building a professional school culture the … · -primal leadership -daniel goleman, richard e....

Day 2

Questions, linkages, insights while showering?

QUESTIONS

The health of a school is inversely proportional to the number of nondiscussables: the fewer nondiscussables, the healthier the school; the more nondiscussables, the more pathology in the school culture.

To change the culture the instructional leader must enable its residents to name, acknowledge and address the nondiscussables…This is the third rail of school leadership. Roland Barth

A Sampling of Nondiscussables

Teachers who do not pull their weight Use of Personal Days Someone who is a bully at meetings Faculty cliques Most outspoken person at meetings “wins.” Lack of respect for leader The “brashness” of a new teacher The “stodginess” of a veteran teacher

A Sampling of Obstacles

Institutional Inertia Fear of Retribution Time Denial Lack of Trust Fear of Damaging a Relationship Leadership Fear of Responsibility The Old Boys’ Club “Go Along to Get Along”

The single factor common to successful change is that relationships improve. If relationships improve, schools get better. If relationships remain the same or get worse, ground is lost. Thus, building relationships with diverse people and groups-especially with people who think differently is a must. In complex times, emotional intelligence is a must. Emotionally intelligent leaders are able to build relationships because they are aware of their own emotional makeup and are sensitive and inspiring to others.

(Goleman, Boyatzis, and McKee, 2002)

From an article by Michael Fullan, The Change Leader

RELATIONSHIPS

Culture is the product of all the conversations, and the feelings embedded within them, that take place and do not take place within a school. -Matt King

CONVERSATIONS NURTURE RELATIONSHIPS

Two obstacles that are often overlooked

• Our own perspective on conflict

• Our own emotional intelligence

Conflicts

• Natural and Inevitable • Depending on how you frame them, they

can hinder or deepen understanding

The wisdom of Jane Austen

Arguing is the best thing about being married. (from "Sense and Sensibility")

If your spouse is already just like you, then neither one of you has anywhere to go. A friction-free relationship would be a desert. Conflict is good; disagreements are good; even fights can be good. Committing yourself to someone doesn't have to limit your growth: it can be the door to perpetual growth.

How do you frame conflicts*? • What is your “natural” reaction to conflicts? • Does your interpersonal communication and

management style change when engaged in a conflict?

• When does your style become an obstacle to effective collaboration?

*Karen Mutch-Jones

Avoiders • Postpone dealing with or pretend conflict

doesn’t exist • Physically avoid the other party • Withdraw from heated talks • Change topic or try to sidestep

disagreement

Avoiders Believe • Silence is praiseworthy • Refraining from quarreling helps maintain

happiness • “Small things” are not worth fighting for Northouse LL, Northouse PG. Health Communications Strategies for Health Professionals 3rd ed.

Stamford, Conn Appleton & Lange; 1998:225-258. Johnson DW. Reaching Out:Interpersonal Effectiveness and Self-Actualization 8th ed. Boston, Mass

Allyn and Bacon; 2002

Accommodators

• Passively comply and sacrifice own wishes • Protect relationship by yielding easily • Let others have their way

Accommodators Believe

• You should kill others with kindness • Soft words ensure harmony • Turn the other cheek

Compromisers • Seek quick solution on a middle ground • Exchange concessions, split the difference • Bargain or trade • Concede in some areas to win in others

Compromisers Believe

• You scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours • Something is better than nothing • Both people should give exactly 50%

Competitors • Use insults, threats, and demands • Escalate quickly, flash temper • Tend to present punishing strategies

Competitors Believe • Might makes right • Issues are settled by “win/lose” tactics • If you stand firm, others will weaken

Collaborators • Seek mutually beneficial solution • Give and solicit as much information as

possible • Engage in heated exchanges

Collaborators Believe

• Truth lies in knowledge and reason • No one person has the final answer, each has a

piece • Candor, honesty, and trust move mountains Johnson DW. Reaching Out:Interpersonal Effectiveness and Self-Actualization 8th ed. Boston, Mass

Allyn and Bacon; 2002

When people avoid honest, open, and (heated) exchanges

Passive-Aggressiveness is often the result • Teasing/sarcasm • Breaking confidentiality • Forgetfulness • Using “illness” • Passive resistance • Nothing changes • Superficial compliance rather than genuine commitment

Front stabbing

A Healthier Approach

is better than back stabbing.

There is a prevailing belief that in order to get ahead, we must be cautious in telling the truth.

To act courageously is to follow an unpopular path. It means to confront an issue when others are acting as if there is no issue -- to say that a meeting is not going well when everyone else seems totally satisfied.

Peter Block The Empowered Manager

EMOTIONS

The heat in a heated discussion

It’s unprofessional to bring emotions to the workplace

Disagree Agree

1 2 3 4

Emotions distort the logical reasoning process that allows you to solve workplace problems

Disagree Agree

1 2 3 4

If you show emotions at work, people will view you as weak.

Disagree Agree

1 2 3 4

Psychologists Fehr and Russell note that “everyone knows what an emotion is, until asked to give a definition. Then, it seems no one knows.” (From Beyond Reason)

What do emotions do?

They convey information to you about the relative importance of your concerns

People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.

Maya Angelou

Emotional Intelligence-A Primer

The capacity for recognizing our own feelings and those of others, for motivating ourselves, and for managing emotions well in ourselves and in our relationships.

Being emotionally intelligent does not equate with being emotional, letting “feelings hang out.”

Daniel Goleman’s Emotional Intelligence Categories

◼ Self-Awareness ◼ Self-Regulation ◼ Social Awareness ◼ Social Skills

Why don’t leaders with high IQ’s always succeed?

http://psylelon.blogspot.com/

‘The ability to recognise that we have emotions, name them, and

control them enough to enable us to choose how to behave’

McBride &Maitland 2002

What do we mean by Emotional Intelligence?

Self-Awareness

The ability to accurately recognize your emotions as they happen and understand your general tendencies for responding to different people and situations

Follow Your Feelings

Self-Management

Using awareness of your emotions to choose what you say and do, in order to positively direct your behavior

Social-Awareness

Recognizing and understanding the emotions and perspectives of others

Social-Skill (Relationship Management)

Using awareness of your emotions and the emotions of others to manage interactions successfully

Emotional Intelligence

“Emotional intelligence travels through an organization like electricity over telephone wires…[If] you’re an upbeat, inspirational leader, you cultivate positive employees who embrace and surmount even the toughest challenges…Good moods galvanize good performance…The most effective executives display moods and behaviors that match the situation at hand, with a healthy dose of optimism mixed in. They respect how other people are feeling—even if it is glum or defeated—but they also model what it looks like to move forward with hope and humor.”

-Primal Leadership-Daniel Goleman, Richard E. Boyatzis and Annie McKee

Wife admits 'blind spot' in marrying Rockefeller

"There is a difference between intellectual intelligence and emotional intelligence," Boss said. "I'm not saying I made a very good choice of husband. It's pretty obvious that I had a blind spot. All I'm saying is that it's possible that one can be brilliant and amazing in one area of one's life and pretty stupid in another."

From the book, “How Doctors Think” ”But what I and my colleagues rarely

recognized, and what physicians still rarely discussed as medical students….is how other emotions influence a doctor’s perceptions and judgments, his actions and reactions. I long believed that the the errors we made in medicine were largely technical ones-prescribing the wrong dose of a drug, transfusing a unit of blood matched for another person…

From the book, “How Doctors Think” ...mislabeling an x-ray of an arm as ‘right’

instead of ‘left.’ But as a growing body of research shows, technical errors account for only a small fraction of our incorrect diagnoses and treatments. Most errors are mistakes in thinking. And apart of what causes these cognitive errors is our inner feelings, feelings we do not readily admit to and often don’t even recognize.”

The Link Between Emotion and

Learning ●

Many people in education do not recognize that the cognitive tasks developed in schools are linked to emotion

Yet, for teachers, there are a few ways in which the link between education and emotion is apparent Example: A student's parents just got divorced and the

student comes to school upset and unable to focus. The teacher quickly recognizes the student is struggling to learn due to emotional stresses.

Current Research

We Feel Therefore We Learn: The Relevance of Affective and Social

Neuroscience to Education -Mary Helen Immordino-Yang and Antonio Damasio-2007

The Link Between Emotion and

Learning ● Still, many educators do not recognize the

depth of the connection between emotion and thinking

Emotional Thought

The Link Between Emotion and

Learning ●

Behaviors are guided by innate goals of "survival” (academic, social or personal success) and happiness

Example of “why does a high school student solve a math problem?”(4) – to please his/her parents – to get a good grade – to help out a friend – to feel good about him/herself

The Link Between Emotion and

Learning ●

Implications for Education Schools today…

– Subjects are taught rationally- void of emotion – Emphasis on factual knowledge – Knowledge does not always transfer to real world situations

So what does this suggest for the future of education?

First Big Idea: Have your Feelings

(or they will have you) • Feelings matter: They are often at the heart of

Difficult Conversations • In the short term, engaging in a difficult

conversation without talking about feelings may save you time and reduce your anxiety. It may also seem like a way to avoid certain serious risks--to you, to others, and to the relationship. But the question remains: if feelings are the issue, what have you accomplished if you don’t address them?

Irene and David are looking over their menus in a restaurant. David says he will order a steak. Irene says, “Did you notice they also have salmon?”

-from Deborah Tannen’s I Only Say This Because I Love You

From a dinner time conversation

From an email

It is that time of year again. I need to observe one of your classes. Please invite me in to see your best teaching. Arrange a mutually convenient time with my secretary for this observation.

Finding your feelings: Learn where feelings hide

Guideline: In many situations we are blinded to the

complexity of our feelings by one strong feeling that trumps all others.

Leadership Dimensions (Adapted from Assessing Educational Leaders, by Douglas B.Reeves, Corwin

Press, 2004)

Personal Behavior Emotional self-control reflects an appropriate

response to situations Leader’s actions are consistent with internal belief

system and reflect personal integrity Compliance with legal and ethical requirements in

relationships with employees and students Values different points of view within the

organization

Leadership Dimensions cont’d

Resilience Constructive reaction to disappointment,

willingness to admit error and learn from failure Ability to focus on solutions and integrate

conflicting/competing directives and decision Constructively handles disagreement and dissent Explicit improvement of specific performance

areas based on formal and informal feedback

Derailment Study

Daniel Feldman, “Emotional Intelligent Leadership

Use the urge to blame as a clue to find important feelings

Explore your emotional footprint

Another Important Guideline

A Clarification

• Too often we confuse being emotional with

expressing emotions clearly. They are different!

• You can express emotion well without being emotional, and you can be extremely emotional without expressing much of anything at all.

Guideline :The Importance of Acknowledgment

• Each side must have their feelings acknowledged before problem-solving can begin.

• Acknowledgment is a step that simply CANNOT BE SKIPPED

The Importance of Acknowledgment

Dr D’Auria, I am so disappointed in your administration for hiring Mr.Dode last year. I am a doctor at Beth Israel Hospital and today I heard from a patient that Mr. Dode was let go or whatever due to inability-I so resent the impact he had on my son, Roger, who now, doesn't like math . You kept him on for what reason? We struggled through last year with a lot of angst and not a lot of Mr. Dode helping with sending us data about what was going on--I blame the administration for letting this marginal math experience happen. How do you explain this? I need an explanation from your office as your administration has really ruined my son's expectation about math and it being an important language in our world.

The Importance of Acknowledgment

Dear Dr. Leonard, I am sorry about the experience you son Roger had with Mr. Dode. I would be happy to discuss the situation with you as well as how Roger is doing this year with his new teacher. When is a good time to call you and what number should I use to contact you? John

The Importance of Acknowledgment

Dr D'Auria- I don't need to talk about Mr Dode-but I think that the students should have been told that they were not 100 % responsible for the year of math they experienced. I was always impressed at your observation that young people in middle school could solve any problem many different ways... And I think that the experience they had at least in our case, was really discouraging-For me the validation from the school would have been a useful repair-I am not in this equation so I am not going to inform Roger of this. I guess he will have to realize that he is not always wrong. The teacher this year is fine so far-but it is not his job to repair last years effects. Thanks for the time. Roger does not know I am writing you. He would probably be mortified.

The Importance of Acknowledgment

Dear Harriet, I, too, am very disappointed in the results of some of my decisions. I wish that I could say that all my hires have been terrifically successful ones. Unfortunately, that is not the case. Your point about acknowledging to the students that the adults contributed to their struggles is an important one. You have given me food for thought. I would be very happy to talk to Roger. I perhaps could interview him and a few other students from Mr. Dode’s classes and thereby, as part of this after the fact analysis, insert my perspective. John

The Importance of Acknowledgment

Thank you for offering to talk to Roger , I could not predict if he would ever be candid about last year’s experience. I realize that not all teachers are A plus-and I appreciate your statements.I think the people you are leading are in a difficult position. Thanks, I am not trying to be a "helicopter parent" and he is working hard -so that's all we really want ...and this year he seems pretty happy-thanks

Acknowledgment and Appreciation- a powerful combination

Appreciation is often the best way for one person to meet many of the core concerns of another

Three elements to express appreciation: – Understanding the other’s point of view – Finding merit in what each of us thinks, feels,

or does – Communicating our understanding through

words and actions

Analyzing an Email from an

Emotional Intelligence Perspective

• Look at the following email and using the four

“lenses” of emotional intelligence, describe what might be going in “in the mind” of the writer and the reader

Case Study An E-Mail to a Parent

Hi Mr. And Mrs. Blake, I am still seeing the silly, argumentative behaviors

in Shaakira. She came late without a pass and on Wednesday and did not come to serve her 8th period. I am feeling as though these weekly reports are not helping the situation and frankly feel frustrated that I never have any response from you. I’d like to entertain the idea of ceasing these weekly reports. I have no plan at this point to put in its place. I am open to any suggestions you might have.

Two Key Questions

Can you improve your Emotional Intelligence?

Can you change(expand?) your typical approach to conflict?

Keep In Mind

Fear plays a major role in limiting growth

Fear Of Making Mistakes Fear Of Looking Like A Fool Fear Of Having A Weakness Exposed Fear Of Not Being Liked Fear Of Failure

FIVE BIG FEARS (students)

Fear Of Making Mistakes Fear That Errors Will Erase Prior Success Fear Of Having A Weakness Exposed Fear That Asking For Assistance Will Diminish Respect Fear Of Looking Like A Novice Fear of Conflict

SIX BIG FEARS(Teachers)

Fear of Being Disliked & Losing Relationships Fear of Conflict Fear of Being Revealed Incompetent Fear of Being Shallow Fear of Running Out of Gas Fear of Failure Fear of Being Fired

SEVEN BIG FEARS(Leaders)

It takes courage to push through these fears…courage to face resistance and to cause the inevitable discomfort.

Courage

Can Courage Be Nurtured? Can People Become Smarter? These questions are answered by our beliefs. The beliefs of the leader have enormous impact on others.

The Big Questions?