Leader's eat last: a nod to Simon Sinek, strong leaders, and the power of collegial environments.

Effective leaders with vision have one truly great skill: they are able to see past their own "importance" and build an environment that supports authentic collegiality. 

If you are observant,  Graduation banquets tell you a great deal about a school.  

When done well, with attention to a school's core values, with attention to the true purpose of such a celebrations, Graduation, whether is is for Kindergarten, grade 6, grade 9 or grade 12 is a truly moving experience. 

But this post, although inspired by what recently happened at my school's grade 9 graduation ceremony, is not  about grad at all.   It is, instead,  about a small gesture I took note of, probably not noticed by many, but one that spoke volumes to me. The gesture was the simple act of the attendees at one table who willingly and graciously chose to eat last.  

At that table, all of our school leaders.

  
Which brings me to the point of today's post.  What makes a great educational leader and how this question of leadership is the single most important factor in a healthy, innovative, collegial, collaborative, and, most importantly, a SAFE  school environment.

According to Simon Sinek's TED Talk Why good leaders make you feel safe, good leaders eat last.   This concept of eating last comes from the the Marines and how the leaders always ensures that his or her troops eat first.   Sinek relates the story of the remarkable Captain Swenson who willingly endangered his own life to save the lives of many of his own wounded soldiers.  And Sinek logically thought that perhaps Captain Swenson was only remarkable because he naturally was that kind of person, but, Sinek revealed in his TED talk that  "it's the environment, and if you get the environment right, every single one of us has the capacity to do these remarkable things, and more importantly, others have that capacity too".  

Amazing and effective  leaders create safe places where their employees can literally DO their job.  It seems so simple.  And, when you have the pleasure of being in such an environment, you don't realize it at all.  That's the problem with great leadership.  If it is done well, everyone thinks they can do it.  How hard can it be?  But, just wait until you work in a school or organization where someone has "power" and doesn't know how to use it.  Then, all of a sudden, it becomes crystal clear what good leaders actually do, and, how hard it actually is.  

Furthermore, those of you who have been following (Re)Vision It  have probably noticed that I write a great deal about fear.  Usually I write about fear from the perspective of my students, but this time, I feel I have to write about fear from the perspective of a teacher.  

In my chosen profession, there can be a lot to fear: parents, narrow, un-inspired curriculum, the political machinations of the current zeitgeist,  standardized testing that is punitive in nature,  lack of funding, lack of job security, and, let's not kid ourselves, even the students.  These are all very real fears and I don't think that there is a teacher out there who hasn't had their knees shake at one time or another regarding some the aforementioned issues, but perhaps the most frightening scenario a teacher can come up against is that of poor, ineffective, narcissistic leadership.  

Effective leaders with vision have one truly great skill: they are able to see past their own "importance" and build an environment that supports authentic collegiality, collaboration, growth, divergence and risk.  Narcissistic leaders can never let go of their own self-importance long enough to see that collegiality, collaboration, growth, divergence and  and risk are not a direct affront upon their own agenda and/or need to be at the centre of all  attention. 

Effective leaders see what needs to be done, know what the problems are, see their staff's myriad abilities, assign tasks and roles, and then let stuff get done.  They help direct.  They help shape.  They help solve problems as they arise.  But, they know that they can never do it all by themselves.  And that  takes humility and humbleness and a true desire to get it right.  Not because the leader wants the glory, but because he or she not only cares deeply about the organization they work for; he or she cares deeply about the people behind that organization. 

Which brings me back to fear.  If a teacher has reason to fear or not trust their leader this is what happens:
They retreat.  
They stop growing.
They atrophy.
They second guess their abilities.
They put themselves first.
They become silent.
They focus upon the negative.
They spend more time on their exit strategies than on their day-to-day tasks.
They don't open up. 
They close their door. 
They hate their job.
They stop trying.
They count down to the next holiday.
They lose sight of the bigger picture.
They stop having fun.
They don't connect.
They don't mentor.
They teach to the test.
They disrespect leadership
They stop caring.
They come late and leave early.
They just do what they have to do.
They do too much.
They cry too much. 
They don't cry.
They form cliques for protection.
They don't share.
They mistrust everyone.
They develop a herd mentality of us vs. them.
They believe nothing will ever change.
They lose faith.
They don't fulfill their innate potential.
They quit.

If, as according to Sinek, the environment makes or breaks an organization, this is most definitely not the kind of environment you want, especially in a school. 

What is it like to work in such a place, with such leadership? A never-ending desert. 

What is it like to work in a place where your leaders "eat last?"  Well, its like you've just come out of that never-ending desert into an oasis where someone hands you a tall glass of cold, clear water.  

When you no longer fear, when you are no longer thirsty, when the environment you work in feeds you, when the leader you report back to treats you with respect and autonomy, you, as a teacher, will and can move mountains.  But, most importantly, you emerge from your shell and join the group collective.  You begin to contribute to the whole.  You become part of the solution instead of a hapless, helpless victim.  You bring agency and verve to your classroom where YOU are the leader. 

That for me is probably the single greatest cost when a teacher is fearful because of poor leadership: they themselves cannot be the kind of leader students need.   

George Couros, a superb and forward-thinking Canadian educator recently wrote an interesting post on his blog The Principal of Change entitled 5 Characteristics of an Innovative Organization.  In this post, Couros wrote that effective leaders create safe and collegial learning environments when they focus upon:

1.  Promotion and modelling of risk-taking,

2. Competitive-Collaboration,

3. [Being] Proud of where [they] are, but know [they] have a way to go,

4.  Sharing,

and

5. Relationships, relationships, relationships.

Is this not what we as teachers strive to do each and every day?  Are we not leaders in our own right?  Do we not have a responsibility to ensure that we also create an environment in our own classrooms that echo the environments we want in our staff-rooms?  

I was so tired of being afraid as a teacher.  And, whether or not the fear I perceived was real or not, it consumed me.  This post has been very difficult to write.  I want to dispassionately reflect upon what fear  did to me and what it does to my colleagues for whom I have enormous respect.  I hate it when I see people hurt. 

Together, let's revision our pedagogical practice, so that we can help shape students into  leaders who know how to create the kinds of environments where, even though they eat last, they are sustained by the respect and admiration of those they lead.  

School needs no more fear.