Are You Too Alone In Your Work?

Are You Too Alone In Your Work?

• 1.
  Are You Too Alone in Your Work? Kirsten Olson, Ed.D. Old Sow Consulting MCCPSE Charter School Leadership Summit November 19, 2009
• 2.
  Making safe space here Observe “double” confidentiality Expect welcome and extend welcome Bring as much of yourself as you can Practice listening to yourself and others
• 3.
  My leadership story“ Leadership can sometimes bring grief, a sense of being alone and in limbo, the experience of being marginalized…” -Dan Commish, Nebraska Educational Leadership Institute, 2004
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  Conditions ofthe work Presentism: responding in 30 second cycles Extreme, public accountability pressures Mission driven work Young, inexperienced staffs Isolation due to lack of connective tissue in our movement
• 5.
  What you said…“ There is no one to bitch to.” “ Put on your big girl pants.” “ Everything that happens, you always see as a challenge. You can handle it.” “ I started working with a coach. I was driving my wife crazy.”
• 6.
  Leadership means wounding The role of leader may not align with our other emotional needs Wounding is an inevitable part of leadership Wound can either be a growth catalyst or lead to further crisis (Ackerman and Maslin-Ostrowski, The Wounded Leader , 2002)
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  Nature of the wound Some essential part of ourselves is misunderstood, misrepresented, maligned “ My staff thinks I’m a Nazi. I’m a progressive educator who is in the work to help children.” “ They say I’m wishy washy. I thought I was being open, listening to them.” We feel alone…
• 8.
  Positional authority comes with consequences Staff relate to you , but also your positional authority “ There are mean princesses and kind princesses. The same is true of leaders.” “ Because you have authority over others, you should not be surprised that your decisions and actions may be misperceived. At some point you will be seen as a mean princess.” -Elizabeth Ann Hebert, The Boss of The Whole School (2006)
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  Hazards of isolation in leadership “ I found no characteristics of a good school more pervasive than a healthy principal teacher relationship. [It] has extraordinarily amplifying effect. It models what relationships should be.” (Barth, 1990, p. 19)
• 10.
  What is yourstory? As a leader, when do you feel alone? Around what issues? What has helped you feel less isolated in the past?
• 11.
  Which bee areyou?
• 12.
  Seeking critical feedbackGreater awareness of self Who am I? Aligning that answer to the job
• 13.
  “ Leaders oweit to themselves and their organizations to … seek honest and, if necessary, painful feedback on their performance. Leaders who fail, without exception, have a distorted view of themselves, as well as misplaced loyalty to underperforming team members. I challenge you to write your personal ‘user's manual’ This is who I am and what I stand for. -MarieAnn North, Navigant Consulting, 2007
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  Find friends outside of school Critical friends group Graduate school cohort Mentor Leadership network Online social network
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  Leadership style Structural: Analytical frames, Good during change/reorg. Can be seen as technocratic, cold. Human Resource: Empowerment of others, pushes decisions downward. May be seen as weak in some organizations Political: Clear on end result, use persuasion, negotiation, coercion. Can be seen as manipulative. Symbolic: Organization is a stage. Inspiring and great communicator, or smoke and mirrors. -Bolman and Deal, Reframing Organizations (2003)
• 16.
  “ The paradoxof leadership is that you have to face many things by yourself, without feeling too alone. Knowing that there are others out there who feel the same way--that has helped.”
• 17.
  “ I startedto prioritize me.”