Advice hub
One approach would be to
try to develop more emotional intelligence, which has fi ve key elements, according to American psychologist Daniel Goleman:
Self-awareness ■ Gain some perspective – get
a coach and create a safe space to build awareness of your blind
spots and try to improve them. ■ Be honest – are you in the right school? You might be a long-standing employee, but have any recent changes created tension within you? Is it time to move to a new challenge? This might be something to discuss with your SBP network or coach.
Self-regulation ■ Review your processes and
the scope of your control – Ben Solly suggests leaders should focus on what they can control, prioritising what is most important at any one time. Julie Cordiner’s Productivity for School Business Professionals contains lots of tips, techniques and practical activities to create
productive habits. ■ Life isn’t a soap opera – you have the ability to choose how you react to a situation. You can either storm out with EastEnders’ ‘duff duff
duff’ closing theme tune playing in people’s ears, or you can stay calm and rewrite the script in a less cliched, more imaginative and more productive way!
Motivation ■ Celebrate your successes –
add gin/chocolate/walking in sunshine/other (select as
appropriate). ■ Try to fi nd at least one good thing about a challenge or setback. It might be something small, like remaining calm or meeting a new contact.
Empathy ■ Be present in the room
– develop your listening skills and try to really hear what people are saying.
Social skills ■ Observe your
communication skills – think about your
body language, tone of voice, facial expressions, gestures and choice of language. Have you ever noticed when you’ve got one of them wrong and things
begin to fall apart? ■ Start networking – attend, where possible, face-to-face sessions and network with other school leaders.
I also recommend Andy Cope and Amy Bradley’s The Little Book of Emotional Intelligence for a light-hearted but insightful read. If we work full-time all year round, we are likely to work around 240 days a year (depending on annual leave entitlement). Why would we choose not to be tension-free during the majority of those days? By positively infl uencing others and making objective decisions from a position of clarity, we can carry the sunshine with us.
FundEd SUMMER 2021 21
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