Building and developing a successful senior leadership team is an important part of the role of a head of school. In this article Simon Clark shares the following four strategic tips for how you can do this:

• Be clear on the key characteristics of an effective leadership team: having a "clear and compelling purpose", able and competent members, clear operating rules, strong team leadership, and regular self-evaluation.
• Assess needs through an audit and identify targets. This will allow you to see what is going well, what is not going so well, and what needs to change.
• Create a framework for leadership development. Leadership development should focus on the capacity to act and being able to act confidently with clarity and effectiveness “in the moment”.
• Use coaching to develop practice. Coaching should always be about specific improvements and have a clear goal.

Click HERE for the article.

Trust is essential to a successful school. There is huge power in hearing ‘I trust you’. Indeed, genuine trust is tremendously powerful. But it is also incredibly fragile.

In her article Essential. Powerful. Fragile: How to build trust in your school Caroline Sherwood explores how we can build trust in our leadership. The article is structured around three foundations to increasing trust:

• Take the risk to care because it unlocks human connection: leaders – as the carriers of culture – must embody compassion and inclusion in their leadership. Working in a team that values everyone’s contributions, values healthy disagreement, and values and cares for every member unlocks human connection (thus creating motivated, higher performing teams).
• Be deliberate with intentions so you put purpose into action.
• Strengthen integrity to increase your credibility.  You can do this by being a model for your team; being a risk-taker and standing up for what you believe in; and being a role model for living your organisation’s values.

The article contains a summary of the 13 behaviours that high-trust leaders consistently exhibit, as described by Stephen Covey in his book, The Speed of Trust (2006). “it is like making deposits into a ‘trust account’ of another party”.

1. Talk straight
2. Show respect.
3. Be transparent.
4. Right wrongs.
5. Show loyalty.
6. Deliver results.
7. Get better.
8. Confront reality.
9. State expectations.
10. Be accountable.
11. Listen first.
12. Meet commitments.
13. Extend trust.

Clicxk HERE for the article.