Choosing the Right People & Team Beliefs
CPD: Leadership for Teachers (by Sam Strickland), topic 4.1.1
Choosing the Right People & Instilling Belief
When you build your team, do not surround yourself with carbon copies of yourself. The very best leaders also instil belief in their team.
Suggestions for creating a team
- Try and create a team around you that is different, varied and approaches situations in a differing way.
- If you create a team of clones, your school will never truly advance.
Advantages of a varied team
- While consistency is crucial to creating certainty within a school, you do need a team of people surrounding you who are capable of questioning you, positively of course.
- You also need to spread your net wide and create a network of people you can call upon for help, support, advice and guidance.
- You can never have enough sounding boards.
Writing people off
- Be wary of writing people off.
- Sometimes, we can be hasty in our judgements and views of people.
- Sometimes, in our haste, we make the wrong call.
Belief in being the best
- You want your team to believe that they are the best.
- As a leader, you need to allow this to perpetuate, to become a shared mindset, even if it is a myth.
- It's crucial that you do not become arrogant and complacent with it.
- The most skilled leaders will recognise when their team is surfing, swimming or sinking.
Test yourself on Choosing the Right People & Team Beliefs
Which kind of people should NOT make up the bulk of your team?
What should you do when forming a team?
What should you be wary of when hiring or forming a team?