"EVERYTHING RISES AND FALLS ON LEADERSHIP -  J. Maxwell

Our job as leaders is to ensure that all people we lead and serve feel seen, heard and valued. The work we do in education takes both heart and mind. Right now, the educational field is seeing more and more teachers, staff, and leaders leaving the field for various reasons. This then makes our work as leaders even harder. While we wait for institutions and governments do their work with increasing the salaries for all that work in education and support with raising the value of education in our society, we as leaders can be strategic with our time and practices with things that are in our  locus of control. When do this well, we will not only improve the conditions for your staff but also increase your impact as well. Implement these strategies and watch your impact grow over time in your community!

1. Learn Your People: As a leader and manager in order to impact and influence your staff, you must know what motivates them, how they want to be affirmed, learn what makes them smile on hard days, and most off all, learn what keeps them in the work. All these seem very basic, but when done well, your staff and team will move mountains in support of their school community.
2. Create a system: Once you have made a decision to learn your people deeply, you will need to create system. Learning your people will require you to adjust your heart posture and make a decision to want to learn your people. However, in order to see it through you must have a system to accomplish this. The best systems work when they are embedded in the work you are already doing. Creating a system that is not connected to your day to day work will leave you feeling unaccomplished and/or like a failure when the system does not work.  This can look like creating a walk through schedule with the intention of only seeing staff, only looking for the positive, connecting with them, and/or leaving a positive note. Or this can look like joining a team meetings to see them in the work and again only looking for the positives and another opportunity to learn how committed your team is with serving their families and young people.
3. Follow Through:  Okay, you have a made a decision to learn your people, created a system, and now it is time to follow through. The greatest plans fall short when there is a lack of follow through. One of the best way leaders can increase their impact and influence is by building trust with their people. The easiest and hardest way to build credibility is by building trust. You can build trust by a) doing what you say every single time  b) being consistent with how you respond and show up as as a leader and c) by over communicating so that it limits the opportunities for your staff to create their own stories in the absence of your communication.

Our young people and families deserve to have predictable and consistent faces in their schools, and that can only happen if leaders learn the right strategies to make their staff feel seen, heard and valued. Try these strategies, let me know what you think? If have used these strategies, how have you see them impact your community?

#ownyourpower #transformlives#achieveresults

Modiegi