1. Team Leadership and Management
Session 1 - January 12th
Introduction
Teams/Groups

2. Aims Overview of module and brief explanation of assignment
Significance of leadership in our current system.
Brief overview of key practices and beliefs about leadership.

3. Overview GTC state that ‘You can’t improve schools without leaders.’
Leadership at all levels is the main strand of the School Effectiveness Framework.
School leaders need to develop school cultures to facilitate the growth of their leaders – good schools nurture good leaders and schools work better where there is a culture of shared leadership (Day et al, 2009).
It’s importance is underlined by its inclusion as a main theme of the current WAG review of CDP
Better leadership offers the potential for improved learning and wellbeing for our children.
Day, C. Sammons, P. Hopkins, D. Harris, A. Leithwood, K. Quing Gu, Brown, E. Ahtarigou, E. Kington, A. (2009). The impact of school leadership on pupil outcomes. DCSF, NCSL

4. Leadership Capacity
All teachers (and arguably other support staff) require and demonstrate leadership skills throughout their careers.
‘Leadership in the classroom requires practitioners to lead the implementation of pedagogy, curriculum innovation and knowledge about learning..’ (SEF, p13).
Teachers are required to be leaders of learning, to inspire, build trust and motivate.

5. Evidence shows that effective middle leadership is essential to drive improvement and supply the system with future headteachers: ‘an effective middle tier… is essential if all schools (not just some schools) are to be great schools’ (McKinsey, 2010, p 13).

6. Key Beliefs…
‘there is not a single documented case of a school successfully turning around its pupil achievement trajectory in the absence of talented leadership.’ (McKinsey & Company, 2010)
Evidence from Estyn’s inspection reports shows that schools with good and outstanding leaders are nearly all good and outstanding schools. Schools needing significant improvement or special measures to improve are nearly all those that have short comings in leadership.’ (Estyn, 2010)
2 McKinsey and Company. (2007): How the world’s best-performing school systems come out on top 3 Estyn (2010): The impact of the National Professional Qualification for Headteachers (NPQH) programme on headship.

7. What makes a good leader?
Discussion
Use your own experience of leading and/or being lead to answer this.

8. Leadership
The School Effectiveness Framework summarises the main characteristics of leadership as being visionary and strategic, collaborative and deploying resources to improve children’s learning and wellbeing.
However, there is more to it. The recent McKinsey report (2010) summarises key elements of good leadership which are consistently identified in research.
McKinsey & Company. (2010). Capturing the leadership premium: How the world’s top school systems are building leadership capacity for the future

9. Key Practices Building a shared vision and sense of purpose
Setting high expectations for performance
Role modeling behaviours and practices
Establishing effective teams and distributing leadership
Designing and managing a L&T program
Understanding and developing people
Key Practices
Protecting teachers from issues that distract
Monitoring performance
Establishing school routines and norms of behaviour
Connecting the school to parents and the community
Recognizing and rewarding achievement

10. Beliefs Attitudes and personal attributes
Resilient and persistent in goals but adaptable to context and people
Focused on student achievement: puts child ahead of personal and political interests
Willing to develop a deep understanding of people and context
Beliefs Attitudes and personal attributes
Willing to take risks and challenge accepted beliefs and behaviours
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Optimistic and enthusiastic
Self-aware and able to learn

11. Key Roles that School Leaders Play
All leaders and high performers are motivated mainly by their ability to make a difference
They focus more on instructional leadership and developing teachers.
Distinguished less by who they are and more by what they do
They find supporting the improvement of other schools and leaders attractive

12. The Importance of Teams
For schools to work and for leaders to be effective, it is vital that all staff see themselves as teams of practitioners.
As such it is worth looking at what constructs and effective team and how a team works at an optimum level

13. Team
More than simply a group of people. Groups tend to have some characteristics that differentiate themselves form others e.g. smokers, Man Utd supporters, doctors
Groups rare in education.
Teams are formed of specific reasons, usually connected to the responsibilities that people have or functions they fulfil

14. Teams in Schools Senior Management Team
Middle management teams - subject heads, pastoral leaders
Staff teams - within departments, phase groups, administrative units, maintenance, food
Interdisciplinary teams - those implementing policy at operational level
Project teams - established to achieve short-term goals. (These are the ones used to push organisational improvement)
Me: SMT
HofD
Part of department
Working party to further use of ICT
Pastoral (form teacher)
Literacy across the curriculum

15. How do teams work? Your own experience. Focus on two examples.
What did the/do the teams do?
What was/is your role?
What are your feelings about them? Why?
What do you/ did you learn from being a member?
What did you bring to either that was unique?

16. Why use Teams?
They bring to organisational development a quality that is essential in the effective management of change.
Combining skills of individuals makes greater use of individual personal skills - forms an entity that is capable of achieving far more than individuals operating in isolation.

17. Teams Team approaches increasingly used in education
People working in isolation in organisations are more likely to suffer stress
Change more effectively managed in a ‘collegial’ culture
Policy implementation is best achieved when groups of people work together to achieve consistency of practice.
Research indicates that schools benefit from developing teams that serve a variety of functions and purposes.
Much work in education now needs to be done by teams

18. Five Stages of a Team (Tuckman, 1965)
Stage 1 - Forming - dependence on leader Stage 2 - Storming - counterdependence. Stage 3 - Norming - norms established. Stage 4 - Performing - interdependence Stage 5 - Ending (‘mourning’) At all times, team leaders must remain aware of context team is performing in and how this may impact on the life of the team.
Sometimes stages are sequential - sometimes not. Some do not pass through all five stages. Some don’t progres at all.
Each stage has its own characteristics in relation to the behaviour of the team member and role of team leader.
Stage 1 - anxiety/ dependence on leader to set goals and define objectives. Code of conduct/ acceptable behaviour who is to be in/out, set the tone.
Stage 2 - counterdependence - over half way into team’s life. Usually some conflict arises - as people settle in. Challenge to leadership.
Stage 3 - norms established - independence developing. Leadership taking a back seat
Stage 4 - team doing task. Roles are functional and flexible. Energy therefore problems solved. Sense of team identity. Functioning at its best
Stage 5 - team finished task. Sometimes reluctance to let go.
Clear that leadership in relation to teams requires interpersonal skills, confidence, emotional maturity, stamina and a sense of humour as well as appretiation of
Situational nature.

19. Dr. Meredith Belbin - Group Behaviour
British Psychologist best known for work on Team- role theory.
“A tendency to behave, contribute and interrelate with others in a particular way”
He defined 9 particular roles in a team. (More than one role can be filled by any individual but team can have all)

20. Belbin’s Team Roles
Plant - creative, imaginative, unorthodox. Solves difficult problems
Resource Investigator - Extrovert, enthusiastic, communicative. Explores opportunities. Develops contacts.
Co-ordinator - mature, confident, a good chairperson. Clarifies goals, promotes decision making, delegates well.
Shaper - challenging, dynamic, thrives on pressure. The rive and courage to overcome obstacles.

21. Team Roles contd..
Monitor evaluator - sober, strategic. Sees all options, judges accurately
Teamworker - co-operative, mild, perceptive and diplomatic. Listens, builds, averts friction
Implementer - disciplined, reliable and efficient.
Completer/finisher - painstaking, conscientious, anxious. Searches out errors. Delivers on time
Specialist - single-minded, self-starting, dedicated. Provides knowledge and skills in rare supply
Each one of these can exert leadership, but effectiveness of team and success of its achievement depends on how
Well the individual role players manage their own dominant characteristics.
Leadership dependent on how personal and interpersonal skills are utilized

22. Strengths Develop collective responsibility
Reduce isolation and parochialism within the organisation
Greater variety of complex problems can be dealt with by the pooling of expertise
Problems seen from a number of different perspectives
Job satisfaction - part of the solution
Issues that cross departmental boundaries can be dealt with more easily and with more awareness
Teams are flexible and adaptive
Teams more likely to have higher quality decision making than individuals

23. Weaknesses
Must be properly managed - if not can have negative effect on morale
Poorly managed teams tend to have issues of competition, withdrawal, lack of trust, secretiveness, fighting for resources and power games
If not managed properly individuals can end up expending a lot of energy keeping activities going for little return -

24. Conclusion
An effective, performing team needs a number of different skills
Team members have to be prepared to compromise their individuality in favour of corporate responsibility and success
Effective leaders recognise how far each individual member of the team can compromise and accommodate them within the team as a whole.
Must achieve balance between intended outcome, maintaining team dynamic and making each individual feel valued.