The style of management you choose to use in any given situation is governed by two things, your willingness to support and your willingness to challenge.

You may find yourself needing to offer a high level of support and play the role of counsellor in a situation where it’s not about a persons’ capability but about their confidence.  In this instance your job is to listen, encourage and reassure.

And, when you get the feeling that people are wasting your time or deliberately trying to create a smoke screen or confusion then a high level of challenge is required.  In this situation you become a task master who is assertively laying down the rules and boundaries.

Coaching is the ideal style of management because it requires both a high level of support and a high level of challenge and even if it feels like a massive investment in time, the payback is far greater than any other management style.

A willingness to support is about …

• Being able to listen carefully to others’ opinions, ideas, information and concerns
• Checking to test for understanding and clarity
• Offering guidance, help and reassurance as necessary
• Empowering others to act with backup if required
• Considering other’s needs when offering support

A willingness to challenge is about…

• Expressing your views as clearly and assertively as possible
• Setting high expectations
• Stating the actions or results you want
• Pointing out the positive or negative consequences of not meeting expectations
• Offering alternative views and ideas

The secret is in the balance and often as managers we lean one way or the other and get it wrong by offering support when challenge is required or visa versa.  For those who hate conflict they believe the softly, softly support approach is the right one, but not always.

And for those who like to take a harder line sometimes challenging too much as act as a de-motivator and have the opposite affect.

Dot Struthers specialises in leadership and management development for teachers.  If you would like some free resources and a monthly CPD newsletter register at www.merechats.co.uk

Image: ‘after view of my classroom‘

“This is another fantastic way to take Teachers TV content to our audience. Teachers TV are constantly looking for new ways to make training as accessible and painless as possible.  Training shouldn’t be a chore so access on iTunes is great news.  It’s wonderful that our users will be able to download a quick update on classroom discipline at the same time as that Leona Lewis single!”

Patrick Lencioni has written a book called The Five Dysfunctions of a Team which has inspired me to share my experiences on this topic.

Is your team dysfunctional?

We have probably all experienced being in a dysfunctional team at least once in our lives but it is useful to remind ourselves what they look like. Run down this list and ask yourself honestly if you’ve seen this in your team:-

• A lack of trust and willingness to show any vulnerability
• A fear of conflict with people holding back and guarding their comments for fear of offending
• A lack of buy-in and commitment to decisions because thoughts and feelings have not been sufficiently aired
• Where colleagues are afraid to challenge and hold each other accountable leading to deadlines being missed
• Where individuals put their own needs and agenda before the collective team goals and allow their egos to get the better of them

How can you avoid dysfunctional teams?

Whatever stage of development your team are in its is worth taking some time out to work with your team on assessing where they think they are by using these questions:-

1. How much trust exists between your team members and how do you know this?
2. How much conflict occurs within the team and how do you handle it?
3. How easy is it to get people to really buy-in and commit to decisions?
4. How good are you at holding your peers accountable for their behavior and actions?
5. Are your team more focused on their individual goals or the teams goals?

Once you become aware that your team is dysfunctional the best thing you can do is to acknowledge it and discuss it as a team, otherwise it will fester and become worse.

Link: http://howtomakeadifference.net/2009/04/anna-hassan/

Our feelings and emotions can build up inside of us a bit like hot steam in a pressure cooker and if they are not regulated and controlled they can explode.

The problem with holding onto your emotions until bursting point is that it can lead to you getting angry and you may even shout which may give you temporary relief but it can also leave you feeling guilty or embarrassed.

And sometimes as the pressure builds up for some people the only way out is to moan, nag, drink or engage is some other negative pursuit which relieves the tension but wastes energy and the problem remains unsolved.

Some people think that if they hide their feelings they are managing them.  But this is really not the case and what happens is that our emotions seem to leak their way out in the form of sighs, fidgeting and nervous laughter.   This might bring minor relief but that’s all

So how do you manage your emotions?  Here are few thoughts about saying healthy and in control.

Dot Struthers runs tele coaching sessions for teachers wanting to stay in control of their emotions.  To get your free monthly CPD newsletter register at www.merechats.co.uk

More than 100 local authorities in England will share £499m brought forward from 2010-11 to the coming financial year, after bidding for capital investment made available in last November’s Pre-Budget Report.
Mr Balls has also accelerated another £390m of capital funding devolved to direct to every school head in England to invest in smaller projects as they see fit – from building new classrooms or science laboratories to fitting out new gyms or ICT facilities. A further £30m is now available for play areas.

The announcement is a key plank of the Government’s fiscal stimulus package to boost the economy in the current downturn.

It means that overall schools capital spending in 2009-10 will be will now be £7.943 billion – up from under £700m a year in 1997.

Mr Balls also welcomed new measures to support long-term public capital investment programmes by enabling private finance to keep flowing into the Building Schools for the Future programme (BSF) and other PFI-funded projects, announced today by the Chief Secretary to the Treasury.

Some more figures regarding Persistent Absence (PA):

• In primary schools PAs accounted for 1.7 per cent of enrolments;
• Compared with 2006/07, the rate of PAs has reduced from 4.1per cent to 3.6 per cent.
• The rate of overall absence for PAs is 35.15 per cent, which is over 5 times higher than the rate for all pupils.
• In 2007/08 some 3.7 per cent of girls in primary, secondary and special schools were PAs. This is slightly higher than the proportion of boys who were PAs.
• The occurrence of PAs was higher amongst pupils who are known to be eligible for free school meals (FSM). In 2007/08, 8.2 per cent of pupils who were known to be eligible for FSM were PAs, compared with 2.8 per cent for the rest of the school population.
• The percentage of PAs increases as pupils progress through school. For national curriculum year groups up to year 11, the highest percentage of PAs is in year 11, where some 9.5 per cent of enrolments were PAs.
• The percentage of PAs was highest for the Traveller of Irish Heritage (36.8 per cent of all Traveller of Irish Heritage children were PAs); Gypsy/Roma (30.2 per cent) and Mixed (White and Black Caribbean) (5.3 per cent) ethnic groups. The percentage of PAs for all pupils was 3.6 per cent.
• In most primary schools (84 per cent), less than 3 per cent of the school population are PAs.

Many more figures are available in the official document.

One possible solution is Parent Hotline; a unique number for each school that hundreds of parents can ring simultaneously to keep up-to-date with the latest news.
The service is very effective; each school is given a unique number for their school. A designated member of staff rings the service from any location and leaves an emergency message informing everyone what is happening. Parents and staff can then ring in on a low call rate number (0844) to listen to the latest message. The message can be updated any number of times and listened to by hundreds of parents simultaneously.

The service is low cost at only £95 ex VAT per year. The service can also be used for school trips, after school clubs, sports fixtures and other important announcements throughout the year.
There is a one-off set up fee of £100.  (For NAHT members this fee will be waived for all schools registering before the end of February).

To register your school, please email register@parenthotline.co.uk or call 01444 448092 (please be aware that lines may be busy!).

Diary

The key to having a successful diary is simplicity and flexibility.  You need three things in your diary, a place to record appointments, a place to formulate a “to do list” and a year planner to keep your eye on the longer term.

Daily plans or to do lists are essential to maximising your time.  They are normally created the day before and list the key things you want to achieve tomorrow.  What you need to think about is what you want to achieve, how long it will take, how important it is and when you will fit it into your diary? 

Prioritising your activities

Try prioritising your work into 4 categories; do it now (high importance/high urgency) defer it (high importance, low urgency) delegate it (low importance, high urgency) and dump it (low importance, low urgency).

Few tasks are both urgent and important it’s just that urgent tasks appear important because they demand action now.  It’s the urgent things like phone calls, demanding parents and accidents at school which can force us to put our long term goals to one side. 

The best way of dealing with interruptions is to ask yourself “is this more important than what I am doing” and if the answer is NO, then delegate or defer it to another time.

Learn from your mistakes

It’s always a good thing to take about 15 minutes out at the end of your day to review what has been achieved and to create your to do list for tomorrow.  Start by asking yourself these questions:-

• Did I underestimate what was involved?
•  Should I be more assertive?
• Can I change any of my deadlines?
• Can I get help?
• What things could I have delegated?
• Did I spend too long on one thing, i.e. being a perfectionist?

The key to being in control of your time and your day is to have a system that works for you.  How well is your system working for you?

Dot Struthers runs tele-coaching programmes to support teachers and if you would like to receive her monthly CPD newsletter register at www.merechats.co.uk