Hosting Leaders lead with others about things that matter. Margaret Wheatley writes that "Hosting Leaders must:
Provide conditions and good group processes for people to work together.
Provide resources of time, the scarcest commodity of all." (MW)
On the right, (click to enlarge) is our Middle School (MS) Lead Team agenda for this week (3-Aug-2020) to prepare for two weeks of Teacher PD. What do you notice?
It's not complete
Monday from 9:00 to 11:30 and Tuesday from 8:00 to 9:00 are open work times
Monday from 11:30 to 14:00 is about
Monday does have the yearly goals for our organization (Peterson Schools) BUT they are very broad and need definition
For me, an important aspect about Educational Equity leadership, where "...each child receives what they need to develop to their full academic and social potential" (NEP) requires that we lead together so that all staff can develop to their fullest as well.
Don't get me wrong. If you knew me, you'd know I am a recovering perfectionist that likes to control. So, all Sunday I was also fighting my inner judge that said things like, "You're not prepared... You need to provide the plan or it won't go well... You're not a good leader." But, like my birth mother's bumper sticker used to read, "Don't believe everything you think." I know from beginning to host at GSP and DCP that it really works. BUT, this is my first time to begin with a blank slate and co-build from scratch as a part of my own "hosting leader" growth path.
Monday morning from 8:00 to 9:00 we spent more time sharing than I'd planned, resulting in not starting the piece about "What we hope to accomplish this week". (In another blog, I'll share my mentor's work around creating agendas.) But for now, it was most important that we emotionally connect, share our vacation stories, and see how we're feeling about what will be a most different year ahead. This allows us to be fully present with one another and begins to build vulnerability through shared stories and experiences.
Monday afternoon we had this and a great feeling that we'd done really good work. At then end, I asked the team to prioritize but we started to get bogged down and we were tired from getting back into things on the first day. So, we stopped.
Following Margaret's lead, I felt I'd accomplished these first two bullets on our first day and the team was feeling more comfortable to offer their ideas for a topics and to question my suggestions.
This allowed me on Tuesday morning to map out some things that would help our process. First, I chunked things into three groups: Academics, Culture, and Logistics. Then, I estimated the amount of time we'd need for each and compared it to the total time we have to make sure we didn't go over AND so we can have precious resource of time for teachers as well.
Tuesday afternoon we broke up into two Work Groups one with Coordinators to focus on academic topics and another with Psychologists to work on social emotional including Advisory.
I stayed with the Coordinator Work Group and we had an amazing conversation about how to have conversations with teacher teams about our planning. (That's a different blog.)
Tomorrow morning each Work Group will share what they did and we'll check how we're coming along given our time and what we'd like to accomplish. Then, we'll work again separately.
Thursday morning we're going to take a break from planning to begin work on a multi-piece work about building Equitable and Productive Communities. I'll write several blogs about this. (We would have done it tomorrow but it's my husband's birthday and I'm making him a special breakfast. Also, trying to model the personal and work negotiation.)