In my final few weeks at my last school, I had a conversation with one of the parents who suggested that people stay in their companies for two reasons:
Our conversation turned to Dan Pink's Drive (where he suggests that people are motivated by autonomy, mastery, and purpose) and Simon Sinek. Sinek is someone who is frequently referenced in leadership theory, especially his famous Ted Talk 'Start with the Why'. Until now though, I hadn't been introduced to his Top 10 Rules for Success. These seemed to chime well with Pink's ideas and I think are worth sharing with others in the education community too, hence this brief blog. (I've written more about the importance of Pink's 3 principles of motivation in the context of improving teaching here). Our conversation soon moved on to what motivated me. This parent, who I'll call John for the sake of this blog post, asked me: "What are you passionate about? What do you want to do in your life?" My answer was that I enjoy helping other people succeed. This is one of the reasons I love being a teacher. John's immediate response was that this was not exclusive to teaching: this was leadership. Leaders shape the culture of an organisation, school or otherwise. Our conversation took many twists and turns but there were a few things that John said that stuck with me:
So, why do people stay in their companies or, in our case, their school? They feel like they're making a difference or they like the people they work with...hopefully both! Leaders can do a lot to shape this environment: staff should feel like they are part of a team, that they are striving towards a shared goal; they should feel like they are improving and that their is purpose to their work, that they are supported without being micromanaged. Schools can learn a lot from other organisations and companies, and many of the best do. So I ask you: what is your school doing to value and develop your staff? Do they feel like they are making a difference? Do you feel like a real team?
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