Now, the people part of that oft-used cry is not something we can do much about. Schools are human institutions by design and connecting with, supporting and empowering the people within it is probably something that connects deeply to very reason for choosing to lead.
But I’d like to spend this article examining the “all things” component and see if we can’t find some room to make our leadership lives a little easier, a little more focused and a little more productive.
In essence, I’d like to suggest that you stop doing important things. The word ‘important’ has been thoroughly ruined by those who discuss education. Originally a word intended to allow us to prioritise, it’s now become a word used to describe absolutely every aspect of life that society wishes schools to take responsibility for.
Counterproductively, our habit has been to accept that responsibility.
As a result, we label all of literacy, numeracy, science, the arts, social skills, healthy eating, problem solving, physical activity, digital literacy, financial management skills, time management, history, manners, reporting, assessing, planning, reflecting … you get the picture as the list builds … as being of importance.
Not only is this leaving us feeling exhausted, but it’s hard to even know where to begin when everything is apparently so important. Even on your staff or leadership team, there’s unlikely to be any sort of agreement about what’s the most important aspect to pour our time and effort into. Arguments about importance actually then tend to lead to compromises, a watering down of commitment and major projects that absorb vast tracts of energy and make just the tiniest difference.
This low return on investment for your most precious commodities – your time and effort – needs to end. No longer should we focus on importance. Instead, let’s adopt what controversial Danish academic Bjorn Lomborg call’s ‘the economist’s mindset’.
When we adopt this mindset we stop arguing about importance and start to ask questions about what would be the action we could take that would have the highest ROI in terms of impact with the lowest possible investment of resource. In a school, that resource is your investment of time and energy.
Let me give you some examples:
Eliminating the futile quest for importance and instead adopting the economist’s mindset provides a new lens through which you can view improvement in your school. Not only are the possibilities for both impact and efficiency exaggerated through this new mindset, but it just feels better when the pay-off for your efforts is larger too.
For too long, we’ve burned out our School Leaders by asking them to do more. Even worse, we’ve asked them to divide their time and energy across an exponentially expanding list of supposedly important work aspects. That’s not on. It’s time they got a better return for their toil. Like, much better.
THE CHEAT SHEET
Don’t have time to absorb the
whole article today? Here’s the big points …
The Big One
PP3 – Leading improvement, innovation and change.
But also …
LR1 – Vision and values.
PP2 – Developing self and others.
PP4 – Leading the management of the school.
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