S5 E15 - Interview with Jenny Cole - Navigating Leadership in a Changing Landscape

Hello, hello everyone, welcome to the Structured Literacy Podcast. I have a special treat for you. We are not only recording from Tasmania, the land of the Palawa people, but we are also recording from Noongar country, because we have a guest, and that guest is Jenny Cole, who was my leadership coach when I worked in leadership in schools. Jenny welcome.

Thank you, Jocelyn, lovely to be here.

Ok, Jen, for people who haven't met you or heard of you before, tell us a bit about yourself

Okay, well, I'm old so I'm going to give you the short version.

Currently I call myself a coach and a consultant, leadership consultant and a recovering principal. I started my career as a teacher aid, as an education assistant while I was studying to be a special needs teacher, and so I was a special needs teacher and, for all sorts of reasons, became a principal quite early in small schools, did various other things and found myself in a large education support special school with very challenging kids but even more challenging adults, and about 15 years ago, before it was fashionable, I burnt out and became overwhelmed and left the education department and decided that I probably needed a way to pay my mortgage and set up my own company. And I've done various things, but these days my focus is on leadership, particularly new and aspiring leaders and those that are kind of team leader level in schools, so the head of the phase of learning team or the head of the curriculum committee or those sorts of teacher leaders. So that's the work that I tend to do these days in my professional learning, but I also coach a lot of veteran and experienced leaders.

And Jen, your work is transformational and it was for me when I was a leader and I sometimes jokingly say that learning from you and being coached by you helped me know how to not want to punch people and and everyone has a giggle and you know that's very funny but the reality is that when we don't understand or we're not in the space, the headspace of meeting people where they're up to, we can get really frustrated. So any leader out there, at any space, in any profession, if you felt frustrated by the people around you, that's a really good sign. There's learning to do and it was for me and I learned that half the problem was me and the way I was approaching situations, not actually the other person, and in fact they weren't a problem Once I figured out and had some support to actually adjust what I was doing to get a great outcome for everyone, to get that win-win. So anyone out there, it's okay, you're not alone and every time you feel it, it's okay, it is just a point of learning. So, jen, we've got lots of leaders who are either informal leaders, so they are a teacher in a classroom supporting colleagues, they're instructional leaders, or they're principals and even system leadership and system coaches and support people.

So we've got a big range of audience in this podcast. We're going to try today and answer some of the most common questions that I have from them and you'll feel free to throw in anything that you think might be useful that you're seeing in school land as well, and just for a bit of feedback everyone. Jenny works across stages of schooling, so she's worked with early childhood staff, primary, secondary working with teachers, but also classroom assistants and leadership. So there's lots of experience that Jen has to draw on. I think one of the things that so many leaders and teachers experience is imposter syndrome, that little voice that says you're not good enough, you don't know enough, you can't do it. So how can we as human beings navigate imposter syndrome and what are the habits or routines that we can maybe adopt and put on repeat to support us when we come across these issues?

Jenny Cole

Yeah, imposter syndrome. I tend to think of it more, just about confidence and confidence being a thing that is not permanent and fixed. We can be really confident in one area, like a really confident classroom teacher, but then feel a little imposter syndrome or a little wobbly when we're trying to lead a committee or give our advice to a principal. So there's a couple of fundamentals around confidence. Confidence keeps us stuck, and so confidence is about taking action, and as soon as we start to take action, even if it's imperfect action, we just find that momentum gets us out. So do something, do something small, take action. A couple of other things around imposter syndrome is knowing that you have strengths and leveraging those. So doing more of what already works, rather than trying to say I don't know anything about syntax and getting all stressed and worried that that's a deficit. Instead say how did I learn about morphology? And do that again. So find out what works, do more of it and fail fast.

And often is one of the things that I talk about, which is it joins those things together, which is about taking imperfect action. We're often really worried about what other people are thinking about us, and so we beaver away and make a beautiful scope and sequence, that's color-coded and has everything all in the right columns and laminated, and then we put it in front of the committee who says, oh, oh, you didn't think about such and such, and that feedback feels wounding, whereas if you put out a what Brene Brown calls a shitty first draft and put it out and iterate and write all over it, it doesn't look pretty, but it's a work in progress and that is more likely to fuel your confidence. Try something, give it a go, do something, um, get feedback as you go, rather than put out a finished product and then get upset because people don't like it or the principles change their mind and and all that work goes down the toilet

so there are a couple of strategies yeah, yeah, and I've had the thought over the years that nobody knocks on your front door and hands you a bucket of confidence and then you go. Right now I can go do everything, and I like what you said about taking action, that it's not about being perfect on the first day. I'm listening to what you're saying about action and failing fast and reflecting back on some of the cognitive science that we have about learning. So, folks, any learning question you have about grown-ups, go to the learning research about people in general and what we would maybe think about as information about children and use that.

So it was shared at a conference last week that creativity requires three things. The first one is knowledge. So if you don't feel like you know things, the first one is knowledge. So if you don't feel like you know things, you have more knowledge. The second one was time. You need time to process and have a go. The third one was failure, and that links directly with what you said, jen, because it's the opportunity to try something and it doesn't work and then you think about it. That pushes you into expanding your horizons. The fourth thing, which doesn't sit in the official list, but one that the presenter shared, was structure. So don't try and go off willy-nilly and doing everything, don't try and pathway plan things and just wing it, but have a structure. But don't get so caught up in perfection. And we often say and here perfection is the enemy of progress. So I like that Take small actions, built on your strengths and move from there.

Can I just say one more thing about knowledge, because one of the things that I often say in my leadership development courses is don't go to another course, and this is from someone who is running courses If you want to be more confident. Confidence comes from doing, not from learning. So take a little bit of learning, something that some work, work that you've done, you know. Listen to some um podcast, or do a bit of learning and then try it in your classroom or try it in your committee meeting. Um, confidence comes from doing, not from learning. Yes, agreed, and so, yes, you need a baseline of knowledge, but it's a little bit like or try in your committee meeting. Confidence comes from doing, not from learning necessarily.

Yes, agreed, and so, yes, you need a baseline of knowledge, but it's a little bit like my gardening books Having more gardening books doesn't make my garden better. I actually have to go and dig up some stuff to get there. Absolutely One of the things that all leaders struggle with well, okay, 99.9% of leaders struggle with at some point is having to address when something hasn't gone to plan. Now, sometimes this is a concrete conversation, sometimes it's a challenging one. Can you talk us through the difference and what sets us up for success when having what can be perceived as tricky conversations with anybody?

They've not arrived on time, or they've not handed in their reports, or they've not done something that they were supposed to do. That's a concrete conversation, which is it's hard and fast, there's a bottom line and you've crossed it. And then there are those other conversations that are a bit more sensitive. There's somebody who's talked out of turn in the staff room, somebody who's shared something inappropriate with a parent, but it's not really crossed a rule. Understanding the difference between those concrete and sensitive conversations is absolutely essential. So if you're a leader and someone has digressed, they've gone out of their lane and broken a rule, done something that's against a norm in a meeting, then just have that conversation, because it's not personal, it's professional, which is we've agreed that this is how we're going to work, or this is what the law says we have to do, or this is what the curriculum says.

And if people stray, then it's the leader's responsibility to say oi, back in your lane, that's not appropriate. And to do it as quickly as possible. And so they'll never feel great those conversations, but you know that's not appropriate. And to do it as quickly as possible, and so they'll never feel great those conversations. But you know that's kind of what you're paid to do. But when you get the muddled with those sensitive conversations around, you know you spoke too loudly or you know you didn't put your coffee cup in the dishwasher or somebody. We often use the example of someone who's got really bad BO. You know they are far more sensitive conversations and they are often personal and they use a different kind of framework and I share a bunch of them in the work that I do. But the point here is to get clear about am I having something? A conversation about a rule, a process, an agreement that's been broken? Is this a bit more personal and that helps you understand how you're going to approach it.

Okay, so let can we workshop that a little bit, can we role play it for the listeners? And let's pretend, Jen, that I have. I'm a staff member and I've shared information with a parent about another student in the class and I wasn't intending to gossip. I didn't seek the parent out to say, hey, guess what? But in the course of conversation about that person's child, I've mentioned something about another child that I shouldn't have said. If you're my leader, how does that conversation go?

As a leader, my first thought is is there clearly something? As a leader, my first thought is is there clearly something in the code of conduct or where we have said do not share information about other children to parents? Now, I would suspect that in most schools, it would not be hard to find something about confidentiality. So, therefore, it's technically a concrete conversation, but you would handle it sensitively. So what would I do as a leader? First of all, I would do it as quickly as humanly possible, so as soon as possible after the event, and if this is the first time you've done it, I would handle it pretty carefully and I would say we use something called the feedback breach, and I would say we use something called the feedback bridge, which is not the same as a shit sandwich Sorry about swearing, I can't think of a better word but a feedback bridge takes you from where you are to where you want to be.

So we start with feedback. I really love the fact that you engage with parents and that parents feel safe with you, and it would be even better if you didn't share information about other students, because, remember, we have to think about accountability. The and is the important part. This is where you are, which is great and it would be even better if you could do this. And for most teachers, they will be mortified that you give them that feedback and that will be enough, and that will be the only time you've ever had to say that and you can say look, this is not about your teaching practice, this is just about what I heard and I'm just letting you know that I know, and please don't do it again, and for most teachers, it will never happen again.

That's good, and I think that feedback bridge leaders. Write that down. Stop whatever you're doing, write it down and remember the and is important, because remember everything before the but is a lie, so we don't want people to feel that we're setting them up for a fall. Can we run another scenario? Let's say, though, I have a personality style that is perceived by others to be a little prickly, and when I'm encountering something within a PLC or a PLT planning time that I don't quite understand or I don't agree with, I'm much more likely to shut it down than get curious and work with the team on building understanding. So I might have said something in a planning meeting like I don't know why we have to do this anyway. Why can't we just do what we used to?

Jenny Cole

In this case, it really doesn't matter if you're the leader or a colleague. However, we'll do it from a leader's perspective. For any of these conversations, it's really important that you already have a good relationship. They're going to go better if you've got a really good relationship, but let's just assume that that's already the case. I would be taking that person out and I would be giving them some feedback. Those are all feedback conversations. We want these people to be as successful as possible. Feedback, those are all feedback conversations. We want these people to be as successful as possible. And so I would say, jocelyn, can I just have a little conversation with you Yesterday in the meeting, when you shut down the conversation and said oh well, we've tried that before or that won't work, I'm wondering if you noticed what happened in the rest of the meeting. What happened in the rest of the meeting, and then I would shut up, then I would resist the temptation to um get elevated by Jocelyn's reaction and I'd say no. No, I'm just wondering if you notice, because what I noticed was that people stopped contributing, and one of our values around here is that everybody gets a say, and so what you've done there we've not fixed it yet, it's just alerted people to a blind spot, and then you could go on to say what I want you to notice in the next meeting is blah, blah, blah, blah. Or I'm wondering if the next time that happens you could try, but if they're not open to it at that point, then you might need to give them that feedback two or three times, you know, the next time. See, jocelyn, you did it again and I don't know if you noticed, but Marianne got really upset and she stopped speaking.

Because communication patterns can be habits, right we. And if someone's responding in that way, what that tells me is they're feeling a certain amount of stress about something. So when we're stressed, we default to the automatic. And if, over the course of our life, we made our way through the world by let's quote Brene Brown again both you and my friend, and she doesn't know that we exist, uh, in armoring up and and getting combative, it's a hard habit to break, and one of the things that you've reminded me of throughout my time in leadership is we're not counselors and we're not psychologists, we are coaches and we are support people and we're leaders, so that there is a line there. But that's why everybody listening check out some of Jenny's courses, because she goes into these things in a lot more detail. We'll talk about that a little bit more towards the end. But those sensitive conversations and those concrete conversations, it's often part of the heart, one of the hardest things that we do.

Oh, absolutely Absolutely. And we're worried about how other people are going to react when we have to share an office with them for the rest of the year or whatever. It's really tricky, but don't avoid them. Build the relationship and then give the feedback.

Jocelyn Seamer

Yeah, great. Another situation that arises often is in this changing world of instruction. I mean, if I think about the changes that have happened in instruction in schools in the last five years, the growth has been exponential, the changes have been massive. So four years ago, when I was running my reading success in the early primary years course, there were most people didn't really have decodables in their school. They didn't understand about high frequency words, most people still doing group rotations.

Now the changes seem to those of us who are, who have been on this journey, as if they have always been there. But what's happened to our principals, particularly principals who are longer standing principals, is that during the time of all of this change they haven't had the opportunity to be in the classroom, on the ground, experiencing the changes that have happened. So they're trying to navigate, leading a team through a change journey that they are not necessarily the most experienced people in. So there's two perspectives here. One of them is from the perspective of the instructional coach, who has gone down the midnight rabbit holes, who has, you know, been a little maybe a little bit too hyper-focused on learning about explicit teaching and structured literacy, and they hold a great deal of knowledge in the space and in terms of what to do.

The other perspective is from the principal's perspective. Who has to navigate? The school council or the board? They have to navigate the parent population, they have to navigate the system, elements that instructional coaches never have to deal with. So I'm wondering what unsolicited advice and we try not to give that, but you know this is what the podcast is for, right. So what unsolicited advice do you have for both the instructional leader who's finding that their principal is hesitant to make change because they are unsure about knowledge, because they just haven't had the same opportunity as others have, and also for the principal who's trying to lead the team, feeling unsure because they don't feel like their knowledge in this space is complete enough to make reliable, sometimes feeling like we have to make reliable, defensible decisions that can stand up to scrutiny.

Oh, what a day.

They're going to broadcast episodes in themselves. So just short and sharp right now will get us out of trouble for this week. We'll come back on some other episodes and explore those topics.

Jenny Cole

So, for the principle stay humble. The minute you start to pretend that you know what you're doing, that is when you get in trouble or when you go oh, this is all beyond me, I'm just going to hand it over. So, um, for the for the principal stay humble, say I don't know. This is not my area of expertise. I trust you, but we're going to have robust conversations about this because I need to learn. I don't need to know how to. I don't need to personally run a daily review session although it would be awesome if you did but I need to know what they look like and you're going to be my conduit. So stay humble. Ask lots of questions, keep your guard down, because you said unsure, I often think it's fear. You know we're fear, and when we get fearful, I don't know, I'm out of control. I've got the system telling me this. I've got teachers telling me that. Then you're not going to make really good decisions.

For the instructional leader, I give you permission to ask your boss to meet regularly for 15 minutes a week. Can we have a 15 minute check in every week and I'm going to feedback what I've been doing and you can ask me questions and I can just know that, as the instructional leader, I'm on track. Now. I'm not saying that necessarily has to be with the principal, whoever your most, who your line manager is, but in order for you to feel successful, you need to know what success is. You know what they're, and also you need to be sharing success, sharing your challenges and letting them know what's coming up for you. You know. So this is what I'm working on in the next fortnight. This is how NAPLAN testing is going to impact my coaching in classrooms. So regular communication builds relationships, helps each other understand each other's role and gives you the support that you need as the instructional leader.

Yeah, beautiful, thank you. And, as we said, whole podcast episodes all by themselves. Beautiful, thank you. And, as we said, whole podcast episodes all by themselves. Some of the things that I think make it difficult for us to take action in the space of classroom practice is conflicting advice and I'm coming from a literacy perspective now, because that's what this podcast is about and so we hear from different people that this bit is, this thing is the best. No, no, do it this way it's the best.

Everyone's claiming an evidence base. Some of that's not true, some of it is, and when we don't have as robust a knowledge base as we would like, it's really hard to figure out what to do. So I guess this is less of a leadership question and more of a. Can you think back through your years of education for me and think about and you will have seen this the things come and they go, and some of them are fads and some of them are actually really good, evidence-based things that we didn't adopt. How can leadership teams navigate the minefield of conflicting advice and some of those clever marketing? And again, I'm fully aware of the irony, everybody considering the business that I run but how do we distinguish between fads and clever marketing, and what is actually robust, sensible advice in a way that means that we don't have to go and become a university PhD candidate in order to have that knowledge. What does that look like?

That is, in fact, an excellent question. I'm for those of you who are familiar my DISC style is I, so I'm all about enthusiasm and new things and shiny objects, and I was that dreadful principal that had a great idea one morning and we're all going to change things.

I would do things differently now. However, my training was actually in direct instruction, and I remember when I ended up in primary schools for the first time, you know, as a graduate, I entered into the middle of the whole language sphere, which was fine, and I was trained as a first-tips teacher, and then we all went to outcomes, but there was this little bit in my heart that absolutely knew that that direct teaching of skills was so important, especially since I was working with students with disabilities and special learning needs. So there is something about it. Really, I mean it should be about data, but there is something that says this absolutely ethically and morally feels right to me. I do not want anyone to take that as good advice about how you should decide what's worth teaching or not.

Try something. Do not invest in the million dollars teaching or not. Try something. Do not invest in the million dollars worth of it. Try it. Do it in a sprint. Is it making a difference? Can we build it in rather than bolt it on to what we've already done? Is it making a difference? Does the data say people are growing, both the students and the staff. Are the staff feeling more confident and competent? And if they are, they're going to teach well. And any intervention is a good intervention if teachers want um are engaged in it. So the the teaching sprints, do it for a short amount of time. Don't invest in the whole program. Have a trial, but if you're on your fifth trial in five semesters, then make a decision basically and and it is does this suit us and our context, and is the data telling us it does?

I have a yes and um. So yes to everything jenny just said. And back to that sensitive spot, the tightrope walking of what we feel. Uh, so many teachers who were early adopters into the structured literacy space got there because they were reflecting on the students with difficulty in their class and seeing that what was being promoted as the status quo thou shalt always actually wasn't meeting their needs. And the question was well, what are we doing for those children? So I don't think we can discount our bigger purpose in teaching as a part of the decision-making process and as a part of the whole thing. So how do we balance it? Sometimes I'll say let's make sure that we are keeping an eye on the research, as best we understand it, and we can be the royal we, as in the profession, because things will grow and learn and things will change. Keep an eye on the data, because that's your evidence of a job well done, as Jenny just said, and keep an eye on well-being of you and the students. And I think Jen and I have said the same things in two different ways. Whichever one of those works best for you today, as you're listening, grab it, take hold of it, take bits from both. However it works. So let's say that we have decided on an approach, we've adopted a program or a resource and we're not treating that program or resource as the end goal. It is a tool that we're using to get great student outcomes.

There's often a gap between the what we do in training and what we learn about, and I'm for people you can't see because you're in the podcast. Everyone air quotes, learn the introduction about something we have in PL, and then what happens in the classroom. Some of that is just a normal part of a learning journey. Some of it is people not doing what they need to. Some of that, though it's not always, I just don't want to. Sometimes the won't is actually fear in disguise. So how do we approach this, jen, from a perspective of assuming positive intent in all of our team that they actually want to do a good job. I don't know anyone who gets up in the morning and says, oh, I choose to do a bad job today. How do we walk that line between assuming positive intent but then also, for the rest of our team and for our students, holding people accountable? How do we find, dare I say, the balance in the support and the accountability? What mechanisms. Have you seen work in schools?

To me, it comes down to coaching, and it's because coaching takes us from knowing to doing and, in fact, to being so. Instead of just knowing about something and doing it, we actually embed it in our practice, and you and I have shared the research that Joyce and Showers did 20-odd years ago, which sort of said if you just do a professional learning, you'll learn this much, and it won't necessarily embed itself, but if you get coached over time. So coaching is accountability. Now there is pure coaching, which is kind of the work that I do, which is, you know, when I work with my veteran principals, I don't say, what are you doing tomorrow? And then what are you doing? I understand that they know what they're doing.

However, if we're trying a new strategy, the role of the instructional coach is to check in regularly about how are you going with this element, what are you noticing? Maybe doing some classroom observations and then co-constructing a rubric or something to make sure we're looking at the same thing and discuss the data, and that is helping people move from transition from one way of teaching to another, and so coaching is absolutely essential. To me, it's the only thing that works. You can't make people comply. You can only make people. You can make people comply, but we want them to commit, we want them to go full in and do it properly, and coaching is the method that I think works best. However, if we don't properly train and support our coaches, it's just another thing that we do and that we spend money on.

Yes, and what happens to those coaches is the school says we have a position, who do we have? Okay, congratulations, you're a coach, you're a great teacher, now go forth and make brilliance. And we haven't got the training for them. So certainly part of the work that both you and I do sits in that space, in helping people be better leaders of all sorts, including instructionally in their schools. How has the leadership landscape changed over the last, let's say, 10 to 15 years since you left school land and to now? What changes have you seen? Let's go good, bad and ugly.

The requirements of senior leadership have, just as teacher workload has increased exponentially. Principal workload has increased exponentially. To be completely honest, in my early days it was easy. We did not much except float around and sign the occasional check. These days we have one-line budgets and we're you know they're managing budgets of millions of dollars, and in any other business you would have a HR department, you would have a marketing department, you would have a finance department, you would have a CEO and you'd have people in charge of all of that. In schools, principals are that person. Plus, we've had an increase in societal expectations about what schools will and won't do, plus the inclusion of kids with special educational needs, who add an entire complexity.

Jocelyn Seamer

It's not bad, it's just. It just takes more work.

So that's how the landscape is changed, and more money and people, Jenny, as well. So I just want to be really clear this is of the podcast.

Jenny's not saying students in special needs shouldn't be in schools. That's her background. What we both often talk about is the need for funding and people and resourcing to support that appropriately.

That's where we head and those kids who are funded, they will come with more money and more people, and that's more complexity. And those kids who aren't funded don't come with more money and don't come with more people and more people, and that's more complexity. And those kids who aren't funded don't come with more money and don't come with more people, and that is also complex. So the complexity and the system requirements and the accountability requirements are huge on principals and you're now seeing that in classrooms.

And what's better than it used to be from when you were going into leadership and what that landscape looks like. What have we gotten right? What's better now than it used to be?

So there was a period of time where they were considering just putting managers, so the managers of the water corporation could just transfer across and be managers of schools, because we were just managing, weren't we? So what is better is that we now know that leaders have to know something about construction and be instructional leaders, at whatever level that might be. So what is better is that we understand that schools are places of learning, they're not just things that we organise. What is better? Actually having a robust curriculum, despite the fact that it keeps changing. There are now resources, system resources in most places to back up what teachers are supposed to be doing, because it was all a bit choose your own adventure before then, which was fun, but I'm not sure we taught people.

I think kids learnt more accidentally in the old days. The good kids learnt and the others didn't, whereas now there is more support, what's better. I just think schools and teachers have always done really good jobs and I tend to think we're looking at. I get really worried about people leaving the profession, and I think some of it is due to the noise in social media and the media about how bad schools are. And yes, they're hard and yes, they're difficult, but I still think teaching is an excellent profession and then 99% of people in schools turn up for the right reason and to do a good job, and that hasn't changed.

You and I both get to hear from people every day, in the work we do, who are so passionate about their students and so excited by the gains that they make. So my wish for us all is can we just simplify and have a little bit of common sense? But there is no profession that is free of complexity. There is no job that doesn't have bits in it that are tricky. So let's adopt what the evidence says in a lot of cases, which is keep it simple, don't try and do too much, one thing at a time until we've got it, and then we move on. And that can apply to all areas of school, whether it's teaching students or developing as leaders as well.

Jen, I'd like to finish this off with what teachers and leaders can do. So let's go instructional leaders, aps or DPs, depending on what they're called where you are. So, seeing that one rung kind of below the principal, what can we do to foster that sense of excitement and positivity with and for our school communities? Because, as you say, there's a big narrative out there all about how devastatingly bad everything is. I personally don't buy it. Yep, it's tricky, but there's also wonderful things. How do we keep our team's bus on the road in well-being and in moving forward positively together as a cohesive group of people, all working for the one goal.

Oh, such a good question. I'm going to answer in multiple ways and hopefully it meets the brief I say when I'm working with my leaders. Be, really, it goes back to your thing about being simple. All leaders, regardless of where they are in the school, should know the two things that we are going to put all our effort into this year or in this planning period. That should be really clear in your business plan or your strategic plan, whatever that looks like. But these are the two or three things that we are going to devote time and effort to.

They're your hedgehog principles. They're what Jim Collins, would you know, say. They're you're non-negotiables, they're your one thing. And then you use every single opportunity as a leader to talk about, promote, reinforce those things. So at every school assembly you stand up and say so. Let's imagine, your one thing is one year of progress for each kid every year. It might be as broad as that, but it could be, as you know, far more simple than that. So you stand up at assembly and you say we've been focusing really hard on making sure every kid makes one year of progress and here are the merit awards for year two, and these guys are really making progress in their spelling and everything gets tied back to that one or two things all the messages at school, council meetings, at staff meetings.

When you're out at the gate at the beginning of the day saying we are making such good progress, I'm loving the way you're walking, that's exactly how we make progress in this school. And bringing all of the messages back to those key things. That keeps it simple. Then people know what they're accountable for. I think then the community knows what's valuable, the staff know what's valuable, the kids know in kid language and keeping it nice and simple and streamlined. We need to get a balance between process and people. We need to have really strong relationships, but processes keep us safe. Processes when we're anxious about how we do something, we like to go back to a flow chart or a map of some description and that helps us feel less anxious.

So I'm not naturally a process person, but I understand that if I have a roadmap a flow chart, a business plan, something that I can send people back to, meeting norms, very clear agendas. We need low variance routines for our staff as well as our staff Indeed we do, debbie, indeed we do. So if we get that balance right, we trust people to follow the process. Then that's what gives us surety, that's what stops the fear, and you want processes that exist. So listen to this, instructional leaders you want to create something that exists when you're gone. So if you're the only expert, you're the only person who runs the meeting, you're the only person who makes the resources, you're not empowering other people. The minute you leave, whatever you're running disappears. So, instructional leaders, deputies, whatever you are creating processes that allow you to remove yourself and that will still continue when you're gone.

And how often have you? And I said Jen, you fall to the level of your systems. So if you have a major flu epidemic in the place you live and you've got a third of your staff away, the systems you have in place will hold you up. If your school has been running well because of the individuals involved but you don't have any documented systems and I'm not talking about 150 page document here, we're just talking about a one pager for this thing and a one pager for that thing if you don't have those processes documented, when the people who held up the school are not there for some reason they could have gone on year five, six, camp, something, whatever it is then everything falls over and then it's extra stressful. So you fall to the level of your systems, everybody. And when you've got them, as jen said, they, they hold you up.

It also is I'm listening to you, jenny I'm thinking about a phrase you've used with me before, which has been that we operationalise our values. So, coming back at, let's bring everything back to that one core value. It's how we really live it, and then the value becomes transformational for the school rather than being a thing that's on the poster that we go. What was that again?

I say to people, what are your school values? Oh, we've got four of them. Yeah, great, what are they? Or I say, what's your purpose, mission, vision? And some people can sprout it but then can't tell you what it looks like on the ground. And so it's never a waste of time to say actually, what does this look like If we're using our values in our year one, two phase of learning team? What does that look like? How are we talking to each other, how are we acting and interacting? And then formalise that. And I always say if it's a rule for the kids, it's a rule for the adults. So I make my norms very much like student rules.

I say things like in this, this team, we arrive on time. In this team, we make sure everyone gets a turn. In this team, we, rather than we, respect other people's opinions. Well, sometimes respect means robust conversations. Sometimes respect means I do not agree with you conversations. Sometimes respect means I do not agree with you. Um, so instead of big edu speak, I say just make them like school rules in this meeting we or in this team, we, and just make it nice and specific, and that's operationalizing your values and, as you said, then, bringing everything back to that one hedgehog principle leaders have a a right of good to great by Jim Collins, and that's that one principle that underpins everything.

Jenny, I think we could talk for another four hours and still not even get close to the range of topics that we could be discussing. So let's hold space to come back together at another point in the future. But thank you so much for being with us. I'd like to like for real finish off now, because I said we're finishing off before. But one more thing Can you please let everybody know about launching into leadership, the course that you have coming up and full disclosure everyone, I do not receive a dollar If you choose to join Jenny's program. I'm sharing this with you because I know how transformational it is to be properly equipped as a leader to do the role that we're doing. So, jen, tell us a bit about Launching Into Leadership and where people can find out more information about that program and you more generally.

People can find me at Positively Beaming. People can find me at Positively Beaming On Instagram. It's Positively Beaming, jenny, but positivelybeaming.com.au. And I'm just going to go back a little bit and let people know where Launching Into Leadership came from.

For many years, I ran the Women in Leadership programs for both the Department of Education and Catholic Education here in Western Australia and I developed. It was a four-day program when I ran it with them and we ran it face-to-face for years. And then that pandemic hit and we put everything online. And the first year we put it online, I thought we're never going to have the same feeling as getting 25 women predominantly in the same room. We're not going to walk away with that same. Oh look, we're all in this together. How brilliant, what a fabulous learning environment. However, we did when we ran it online. So I still run it face-to-face as a two-day program. So I still run it face-to-face as a two-day program, but I've spent the summer rejigging launching into leadership.

It's for new and inspiring leaders. You go through eight modules at your own pace and you get support from me. I pop in every now and again to make sure that you're on track and that you don't have any questions, and we look through things such as a new model of leadership, about what good leaders have and are. We look at your styles, we look at your um uh, just some things about the, the traps that new leaders fall into and some strategies for getting out of them. We've got a whole module on confidence and that is going live in May, so that's launching into leadership. That's fully online these days. There used to be an online component, but these days I just check in with the individuals as the program progresses, so I would love you to join me. It's available for purchase now, but we go live on the 1st of May.

Wonderful. So, jenny, you didn't tell everyone about your podcast, which is called Positively Leading. So if you loved what you heard here today, check out Jenny's podcast, positively Leading, where she interviews school leaders and talks about the real world of leadership in schools. And, you know, always keeping it real it's a good thing, but coming from a place of evidence, coming from a place of experience, coming from a place of having very credible information and strategies to share as well, it's been a pleasure to have you on the podcast. Thank you so much. I look forward to seeing you next time. We meet Everybody else until I see you in the next episode of the podcast. Happy teaching, bye.

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Apr 27, 2025 08:00am

By Jocelyn Seamer

Under education, literacy, literacy podcast, structured literacy, teaching & teacher

40 min read

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S5 E15 - Interview with Jenny Cole - Navigating Leadership in a Changing Landscape

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