photo by Kiana Bosman on Unsplash

As you know, I'm a big fan of Seth Godin. I even used one of his quotes as my positive close yesterday (when someone tells you what you need to hear, instead of what you are hoping to hear, you've found something priceless).

A recent post of his was very on point, given our working from home situation. 

He had this to say:

There are three ways to tell if people are hard at work in an office:

1. the boss can watch them go to meetings. And they can watch each other in meetings as well.
2. the boss can watch them sit at desks in an open office.
3. we can make promises to each other and then keep them.

It seems as though only the third one is a useful, long-term way to allow us to do our best work together. The first two can help along the way, but if a meeting or an open office exists as a convoluted way to do surveillance, you’re probably wasting precious energy and trust.

And while transferring our work to home makes #1 even easier and #2 irrelevant, I’m still lobbying for #3.

This aligns to one of my core beliefs: that if you employ good people - get out of their way and let them do what they are good at.

Transformer man, unlock the secrets, let us throw off the chains that hold you down (Neil Young)

Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash

Now that it's our looooooong summer holiday break (yay) my Baggy Trousers' posts will probably centre on passing on great posts from elsewhere. Seth Godin, for instance, is a very reliable guy!

Here he is discussing how the brightest students don't transition to leadership positions (as a school struggler and a repeater of important years I am an embodiment of that belief). 

Here's the post. Enjoy.

War! Hah, what is it good for? (Edwin Starr)

Ever since I was a nipper I have been captivated by the example of Winston Churchill. This is an on-going appreciation (recently I watched Darkest Hour and rewatched Dunkirk on Netflix).

He features in this excellent piece from Time magazine's look at ten lessons from history of what makes a great leader.

Education is not war, but the lessons do apply to school life!

One voice, one hope, one real decision (Queen)

Photo by Arthur Osipyan on Unsplash

Examples of leadership are close by every day.

As I wondered past the Churchill statue at Westminster yesterday (on our way to the Abbey to light a candle for recently departed friends and family), I wondered what the great man would make of the current situation here.

Sadly, at the moment, in the UK, examples of political leadership are either in short supply or of poor quality.

Self-interest and political expediency rule the roost.

I am reminded of a simple quote that was a favourite of my mentor, Colin Prentice:

Where there is no vision, the people perish (Proverbs 29:18)