Tag Archives: #leadership

Wayfinding as a frame for leadership

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“It’s not down in any map; true places never are.” Henry Melville

I’ve returned from the Association of Heads of Independent Schools of Australia, held in Aotearoa New Zealand, where the theme of the conference was the Māori proverb Ka mua, ka muri: Walking backwards into the future. This proverb reminds us that we move forward by knowing and facing what is behind us, by understanding and accepting our stories and histories, and by drawing on wisdom learned through challenge.

Dame Farah Palmer’s keynote invited leaders to think like wayfinders, being guided by a range of values and knowledges. I was reminded of the chapter I wrote with Claire Golledge, published in 2021 – ‘Wayfinding: Navigating complexity for sustainable school leadership‘. In the chapter, we explore wayfinding as a way to conceptualise the complex, nuanced work of the leader.

School leaders are faced with a role in which there is often no map for the complex challenges they face, as they tackle a multiplicity of factors and expectations within dynamic environments. School leaders lead their schools through constant flux, heightened accountabilities, curriculum change, harmful media narratives, and education policy reform, not to mention climate crises, economic disruption, political unrest, pandemics, and social inequity. Over time, leaders build a map of sorts, of tried-and-tested routes for the various circumstances they face. However, there are times when well-worn paths have not been trodden in the direction in which a leader needs to go.

The metaphor of wayfinding shifts attention from the singular leader hero to an ongoing practice of leading that is purposeful, relational, iterative, and anchored in context. Drawing on Indigenous oceanic navigation as a discipline of presence, discernment, and collective endeavour, in our chapter Claire and I explore how leaders might find their way amid uncertainty and complexity. Below, I provide a quick tour of our reflections.

Orienting ourselves

Wayfinding begins with orientation. A ‘you are here’ dot on a map provides us with a sense of where we are in the bigger picture, and of the various environs we need to be aware of as we navigate our way. Our orientation can be enriched by recognising the past. Leaders need both the bird’s-eye map and the ground view, holding the wider context and network of possible routes in mind while noticing the small markers that matter today (a parent’s email, a child’s expression, a teacher’s hesitation).

Simultaneous path-following and free-ranging

There are times in leadership that feel like route following: enacting policy, upholding procedures, attending to scheduled activities. But leadership constantly throws us into free-ranging navigation: emergent dilemmas, contradictory demands, storms that arrive unforecast. Wayfinding accepts this duality. We have our charts and our maps. We are steadied by our values. And we adapt to the unknown and unpredictable ethically and judiciously.

Knowing self, knowing context

Wayfinders learn the environment and themselves. Tuning into context and conditions is essential when we are leading and finding our way to the best decision. Knowing ourselves means knowing our values, understanding our non-negotiables, and reflecting on our past to lead with identity-awareness and vulnerability.

Navigating roadblocks

The best laid plans and the most detailed maps are no match for unexpected conditions. No Through Road. Wrong Way Go Back. Slippery Surface. Falling Rocks. Kangaroos Ahead. Navigating the unexpected means applying decisiveness when required alongside intuition and reponsiveness, in order to course correct as an when divergence is required.

Instruments fit for purpose

Like traditional navigators, school leaders need to carry and deploy a plurality of instruments fit for a range of possible purposes. In our chapter, Claire and I argue for both/and instruments: data and narratives; policy and ethics; consultation and clarity of decision; shared language and careful messaging. We need to be sense-led, evidence-informed, attuned to the limitation of our tools and alert to the human impacts.

Walking backwards into the future

Much of the work of the leader requires courage, creativity, a strong network of trusted colleagues, and a constant state of responding to circumstance, honouring the past while looking to the future, considering the needs of individual and of the collective, and overseeing structures and operations while being responsive to changing circumstance and human complexity.

A wayfinding approach to leading balances intuition with strategy, the human with the operational. If we consider ka mua, ka muri in our leadership, we remember to look back as we move forward. We hold the past gently while we step into the future, honing our judgement and allowing it to be informed by past, present and future time and place.

Reference:

Netolicky, D. M., & Golledge, C. (2021). Wayfinding: Navigating complexity for sustainable school leadership. In Future alternatives for educational leadership (pp. 38-53). Routledge.

Leadership in 2020

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It is becoming increasingly apparent that, while leadership is about service, in order to lead we need to look after self. Familiar analogies–of fitting our own oxygen masks before we can help others, and filling our own cup before we can pour from it into the cups of others–apply. Leading involves difficult, complex, human, relational work. Leaders need to build in their own mechanisms for wellbeing, such as pauses, support, breaks, and doing those things that nourish and replenish us.

I have been quiet on the blog this year. There are a few reasons. 2020 (probably enough said). A new job. An exciting behind-the-scenes project. Prioritising the important stuff (including family and self-care, as well as work, writing, and advocacy) over feelings of obligation or guilt. Working on saying ‘no’ sometimes.

This year has served up a squall line of disruption and distress. Since March, leaders in all industries have been responding at pace to relentless changes and uncertainty. We have had to reconnect with one another and reimagine our fields. We have had to reconsider the foundations of leadership. We have asked: How have we historically done things? How could we do things now? How might we do things differently? How do we want our world to be? How do we each want to be? What really matters and how do we enable and protect what is most precious and pressing?

Recently, as part of the WomenEd Australia network group, I participated (from afar) in the WomenEd global virtual unconference (a participant-driven meeting). WomenEd—a global grass roots association and 35,000-strong international community, based out of the UK and co-founded by Vivienne Porritt, Jules Daulby, and Keziah Featherstone—is a movement that aims to connect and support women in education, and to advocate for diversity and inclusion in the education sphere. It encourages diverse educators to be ‘10% braver’, to shift out of their comfort zone little by little.

The team of WomenEd Australia prepared a video presentation that explored what influences our leadership, available on YouTube.

In my video reflection for the unconference, I discussed that my own practices of leading are anchored in working towards a shared vision and moral purpose. I begin from a base of trusting in the capacity of those throughout the organisation, and in the importance of supporting and investing in teachers. Good leaders build good leaders.

In the video, I also explain that my leading practices are underpinned by frameworks for action. These include:

  • Consciously navigating tensions. Switching between the ‘dancefloor’ and the ‘balcony. Being strategic while also working to understand the lived experience of those in the school and community. Communicating with clarity and also empathy. ‘Leading fast and slow’ – at once able to respond quickly but also to work strategically at the long game; implementing gradual change with the aspirational end in mind.
  • Applying clear frameworks for decision making with consistency and transparency. One thing we are desperately missing during 2020 is predictability; knowing what to expect and what is likely to come next. I really hope that 2021 can bring more certainty and less anxiety.
  • Meaningful collaboration and consultation. Working at ‘we’, ‘alongside’ and ‘together’. Seeking out dissenting voices and seeking to understand multiple perspectives. Some of the most exciting and uplifting parts of my leadership role are working with a range of diverse stakeholders on productive, positive change.
  • Marrying clear policy and process with responsiveness and adaptability, qualities brought into sharp focus by the constantly changing circumstances of 2020.

Recently, the Year 12s at my school had their final Valedictory celebrations. In their yearbook, I pointed them towards Mariannne Williamson’s words, in which she encourages us to be our brave, unique selves.

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. … Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine.”

Shining has often felt out of the realms of possibility this year. Surviving is more likely to describe how many are feeling, even those who others may say have shone and been part of significant or invaluable work. Part of leading may involve demonstrating strength or holding the line, but leading also encompasses empathy, vulnerability, and sitting with discomfort. We can be powerful beyond measure, especially when we give ourselves permission to take time and care for ourselves, when we support and energise one another, and when we work towards a common goal, one tiny nudge at a time.