Killer Whale Leadership
I am so excited to be bringing you another post inspired by the great book 52 Leadership Lessons: Timeless Stories For The Modern Leader by John Parker Stewart. Lesson #5 was entitled “How To Train Your Killer Whale.” In this story, Stewart, told us how trainers of Killer Whales will spend up to three years training before even getting in the water with these incredible creatures weighing six tons and measuring in at 26 feet. The amazing part is, though, that once a trust is built the relationship between whale and trainer is a thing of beauty. Trainers get to know the whales and a relationship is built as they begin to work together. I believe this is a powerful metaphor to us as leaders. Trust is not something you can go to a workshop, learn, and suddenly have. In fact, I laugh when I see workshops advertising trust building and relationship building. You simply cannot do that in a workshop. Are you telling me that the person you really don’t know that well that catches you in the falling backward game that all of those workshops have you do will catch you when everything falls apart back at your organization? She may or may not, but I want the person I have formed the relationship with and built the trust to know she has my back. Additionally, I want her to know that I have her back.
“When there is mutual trust, there will be quality performance.” ~ John Parker Stewart
So, how do we build this trust with our people? I believe it is working shoulder to shoulder with those we lead. You can only build true trust in the context within which you work. Here is my list of how leaders build trust:
- Being competent. It is very important for everyone to see that we know what we are doing.
- Walking the Talk and Walking the Walk. Do we do what we say and say what we mean? Do we live our own and the organization’s core values?
- Be passionate about what we do.
- Be self aware and show behavioral integrity.
- Care about those you lead.
- Wanting the best for others, even to the point of recommending them for another job that might take them away from you.
- LISTEN!
- We must have perspective and understand the context of our people and organization.
- Manage direction and work, not people. Lead people.
- Say thank you and give credit where credit is due.
- See beyond self.
Effective leaders nurture and grow trust in many ways. How do you build trust with those you work with? Here’s what I’ve learned: leaders who build trust are magnets for the best talent, ideas, and contributions.
Leading in the Fog
I love my OnStar system in my truck. In addition to the visual and audio turn by turn, I like being told where I am in relation to reaching my destination. I was reminded how important this is in Lesson #4, Vision in the Fog, in 52 Leadership Lessons: Timeless Stories For The Modern Leader by John Parker Stewart. The story of Florence Chadwick was told in this lesson. The basic gist of the story was that the first time she attempted the 26 mile crossing she failed because of a heavy fog. In 1952 she made her first attempt to swim across the saltwater channel from Catalina Island to the California Coast. She quit within a mile of completion because she did not know where she was. How many times this happened to us? On her second attempt, Chadwick was able to complete the swim successfully. Even though there was another heavy fog on her second attempt, Chadwick said she was successful because she focused on an image of the coastline in her mind. This image made it possible for her to keep her “mind’s eye” on the prize. So, how do we keep what happened on Florence Chadwick’s first attempt at swimming the channel from occurring in our own life or the lives of the organizations we lead? How do we keep from getting close to a goal and maybe quitting right before success can be realized?
“Do not let the fog of daily minutia obscure the grandeur of your goal.” ~ John Parker Stewart
Every person has reached a point in his life when he wanted something very badly, but he was discouraged and ready to quit. We’ve all had things we strongly desired, but we’ve all failed in reaching some of those goals. Some would call this being faced with the choice between continuing to fight a “hopeless” battle or allowing yourself the relief of giving up. I would argue that no battle is “hopeless.” I believe we get stronger each time we don’t quit. Each time we continue fighting, we get a little more assurance that we can hold out and achieve the things we want to achieve. Had Florence Chadwick just fought a little longer during her first attempt at the saltwater channel she would have made it. As leaders we must also provide assurance that we know where we are going. We must serve as a lighthouse in the fog.
Therefore, it is important for us to have a clearly defined target. We must also create benchmarks so, like OnStar giving destination updates, we will know where we are in relation to achieving our personal and organizational goals. Stewart told us in 52 Leadership Lessons: Timeless Stories For The Modern Leader that we must visualize what victory looks like. This will keep us going when we meet any type of resistance. Plan and work toward your goal. Show persistence. Don’t recognize failure. Ignore failure. Keep fighting. Persist until you win. Prepare to win by mitigating risks and distractions.
What will you do the next time you meet an obstacle? What will you use as your OnStar for reaching your destination? As a leader, how can you be the OnStar turn by turn service for your organization?
Teacher Evaluation & Leading Learning
Evaluation of teacher performance plays a crucial role in educational personnel reform, student performance, and teacher leader development, so it has been an important yet difficult issue to tackle in educational reform. Before the reform efforts of 5-10 years ago, teacher performance evaluation was very teacher task oriented, neglecting contextual performance and student learning. I would call this managing teachers as opposed to leading learning. Previous evaluations of teachers failed to make strict distinction among the three dominant types of evaluation: capability, achievement, and effectiveness. I also believe these evaluations did not take into account the context of the school. These evaluations were a single action being done to teachers as opposed to a process or system created and carried out to support teachers in his or her role of carrying out the vision and mission of their school.
This post is not about how to create a teacher evaluation system, but about why it is so important that we have a great performance evaluation system to SUPPORT our teachers. I believe this is one of those areas where our teachers deserve to be made “first” so we can put our “students first.” Marzano tells us that great evaluation systems develop expertise with specificity. This is so important in enabling our teachers to carry out their role in providing highly effective student learning and growth as part of the learning profile of the school. Additionally, Danielson argues the full value of a high quality evaluation framework is not realized until it is used as the foundation for professional conversations among practitioners as they seek to enhance their skill in the complex task of teaching.
So, let’s talk about those conversations. We are completely overhauling our evaluation process/system for the Hoosier Academies Network of Schools. Leave it to say, there were many gaps in the process (or lack there of) and rubric I inherited. Those that know me very well know that my first step was to form, yes, you guessed it, a “task force.” Let’s touch on that for a moment – I believe task forces are a great way to build leaders. Our teacher evaluation task force is made up 3:1 of teacher leaders. What better way to get leaders ready than actually “doing” the work of leading? This is teacher engagement at its best! We just started our journey this past week with two days of intense conversations, gap analysis, and action planning around the complex task of teaching in our very different and complex context. This was very important to our beginning to develop what Danielson calls, “Developing a common understanding is critical to accuracy, teaching advancement, and the Framework’s impact on students’ core learning.” In my opening statement to our task force I explained this is a very important journey – we must support our teachers so they can be the best they can be for our students.
We are very fortunate to have partners in this journey. To ensure we get this right, we have become a part of the Indiana Teacher Appraisal and Support System (INTASS) project. The INTASS project offers states, districts, and schools support in designing, implementing, and monitoring their teacher evaluation systems. More importantly, by being part of the project we receive training for our teacher evaluators and support for teachers to engage in evaluation and professional growth opportunities. Here’s what I love about this – note it’s all about the teacher. Another great benefit is we get get to take this journey with two great educational leaders who I greatly respect, Dr. Sandi Cole and Dr. Hardy Murphy. I believe one of the most important points, among many great points, Dr. Cole got our teachers to understand last week was making the mindset shift that teacher evaluation is not something done “to” teachers, but done with teachers to provide professional growth and support for all of our teachers. Dr. Murphy drove home the fact that our performance evaluation system must enable our teachers to effectively carry out the vision and mission of the school.
The INTASS process rests on four basic elements of a quality evaluation plan:
- Clear, frequent, and transparent communication among a wide base of stakeholders
- Professional practice measures that are mutually agreed upon by stakeholders
- Multiple measures of student learning outcomes
- Fully aligned post-evaluation processes, including job-embedded professional growth and support for all educators.
My friend and author of Under New Management, Dr. David Burkus would argue that we need to change from the old systems of evaluation where there is one big formal annual evaluation to a more frequent, less formal process. Our friends at INTASS would agree and so do our teachers. Our teachers on the task force told us loud and clear that they wanted feedback often that was meaningful and actionable. Including teachers’ growth and development in more check-ins would allow administration and staff more time to talk about opportunities – novel idea! Teachers could also examine their current role and their desired career path and then receive advice on the knowledge, skills, and abilities they need to improve in their current role and to move closer to the future they envision for themselves and how that personal vision aligns with the school’s vision and mission. This is a contrast to the rearview-mirror perspective provided by most annual reviews, including our own that I would give an “F,” but we are fixing. These more frequent discussions about the teacher’s growth and development allows all to brainstorm on staff goals and how they align with the school’s strategy. These more frequent observations and conversations help teachers own their career and development plan and feel more empowered to grow. This growth will, in turn, enable effective leading of learning for our students.
Creating or Draining Energy?
This post is an excerpt from the introduction to Leaders Ready Now: Accelerating Growth in a Faster World.
Instead of creating energy, your processes are draining it.
The fastest, most powerful learning experiences convert fear and uncertainty into pride and wisdom. Consider several examples:
- A young, inexperienced leader takes on an assignment to lead a team of people older and more experienced than she.
- An operations executive is suddenly given responsibility to run the IT function, which he knows nothing about.
- A new CEO faces a sudden market crisis that requires a major strategic and cultural shift in direction.
Big first-time challenges like these administer a shock, instantly bringing the leader to attention. It’s a jolt of uncertainty that carries a current of doubt; but with effort, discipline, and support, that doubt transforms into action and movement. Ultimately, if and when the challenge is conquered, a backward glance leaves the leader with confidence and insight that can be applied to the next challenge. It is in conquering difficult assignments such as these that leaders become ready to take on bigger leadership roles.
The challenge is scaling this concept beyond isolated, reactive incidents and creating a repeatable dynamic that causes entire cadres of leaders to become ready. For most organizations, scale becomes structure, but structure without energy kills acceleration. It’s not uncommon for management to roll out learning initiatives to groups of anywhere from 10 to 10,000 people, after which those new processes become burdened with guidelines, meetings, documentation, mandatory events, and progress checks. Participants—often the company’s busiest people—work diligently to make time for a process that has many moving parts but little connection to what they view as mission critical. Soon, what was built to generate the energy of growth dissolves into apathy and annoyance at processes that seem (and may well be) devoid of business importance.
It is not the process itself that is failing—it is the absence of energy to fuel it. Without energy, any processes you put in place will be unsustainable. How to rally the initiatives? By reexamining the architecture of your acceleration efforts and rewriting the rules of the game so that more is at stake, more is to gain, and all the players have a clearer understanding of their roles and how they will have an impact on success. You must be far more aggressive in the use and application of your existing approaches, setting bigger development targets for more people earlier in their careers.
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Matthew J. Paese, Ph.D., is Vice President of Succession and C-Suite Services for Development Dimensions International (DDI). Matt’s work has centered on the application of succession, assessment, and development approaches as they apply to boards, CEOs, senior management teams, and leaders across the pipeline. He consults, coaches, speaks, and conducts research around all those topics and more.
Audrey B. Smith, Ph.D., is Senior Vice President for Global Talent Diagnostics at DDI. Audrey’s customer-driven innovation and global consulting insights have helped shape DDI’s succession, selection, and development offerings, from the C-suite to the front line. She has been a key strategist and solution architect, encompassing technology-enabled virtual assessments and development aligned to current business challenges.
William C. Byham, Ph.D., is Executive Chairman of DDI. He cofounded the company in 1970 and has worked with hundreds of the world’s largest organizations on executive assessment, executive development, and succession management. Bill authored Zapp!® The Lightning of Empowerment, a groundbreaking book that has sold more than 3 million copies. He has coauthored 23 other books, including seminal works on the assessment center method.
The Leadership Journey
Unprecedented levels of complexity and unpredictability are part of our current world, particularly in education. If we are to continue to effectively lead organizations, transform schools, or assist others in creating positive change in their lives, or in the lives of others, we need adaptable and proven tools and practices to utilize now and well into the future. Leadership development, mentoring, and coaching provide the ability to be flexible and relevant no matter the situation and time – in other words adjusting to the current context in real-time. These leadership growth and development opportunities are valuable and effective methods for assisting others in discovering what they need to thrive to be happy, healthy and motivated.
Our Focused Leader Academy (FLA) at Hoosier Academies Network of Schools provides leadership skills the ability that are flexible and relevant no matter the situation and time. We want to inspire with valuable and effective methods for assisting our teacher leaders in discovering what they need to become focused and disciplined leaders. What we are attempting to do is enhance growth of the pre-frontal cortex of the brain, thus increasing the teacher leaders resilience, creativity and belief in self. If we do it right our developing leaders experience making decisions that honor their own values and true potential ultimately living the life they have only imagined. In turn this puts him/her in a position to change the lives of the students we serve.
It was exciting to see a tweet from one our FLA participants, Ann Semon, after session yesterday. She said, “What an inspiring day with @ByronErnest today. Excited for the leadership journey. #HoosierFLA” I’m so glad Ann recognizes this is a journey. Then another tweet from Carlie Coblentz stated, “I’m excited to be going on this educational journey w/ these awesome teachers!” Again, I’m thrilled that Carlie recognizes this as a journey.
I’m pretty pumped we are using John Manning’s (2015) The Disciplined Leader as our book for leadership blogging and guide of our vital few again. As Manning (2015) stated, “Your leadership path is like a present. Whether you chose the path intentionally or ended up on this journey by accident, you are receiving an opportunity that not everyone gets in life. However, with this gift of Disciplined Leadership comes a unique responsibility. We believe that responsibility is to ‘pay it forward,’ helping others grow by sharing your knowledge and wisdom” (Kindle Location 2692). My most rewarding moments, and times when I’ve felt most significant, have been about helping people in a meaningful way, particularly helping grow those I’ve worked alongside. I appreciate John Manning’s partnership in making this journey of creating disciplined leaders possible.
Through our Focused Leader Academy, our teacher leaders are discover powerful leadership competencies, tools, and techniques to assist others in broadening their vision of self. They are learning methods for disbanding limiting beliefs, embracing expanding beliefs, recognizing barriers, stretching potential, shifting behavior, holding people accountable and much more. Our teacher leaders are experiencing rigorous training as well as energizing experiences that are broadening their perspectives and enhancing their creativity while working with fellow employees, peers, students, and families.
Leadership Farm Team Pipeline
Our Graphic by Mike Fleisch from the Leadership Pipeline Content
Could there be any more vital leadership task to a school, organization, or business’s long-term health than the choice and cultivation of its future leaders? I don’t think so! But, while organizations maintain meticulous lists of candidates and create spreadsheets of those who could at a moment’s notice step into the shoes of a key leadership position, an alarming number of newly minted leaders fail spectacularly, ill prepared to do the jobs for which they supposedly have been prepared. Developing a deep and enduring bench strength can only be accomplished by approaching succession planning as more than the mechanical process of updating a spreadsheet. I believe the organizations, including schools that do this best combine two practices: succession planning and leadership development. This creates a long-term process for developing the talent roster across their organizations. You could compare this to a minor league baseball team’s function, including the vital and fundamental goal: getting the right skills in the right place.
Let’s explore this minor league example for a minute, because it is a good one. The major league club’s player development goals must co-exist happily, and profitably I might add, with the local owners and operators of a minor league club. It is also important to note there are also some areas of shared responsibility between the major and minor league teams’ responsibility for player development. The major league team determines which 24 players will be on the minor league team. Again, the major league team makes all the decisions about who comes, goes and gets moved up through the system. Major league clubs keep close watch on their farm teams, sending scouts and front-office staff to watch games and keep stats on players; all of which contributes to the future progression of the players. A pretty intense development pipeline, don’t you think? Here’s the key though: players are developing while, well, playing the game. Novel and intuitive idea, but how many leadership development programs are done by watching PowerPoints? We must treat our leadership pipelines like a minor league baseball program.
Focused Leader Academy Team Illustration From Yesterday’s Discussion
Let’s dive just a little deeper into this minor league pipeline approach. Nearly every baseball player in the MLB started in the minors. Players start low and work their way up the ladder of minor league levels (sometimes skipping a level or two) until they get to the Major Leagues. The rate at which players advance can be vastly different in each case. Each team of the MLB has their own network of minor league teams (sometimes called “farm teams” or “farm leagues”) which are used for player development. Players start low and work their way up the ladder of minor league levels (sometimes skipping a level or two) until they get to the Major Leagues. The point is, these players have very individualized plans (what I call hyper-personalized) to get their skills developed to major league quality. Again, and remember, this is while actually playing the game in a highly competitive market. There have been a handful of players to skip the minors and go straight to the big leagues, but this is very, very rare. Only 2 players in the last 15 years have done it (Mike Leake in 2010 and Xavier Nady in 2000).
Focused Leader Academy Participants Designing & Building A Leadership Pipeline Model
Organizations, especially schools, need to learn from these minor league development “farms” and make sure they are growing their own in real time. We discussed this very point yesterday at our first session of our second cohort of our Focused Leader Academy. As you will recall, last year we started the Focused Leader Academy at the Hoosier Academies Network of Schools. This is an employee development and engagement program. The idea is that great minds and great motives still matter. Teachers with school leadership aspirations have the opportunity to become part of a cohort which will take part in monthly leadership training and be part of supervised leadership projects of the school. Cohort size is at least 15% of teacher leaders per year. The Vision is: Leadership will be born out of those who are affected by it. The Mission is: Leadership will appear anywhere and anytime it is needed. Our Theory of Action is: If we empower our teachers through leadership skill development…Then we will have teacher leaders ready to contribute to the success of Hoosier Academies Network of Schools and be an important part of our talent/leadership pipeline.
We all know that leaders grow leaders. This why I have taken it as my personal charge to develop, grow, and improve our Focused Leader Academy. As Matthew Paese, Audrey Smith, and William Byham stated in their latest book that launches next week, Leaders Ready Now: Accelerating Growth in a Faster World, “Everything you need to accelerate the growth of leadership is already inside your organization(2016, p. v). I am such a believer in this statement. I always say that context matters – and it does. This is why I believe organization’s need to make this work their personal responsibilities, not hire someone else to do it. How in the world could someone else know what the needs are? To do this we must push less-experienced leaders into broader, more formidable assignments. The whole premise behind our Focused Leader Projects. Additionally, I love task forces because these can become, in my opinion, what Paese et al. call Acceleration Pools© (2016). These experiences enable us to get leaders ready with real time development and coaching in the same way the minor league baseball teams do it I described earlier. Task forces and projects also give us the ability to deploy future leaders to key assignments. In fact, we recently lost a person in a key role and instead of filling immediately we put four teacher leaders in the role as what have become affectionately known as BAs (Byron Appointees).
Appointing BAs really turned out to be an incredibly successful move. By conquering difficult assignments, these teacher leaders have become ready to take on bigger leadership roles. I now plan to make BAs a common part of what we do along with our task forces, Focused Leader Academy, and Focused Leader Projects. Paese et al. also taught us, “The challenge is scaling this concept beyond isolated, reactive incidents and creating a repeatable dynamic that causes entire cadres of leaders to become ready” (2016, p. vii). This is why I, as the leader of our network of schools must take responsibility for this.
Finally, for this accelerated growth (Paese, et al., 2016) we must create an environment where our developing leaders experience fear, excitement, anxiety, and experimentation. For rapid growth we must create real time, real work experiences of:
- Fear
- Excitement
- Worry
- Anticipation
- Terror
- Thrill
- Anxiety
- Experimentation
- Risk
- Possibility
These feelings then generate energy and accelerated learning (2016). Are you taking responsibility for your leadership pipeline farm team or leaving it to some off the shelf product or leaving it to some paid organization to do for you? I would suggest to you to take responsibility yourself and get the thrill and inspiration of this important leadership responsibility.
ESSA Opportunity #10: New Community Support for School Successs Grants
ESSA establishes a new grant program that will enable community partners to play an important role in personalized learning environments.
The program supports the following goals:
- Promise Neighborhoods – significantly improve the academic and developmental outcomes of children living in the most distressed communities of the United States by providing access to a community-based continuum of high-quality services. ESSA defines Promise Neighborhoods strategies as “pipeline services” and utilizes this term to refer to “a continuum of coordinated supports, services, and opportunities for children from birth through entry into and success in postsecondary education, and career attainment.” The goal of Promise Neighborhoods to to do the following:
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1) high quality early childhood education programs
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2) high quality school and out of school time programs and strategies
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3) transitions from elementary school to middle school, from middle school to high school, and from high school into and through postsecondary education and into the workforce
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4) family and community engagement and support
- 5) postsecondary and workforce readiness
- 6) community based support for students who are either living in the community or who have attended schools serviced by the pipeline
- 7) social, health, nutrition, and mental health services and supports
- 8) crime prevention and rehabilitation programs for youth.
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- Full Service Community Schools – provide support for schools that improve the coordination and integration, accessibility, and effectiveness of services for children and families, particularly for children attending high-poverty schools.
ESSA Opportunity #9: Modernized 21st Century Community Learning Centers Grant
The 21st Century Community Learning Centers grant program supports academic enrichment activities in after school or extended day settings. This part provides opportunities for communities to establish or expand activities in community learning centers that provide opportunities for academic enrichment, offer students a broad array of additional services, programs and activities, and offers families of students served by community learning centers opportunities for active and meaningful engagement in their child’s education, including opportunities for literacy and related educational development.
Funding is made available for continuation of certain current grants; there are reservations for national activities, and for Bureau of Indian Education schools. There is a local competitive subgrant program. The program is authorized at $1,000,000,000 for FY 2017 and $1,100,000,000 for each of FYs 2018-2020. States should give priority to applicants that will provide high quality credit bearing opportunities outside of the traditional classroom environment. Priority should also go to applicants that will serve students attending schools identified for comprehensive and targeted support and improvement.
ESSA Opportunity #8: Title IV, Student Support & Academic Enrichment Grant
The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) consolidates a number of existing federal grant programs into a new Title IV state block grant that may fund district activities to:
- provide all students with access to a well-rounded education.
- improve school conditions for student learning.
- improve the use of technology to improve academic achievement and digital literacy.
States could use this block grant to create an innovation fund for districts interested in scaling personalized learning strategies. ESSA would reconstitute Title IV, Part A into the Student Support and Academic Enrichment program, and would authorize the new program at $1.6 billion annually through 2020. That authorized amount comes in addition to the authorized $1.1 billion in Title IV, Part B, which funds the 21st Century Community Learning Centers Program. Part A would then require states to spend 20 percent of those funds on “well-rounded educational opportunities,” 20 percent of those funds on “safe and healthy students,” and a portion of the funding on the “effective use of technology.” Part B authorizes $1.1 billion for 21st Century Community Learning Centers that offer after-school academic enrichment programs. Part C includes federal funding for charter schools, which would increase from $253 million in 2015 to $300 million by 2020. Funding is similarly increased for magnet schools, which Part D of Title IV would increase from $92 million in 2015 to nearly $109 million by 2020.
In addition, Part E of Title IV would allow for education innovation. These innovations could include programs like: Promise Neighborhoods, full-service community schools, arts education, Ready to Learn television, and gifted and talented education programs. As you can see there are some tremendous opportunities for our students with ESSA.
ESSA Opportunity #7: Reservation for School Leaders
This opportunity is one that is near and dear to me. I really believe in job embedded professional growth/development. Under ESSA, states may reserve up to 3% of their Title II, Part A funds to build a workforce of leaders with the skills to help schools transition to personalized learning environments. Priority funding should go to support leaders serving in schools identified for comprehensive support and improvement. As a school leader who has now taken on a high school and now a school system that fits this priority, I can attest to the need for this development of teacher leaders. ESSA also requires that professional development programs should be customized, embedded, and align to statewide professional competencies so leaders can advance along individualized career pathways.
I believe programs like what we have started at Hoosier Academies Network of Schools in our Focused Leader Academy really fit the bill. This is an employee development and engagement program. The idea is that great minds and great motives still matter. Teachers with school leadership aspirations have the opportunity to become part of a cohort which will take part in monthly leadership training and be part of supervised leadership projects of the school. Cohort size is at least 10-15% of teacher leaders per year. The Vision is: Leadership will be born out of those who are affected by it. The Mission is: Leadership will appear anywhere and anytime it is needed. Our Theory of Action is: If we empower our teachers through leadership skill development…Then we will have teacher leaders ready to contribute to the success of Hoosier Academies Network of Schools and be an important part of our talent pipeline. I believe states should endorse and help schools develop programs such as this in order to have approaches required by ESSA that build and strengthen professional learning systems aligned to teachers’ learning needs. This would allow schools to do what I call “hyper-personalizing professional growth.” Click here to see ESSA’s Definition of Professional Learning & Title ll Allowable Uses of Funds.
Also, Learning Forward and National Commission on Teaching and America’s Future have come up with an Agents for Learning competition related to state planning for Title II funds. These competitions are great ways to collaborate for best practices and to get a lot of ideas for how best to use the funding. Click here to get more information on the competition. I, for one, hope they get lots of applications. Teachers are in the best position to contribute recommendations for the best use of federal funding for professional learning, the successful implementation of ESSA, and the improvement of student learning.
Byron's Babbles 
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