Mana Motuhake: empowering others

As a cluster, we are geographically distanced and socially, culturally and experientially diverse. Nearly a quarter of the staff are new to the RTLB service and many are new to the region. More than this number again are leaning towards the end of their professional careers. These factors present particular leadership challenges in terms of effecting Cluster-wide change and, perhaps more importantly, in maintaining that change. Our cluster is currently revisiting our Vision Statement to ensure that it is still meaningful and inspirational to an everchanging landscape of people.

Equitable, inclusive success for all

Making a positive difference for all cluster Schools

(Cluster 1 Vision Statement)

An example of leadership practice that demonstrates my ability and willingness to listen, demonstrate care, and include others in the decision-making process is the way I approach the case management process from 'Whakawhāungatanga', 'Tātai' to supporting teachers and whānau to implement change (Whakamahi) through to 'Mana Motuhake'. Building trusting relationships with students, whānau principals, teachers, and other professionals are critical to leading change and while the types of relationships you have with each of these stakeholders is different, having genuine respect, recognising, valuing and drawing upon their perspectives, knowledge, expertise and strengths; and inclusion are essential to all.

In the words of Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu "To lead people, walk beside them". To me, this is analogous to the facilitative leadership model, where participants co-create a vision of what success looks like. Once the vision, outcomes and responsibilities have been negotiated, all participants share responsibility for the implementation. Conley and Goldman (1994) emphasize the importance of trust, "a letting go of control and an increasing belief that others can and will function independently and successfully". Rees (2001) identifies a basic principle of facilitative leadership - "a facilitative leader is someone who acts on the premise that a leader does not do for others what they can do for themselves". Schwarz (2002) states that “the facilitative leader helps groups and individuals become more effective through building their capacity to reflect on and improve the way they work". I believe that in general, I am a facilitative leader. According to Fullan (2001), whatever your preferred leadership style, authentic leadership is dependent on your moral purpose. As a neurodiverse person, what drives me is the vision of an educational system that meets the needs of all students. My moral purpose is therefore to counter what is currently an inequitable system by supporting change, which is consistent with my Cluster's moral purpose:  to ensure 'equitable, inclusive success for all'.

Improvement to the RTLB service according to the findings of Education Review Office and detailed in the Resource Teachers: Learning and Behaviour Governing and Managing RTLB Clusters (2018), is in part due to the new structure that more clearly defines the roles and responsibilities of Cluster Managers, Principals, and Boards of Trustees. Overall success was attributed to Cluster Managers, citing "high levels of trust and respect and strengthened professional relationships at all levels of the cluster". Practice Leaders and Liaison RTLB were also identified as integral to the progress made through "developing professional relationships, providing ongoing support, and maintaining good communication with clusters, schools and kura". The key messages from the leadership journey of the cluster managers include differentiating between the roles of leadership and management, the importance of constantly adding to your kete of knowledge, nurturing professional support networks, and most importantly, in the words of Fullan (2001), "relationships, relationships, relationships".

One of the key messages imparted by Sarah Grant (Cluster 21), Marg Stewart (Cluster 26), and Lianne Kalivati (Cluster 28) is that of distributive leadership. Distributive leadership, often referred to as democratic leadership or shared/team leadership is commonly associated with school structures. It devolves power from a single leader and distributes it between team members. Emphasis is on the interaction between leaders rather than individual acts of leadership. It can be thought of as leadership by expertise rather than by role. Wenmoth (2016) describes the distributive leadership model in terms of networks. The term 'network' refers to the organisational structure, in this case the Cluster, analogous to the interconnectedness of the leaders across the cluster. 

Under a distributive leadership model, each RTLB is a leader. Like facilitative leadership, distributive leadership has an underlying tenet of developing responsibility and accountability in team members who are part of the leadership team. In terms of RTLB practice, I agree that a shared leadership style is essential to being able to work autonomously, being responsible, and accountable to the Practice Leader for successful case outcomes and managing systems and process. The role of the Practice Leader is thus to create a team culture that motivates and empowers RTLB to be innovative leaders themselves and to do the same for others within their sphere of influence. In the same way that the Practice Leader's role is to empower Specialist Teachers to be innovative leaders, it is our role to model distributive leadership across the kura and kaiako we liaise with. It is a powerful concept, that the more leaders you have within and across organisations, the larger the network that can influence change.

Leadership styles shape the culture of teams. Skilled leaders have more than one leadership style and are able to employ these flexibly to meet the needs of the situation or context. To do this effectively, Goleman (2006) suggests, depends on their ability to know themselves and to know others to create an environment that brings out the best in team members. Recent studies of mirror neurons supports this view. Interactions between individuals are influenced by their "social brains". That is, our mirror neurons mirror the emotions of the person we're engaging with and vice versa and in this way, become assimilated with each others emotional state. As a result, we have the ability to influence others' emotional wellbeing by being in control of our own. For this reason, Goleman suggests that social and emotional intelligence are essential skills of the effective leader.

The six leadership styles proposed by Goleman include commanding, visionary, affiliative, democratic, pace setting and coaching. Using Goleman's Six Leadership Styles matrix, my leadership style is a combination of democratic, coaching and affiliative, and somewhat visionary, which I was very relieved to learn. These leadership styles are associated with values and skills that lend themselves to contexts where developing relationships are important. In all my previous leadership roles, from leading sports teams, curriculum teams, syndicates, environmental groups and community groups, building team capability has been essential for success and consistent with my belief in  'walking beside not in front'.

As Malia discussed, having time allocation and professional development opportunities to grow leadership capability is as important if not more so, than every other skill we develop in the Specialist Teacher role. What is compromised in affecting quick change, is long term loss of trust and commitment.

In many ways, my leadership style overlaps with Servant leadership. When I consider the Māori leaders I have met or have known personally, they have all exuded the qualities of whakapapa, wairua, mana, mauri and hau, integral to leadership from a Te Ao Māori frame of reference. These qualities are apparent from the moment of meeting and reflecting on what I know about them, this is likely to be because of who they are as people. A Eurocentric view of leadership often value different traits, perhaps because of the fundamentally different measures of leadership, measured by service rather than meeting arbitrary success criteria.

I was also interested in Malia describing her early experiences in the Cluster Manager role using the analogy of 'getting into the waka and just paddling'. This is essentially what I did when I first started as a Specialist Teacher, and it is only now, a year into the role, that I am consciously making decisions rather than just reacting. 

I was interested in Malia's research findings, that Practice Leaders preferred support from people who were 'close and regular'. People who they could get to know and had shared values with. The Cluster Manager was found to be essential in modelling inclusion, valuing team members and building trust. Listening to Malia talk about her role of providing support when the role becomes challenging, caused me to reflect on my Cluster's support systems. My Cluster uses a mentoring model from the NZ Coaching & Mentoring Centre: The Power of Peer Supervision. Staff have previously been trained in the processes and chose their peer mentors. Staff leave and new staff arrive. New staff haven't had the benefit of the training and are assigned to peer groups, as these have already been established. Often the members of the group are geographically distanced from one another and so meetings are infrequent at best, consequently relationships are not strong. Because the meeting format is very prescribed, following set procedures from the manual, there is no circular conversations. I don't find these peer support groups helpful whatsoever, especially as I often lose a half a day's work if you include travel. I have overcome this by sourcing professional support come from a mentor based in the same office space as me and with whom I have developed trust. We have regular 'case review' hui and have many conversations by the water cooler as and when required. Stewart (2016), in the Tedtalk '51/2 Mentors that will change your life', talked about the many different types of mentors available, and which I use both personally and professionally.

World view mentor

My world view mentor is my partner. He is not only super intelligent, he reads widely on a wide range of subjects and has the ability to see issues from a range of different perspectives. He's good at seeing the big picture. Sometimes annoyingly so. I tend to use him for support with big life decisions.

Street view mentor

I have many street view mentors depending on the context. For my mahi, it is my colleagues. They are dealing with the same situations in the same contexts every day and they have a wealth of knowledge to share. Even though there is something to be learned from everyone I tend to go to the same people, consistent with Malia's research, because there is a degree of trust necessary in seeking out advice and guidance.

Time machine mentor

I have many time machine mentors, such as Siddhartha Gautama, for philosophical guidance of wellbeing and humanist perspectives and a whole raft of educationalists and psychologists including Piaget, Bandura, Bronfenbrenner and many more, who have all added to my kete of knowledge.

Stealth mentor

Every person I come into contact with is a stealth mentor to me. I learn something from every person I meet provided I take the time to listen in the moment and with an openness to learning. This category includes the anti-mentor for me, because sometimes learning what you don't want to be or do is more valuable than what you do want.

Categorical mentor

I have many categorical mentors, not surprisingly depending on the category. In terms of mahi, I seek out those whom I know have expertise or wisdom in a particular area. Nicola for structured literacy, Lisa for autism, Mereana and Noel for cultural advice and guidance. Again, having a relationship is important when it is a work situation. In other contexts I frequently seek guidance from other mentors with whom I have no relationship, Dr. Google for example. These are one-way mentorships where a relationship isn't integral. I had a conversation with someone about this recently. She belongs to a professional Facebook group with expertise in field. She wanted to ask a work related question that she desperately needed the answer to, but was so worried about the possibility of being seen to ask a stupid question, that she continually put it off.

Receptive mentee

For me, the most important message from Stewart is his commentary on being what I would like to call a 'receptive mentee'. The receptive mentee acknowledges that they always have something to learn, knows that everyone has some knowledge or understanding worthy of learning, and is receptive to every opportunity to learn from them.

In addition to these, I often turn to my Practice Leader for advice and guidance. Her approach when I have experienced challenging situations has been strengths based. She frames all our conversations  in terms of learning opportunities and I have not once felt that I have been judged or fallen short of expectations. It means that I am confident to seek her advice and guidance in all matters. I hope I am in turn modelling that for others.