No Excuses Leadership

Model: Candor

Early on in my career, a friend of mine identified a major shortcoming in me as a leader.  She mentioned that I was a "compulsive problem solver".  Not knowing exactly what that meant, I asked for more information.  She went on to share that in spite of my drive to address the daily challenges brought to me by staff members, I was doing more harm than good.  She mentioned that when I was always the one fixing the problems, I was missing opportunities to teach others how to solve problems on their own.  In short, she feared that when the day came for me to leave the site and move on to another location or position, the school would suffer from an absence of leadership capacity.

The result of this conversation was the development of what we call "Candid Collaboration".  I detail the whole process in my book No Excuses Leadership, but in short it is a systematic approach to build a culture of candor by teaching it to everyone on staff.  Instead of people coming to the principal to solve their problem, we empower teachers and staff to take initial steps to attempt to find solutions on their own. None of this happens overnight.  Nor does it happen simply because the school principal says it has to take place.  It happens when BOLD leaders model candor. 

TAKE ACTION

Dig deep into chapter three of my book to find out more about how to role-play and model the four steps of Candid Collaboration.

1. Support: Teach staff how to have low risk conversations with one another to offer help.

2. Accountablility: Show them how to use the words meant to hold one another accountable while at the same time maintaining the highest degree of professionalism.

3. Intervention: Model what it looks like to have a team bring issues to the table in such a way that doesn't come across as ganging up on one particular individual.

4. Resourcing: Give examples of times when staff members truly do need to resource the support of the principal or others in positions of leadership.

BE BOLD

Practicing Candid Collaboration is a great opportunity to teach.  From brand new educators in the classroom, to CEO's of major companies, most of us are familiar with the
Tell - Show - Do - Try - Review
approach. Use it as you model your work as a No Excuses Leader.