While members of our team may be smart, capable people, they are not always excellent team players. Once, I had a talented, intelligent business manager who couldn’t figure out how to play on our team. After trying many approaches, I hired a topnotch management consultant and organized a retreat. We learned a lot about school management teams and how to work together on a team. We made progress.

Gradually, my business manager’s same old behaviors returned and we struggled again to function as a strong team. I couldn’t seem to get things back on track, so I decided it was time to part ways. It was unfortunate to have to reach that decision. She was quite talented, but just couldn’t function well on our team. Or so I thought.

A few years later, I had another talented but difficult member of my management team. The longer we worked together, the more we struggled to work effectively as a team. This time, I hired a consultant who was also a professional leadership coach. Again, we organized a management retreat, learned new strategies for working together as a team, and made significant progress.

This time, my management consultant continued to work with me as my leadership coach. We met regularly and she coached me to figure out solutions to the complex challenges of school leadership and maintain a strong management team. With her help, I gained new perspectives, learned a lot about myself, developed my emotional intelligence and understood better my contributions to the challenges we faced as a team. I realized that her ongoing support as a coach was critical to my success as a team leader.

It is difficult to build and lead strong management teams. Yet, our success in leadership roles is often determined by our ability to be team builders and leaders. The landscape is littered with schools, organizations, governments, businesses and sports franchises that have suffered dearly from the disintegration of leadership teams. Don’t let that happen to you or your school.

Leadership coaching is one of the best investments you will ever make in your success as a school leader, whether it’s for developing and leading your management team or for other challenges you face in school leadership. Contact me for professional coaching services. I guarantee you will be glad you did.

By now, you probably know a lot about school leadership. You’ve taken courses, received training and attended conferences on effective school leadership.

If you’re like most people, much of what you studied remains in your notes and on your list of things to do. Most you simply don’t remember.

That’s okay. The data is overwhelming. We’ve become data junkies living in data junkyards. In education, everything is about data these days – data-driven decisions, data-driven instruction, data-driven leadership. Next thing you know, we’ll have data-driven play. The data will always be there. More will arrive. You can find it anytime and try out new skills and techniques.

Don’t get me wrong. Data has its rightful place. We can and must learn from it. But expertise and skills learned from data analysis do not an exceptional leader make.

Your relationships make you an exceptional leader, or not. Relationships are the key. And relationships are an art form in the truest sense of the word.

When you walk into your school, lead a faculty meeting, talk with parents and chat with students, your relationships are far more important than your leadership skills and expertise. Your ability to connect with people, and to maintain strong relationships built on trust and respect define your leadership. Skills and expertise are the icing on the cake.

The key to healthy relationships is self-differentiation. Emotionally, exceptional leaders are not dependent on anything other than themselves. They are self-sufficient and live without undue anxiety or over-dependence on others. Their sense of worth comes from within and is independent of relationships, circumstances and events.

Exceptional leaders understand that the emotional processes going on within their schools are extraordinarily powerful – much more powerful than ideas, goals or any other leadership tool. The emotional life of an organization is like the wind and waves. The sailor who tries to overcome them will likely fail, whereas positioning oneself to let the natural force assist will take the ship in the right direction.

The art of exceptional leadership is the capacity to be a steady, non-anxious and challenging presence, and to be connected to people but not enmeshed in the emotional processes. In short, the exceptional leader is first and foremost emotionally intelligent. Leadership through presence and self-differentiation is not easy. Be prepared to lose friends and experience the pain of isolation and personal attacks. It comes with the territory.

So do the rewards. And they are endless. Exceptional school leadership creates exceptional schools. Is anything more beautiful?

Contact us for school leader coaching services to help you become an exceptional school leader.

Students go to school to learn – not just subject knowledge, but how to be good citizens in school and their worlds outside of school. Learning appropriate social behavior in the complex and constantly changing worlds in which we live is not easy. Most of us adults are still trying to figure it out. It requires ongoing teaching, learning and assessment, even more so than learning a language, math, history or science. Unfortunately, in the frenzy to improve academic test scores, we’ve lost sight of our higher imperative as educators to improve students’ social behavior and emotional intelligence – to educate our students to be brilliant citizens of their social groups, communities, and the world.

The emotional harm that occurs in schools as a result of poor social behavior causes enormous damage. I spoke to one high school student recently who told me that she has felt inferior and incapable in her math classes ever since her fourth grade math teacher angrily called her stupid for answering a question incorrectly. The teacher is well known for shaming children. Take a moment, please, to imagine the emotional distress this teacher has created in the lives of the children she has taught and continues to teach. Yet, this teacher is considered to be an excellent teacher. Unfortunately, she is no exception.

Teachers are not the only ones who mistreat students. Students mistreat each other. Parents are part of the problem, too.

School leaders can improve schools dramatically and create schools in which social behavior and emotional intelligence are valued as much as academic success. Where there’s a will, there’s a way.

Several years ago, two students in whom I have the utmost confidence to speak the truth told me that they witnessed a freshman being beaten by seniors, and a teacher walking by without intervening. It was “Freshman Beat Down Week” at one of the best public high schools in the region and country, according to Jay Mathews of the Washington Post. I called the principal to express my concern about the incident and to inquire about steps the school was taking to deal with the problem. She told me that “Freshman Beat Down Week” is a myth and that it doesn’t exist. Ignorance is bliss. Shortly thereafter, I learned that another freshman had her ribs broken by a senior. She refused to report it out of fear of retaliation by the seniors who beat her.

The problem is with the will, not the way. There are many ways, but few wills.

School leaders, with the will to take the necessary actions, can create schools in which teachers and students treat each other respectfully and compassionately in classrooms and hallways, and on buses and athletic fields. Leaders can create school cultures in which emotionally damaging and nasty social behavior rarely occurs – schools in which students, teachers and parents consistently treat each other respectfully.

To create schools devoid of mistreatment by teachers, students and parents, leaders must take the nasty-social-behavior-bull by the horns and wrestle with it until it is tamed and the school is a peaceful place. School leaders must address the issue head on, own the problem, and engage teachers, parents and students in finding solutions. It’s a school community problem that won’t be solved by punishment and rules.

Leaders must take the lead role in creating a joyful school experience for everyone. One excellent way to begin is with a school culture or faculty culture assessment. The data from these assessments provide excellent information about the source and nature of the problem. Based on these data, school leaders can design programs, establish initiatives, provide professional development and a myriad other interventions that will truly address the problem and transform the school.

That lead role is a tough role to play. Many school leaders seek the assistance of a school leadership coach to help them. If you are a school leader who wants to tackle the problem of negative social behavior and create a school that is both emotionally nurturing and academically challenging, contact us for school leader coaching services and/or teacher training/coaching services.

Payal is the co-founder of Art of Learning (AOL). AOL’s suite of services include establishing new schools; strategic enhancements to existing schools; review and design of school systems and work processes, curriculum and pedagogical practices. AOL also provides K-12 schools with assistance in attaining accreditation by national and international agencies, such as the IB and IGCSE.

As a writer and editor, Payal co-authored a series of five General Awareness Activity books for Grades One through Five and edited a set of two workbooks in compliance with the new curriculum for a leading publishing house in India.

Payal holds a MA in History, a BA in Education from the Indiri Ghandi University and a BA from Lady Shri Ram College.

Sid implemented International Baccalaureate Programmes for each of the schools for which he served as Founding Director and served as a Consultant Presenter for the International Baccalaureate North America. He is an excellent KG-12 leader and administrator as well as implementer of in-service teacher training and quality assurance in schools.

Sid is also an experienced educator in the Arts. He served as Chair of the and Chair of the Dubai International Arts Society.

Besides being an educator, Sid has run his own businesses, and worked in advertising, marketing and public relations. He has also established innovative community projects and initiatives, ranging from teaching English in a Vietnamese refugee camp to organizing arts festivals in Dubai to setting up a street school for laborers’ children in India, as well as organizing classes for elderly people to learn information and communication technologies in Sweden.

Sid holds a BA in Arts from the Manchester Metropolitan University, a Graduate Certificate in Education from the Manchester Victoria University and a School Leadership Certificate from the University of Michigan.

Dawn is an organization development consultant, facilitator and trainer. She promotes organizational growth and development by providing climate assessment and team building services. Dawn works with leadership teams to identify and address cultural change in areas of internal communications, management and staffing. In collaboration with managers and staff, she develops strategies for fostering positive working relationships and enhancing productivity. Dawn facilitates dialogue to enhance workplace communication and collaboration, increase job satisfaction, and optimize individual and collective productivity within schools, the public sector, corporations and nonprofit organizations. She provides mediation and facilitation support for the resolution of discreet disputes within organizations. In collaboration with clients, she develops systems and mechanisms to strengthen internal communication and conflict resolution capacities. Dawn trains mediators, facilitators, managers, judges, advocates and others globally. Training specialties include facilitation, mediation, team performance, coaching, dispute resolution program design and administration, negotiation, advocacy in mediation and the pedagogy of mediation and facilitation training.

Prior to establishing her consulting practice, Dawn founded and managed a law firm specializing in employment and immigration law. She holds a JD from , Columbus School of Law and a BA in Sociology from the University of Maryland. She is a certified as an administrator of the Conflict Dynamics Profile (CDP) and the Emotional Quotient Inventory (EQ-i®). Dawn is also fluent in Spanish.

Come hell or high water, as far as I could tell, Roger was going to teach about outer space and not much else in science in November or any other time, for that matter. He loved outer space.

Linda and Roger left. They weren’t willing to play on the team.

The team was sad and glad that they left. They were nice people, but they didn’t show up for practice.

Teamwork is tough. It requires trust. You got to do more than show up for practice to gain trust. You must share and give. The more you share and the more you give, the better you serve your team and the more trust you gain.

Linda and Roger shared, but they didn’t give. They shared their views, but they refused to change their behavior. They pretended. In faculty meetings, when they attended, they sat silently. In their classrooms, they sabotaged their colleagues.

Cal shared and gave. He forged relationships with his colleagues. He crossed boundaries. He built trust.

Cal was a science and math teacher. He taught science and math right along side his colleagues who were teaching the humanities. A unit of study on peace and conflict comes to mind. That’s not hard to imagine for a humanities teacher.

Linda would have demanded to teach the next chapter in the science textbook or whatever she had been teaching for the past 30 years. That’s why Linda wasn’t with us anymore.

Coming back to Cal, I remember asking him how he could possibly teach science and math in a unit of study on peace and conflict. I learned a lot from his answer – stuff I should have known. I wish I would have had Cal as my science teacher. I would have learned about scientific discoveries that created conflict and peace in our world.

I would have loved to walk into his classroom every day excited to learn whatever he had to teach me. I would have done so, but I had to run the school.

Contact us for team building services

The PYP and MYP are transdisciplinary and inquiry-based, which is what distinguishes them significantly from other programs. When schools deliver high quality PYP and MYP programmes, they look dramatically different than typical schools. Students are actively engaged in learning rather than sitting passively at their desks. They are excited and eager to learn. They love school. Teachers are equally thrilled. They love working together collaboratively to plan and teach the curriculum, rather than planning and teaching in isolation. They share resources, come up with extremely creative ideas and projects, help each other out, solve problems and feel ownership of the school.

Imagine your students learning in an environment where teachers are working together enthusiastically and collaboratively across disciplines so that students are studying, for example, the history, art, music, dance, science, math, sports and political systems of the ancient Greeks at the same time. Imagine students and teachers working together to turn your school into a virtual ancient Greek city with students’ art, music, science experiments, math problems, Olympic games, etc. Imagine project-based teaching and learning taking place all over the school. You hear a buzz in the community. People are talking about the fabulous projects, great teachers and amazing kids.

Students are learning a second language and loving it. Some are beginning to speak and understand as though it was their native tongue! People are amazed. They can’t believe that children can learn a second language so well.

Students’ challenging behaviors, that used to consume so much energy, hardly exist anymore. Kids who were marginally or not at all interested in learning are showing a whole different side of themselves. They’re actually smiling and happy, excited about their projects, and doing their work! Some are even becoming leaders.

Teachers are starting to think out of the box, together. Collaborative, out-of-the-box thinking is producing some fascinating results. For the unit of study on peace and conflict, teachers are inviting generals, peace activists and mediators to share their expertise and views with their students. Lively discussions about war and peace are taking place in classrooms, hallways and dining rooms.

Students are having fun. Teachers are having fun. Everyone is learning.

Contact me to implement IB programmes in your school.

Without high degrees of trust, it is impossible for teachers to work collaboratively in teams. Lack of trust is a major problem, as collaboration among teachers is essential for schools to deliver a high quality education that engages students in meaningful learning. In the absence of trust and collaboration, students do not get a good education.

A school leader coach can help school leaders create high degrees of trust and collaboration in their schools. When trust prevails, teachers can work together across disciplines and grades, design projects that engage and motivate students to do their very best, and truly help students to excel academically and socially.

It’s hard work to build trust. First and foremost, building trust requires competence and humility. Both are primarily in the eyes of the beholder. Yet few school leaders ask for their teachers’ views about their leadership in a way that is safe for teachers to give it. If teachers do not believe their leader is competent, even the most competent leader is actually not competent at all.

The solution is to create a safe place for teachers to share their views about their leader and for the leader to work on addressing the issues raised. In so doing, leaders can dramatically improve their competence and clearly demonstrate their humility.

The best approach is to provide regular opportunities for teachers to assess anonymously a wide range of issues, perhaps on a scale of one to five. The following are a few examples:

Ask a few teachers to gather the surveys, tabulate the results and share the information at the next faculty meeting. Then engage in discussions about the issues and how to address them constructively. An Appreciative Inquiry approach is a powerful way to address issues in a constructive manner that can lead to extraordinary collaboration and teamwork, which ultimately leads to students excelling.

Contact me by email or call me at 202.841.0583 for coaching, team building, trust building or consulting services.

Now, a coaching software program opens the door to leveraging the power of journaling in a simple and cost-effective way, helping coaches create and provide a deeper, more meaningful engagement with their clients. The software provides users with their very own web-based, password-protected journaling system. Journaling as a part of coaching creates a whole new dimension of sharing and communication. This additional level of sharing and communication provides awareness to previously inaccessible information, helping clients achieve goals and breakthroughs faster. The relationship between the coach and client develops deeper and faster.

The program is also an intelligent information delivery system. A coach can create and deliver journaling assignments, e-courses, training, daily tips, education or any other types of content – automatically. The coach creates the content, adds it to the system and sets up the delivery parameters. The system supports all media types including audio, video, PDF documents and a variety of image files.

In addition, the software allows a coach to build a community. Clients and members can interact. They become emotionally and intellectually engaged, and visit the site on their own and often. Clients and members have continuous access to the content and opportunities a coach provides. In my coaching practice with school leaders, clients will be able to connect with and learn from each other, and participate in leadership training sessions.

Coaching with a journal has a profound impact on coaching by helping coaches be more effective in helping clients transform themselves and achieve their goals. Clients provide information that may be hard or take longer to get in a typical coaching relationship. Rapid insight into thoughts and beliefs that are getting in the way of a clients’ success helps improve the coaching experience for both the coach and client. Journaling also helps:

• Achieve a level of intimacy and transparency with clients that normally takes weeks or that is never achieved to at all without a journal.
• Increase the number of interactions with clients while spending the same net amount of time with them.
• Be more prepared with content to cover during coaching calls or sessions.
• Clients document their journeys and growth, which will make them more transparent and easy to see.
• Engage in self-development more frequently and, as a result, reach goals faster.

I’m excited to begin using online journaling in my coaching practice for school leaders.