Leadership

Leadership is Influence. The Influence Framework.

~ Pran Patel ~ Leave a comment

I really struggled with this concept, those of you who have shared my journey will know that my aim was to stay away from leadership, my core purpose was solely around being the best teacher I could be. Early, while in middle leadership, I was told that all leadership had to be Machiavellian, that I had to be manipulative, you had to get people to do what you wanted. I was repulsed I felt that my leadership style would always be around the propagating my vision and being a person of integrity, being who I said I was.

It took time to realise that the vision propagation as well as the integrity, while fundamental parts of my character, they were also forms of manipulation. Even typing that now makes me shudder, I think the negative connations around the words just don’t sit right with me. Let me rephrase, leadership is about charm.

To charm followers, you have to become adept at influencing.

Influence Framework

All leadership is around influence. Let’s start with push and pull methods of influence. In my leadership training, I stop the session and beckon people over with my hand, to this date candidates have always left their seats and come to the position I beckoned them to.

When asked why they came over often the response is

‘you asked us to’

‘I actually I didn’t.’

‘But…’

This type of influence is regarded as a ‘pull’ it’s an indirect and subtle method of persuasion. I then, with my most authoritative voice tell candidates to sit down, exemplifying the push method. Which is direct and assertive.

The other spectrum we need to consider is whether your technique will be logical or emotional. Together these make up the influencing framework.

influence framework

Investigators = Push + Logic

These are the numbers people, here is the data the research. This is a logical decision. In my experience, these are teachers who have a mindset which incorporates real and exclusive truths (those with a positivistic ontological stance).

To adopt this style, you should be absolutely rational in your approach, no emotion just facts and logic behind that.

Leadership Styles 

Often seen in Pace Setting and Coercive leadership.

Example: You are leading implementing a new behaviour for learning policy, the team are hesitant to the change, you start your narrative around the logic of the change, incorporating the expert opinions and the data around other similar schools who adopted the change.

Calculators = Pull + Logic

Calculators will promote the strength of a course of action and highlight the negatives of others. The arguments are logical and rational but are not as assertive as Investigators.

Leadership Styles 

Often seen in Authoritative (Visionary) leadership style.

Example: The behaviour policy will impact on you personally by … and the downsides to not adopting means more of the same.

Motivators = Push + Emotion 

Emotional awareness with an assertive nature, this method incorporates emotion at its core and justifies courses of action through the same method.

Leadership Styles 

Often seen in coaching leadership style.

Example: This is the whole organisation is geared towards … This behaviour policy fits in with our overall vision because …

Collaborators = Pull + Emotion

This method is around using the emotions and involving people into the initiative. The democratic leadership style often involves this as an aspect, it’s a team effort, the follower is valued and so is their input, whilst all the time they are buying into the change.

Leadership Styles 

Often seen in affiliative and democratic leadership styles.

Example: As this fits in with our vision, how are we going to make this work for us …

What To Do

  1. Interrogate your own preferred style of influencing, Ask yourself how would I influence people?
  2. Now do the opposite, how are you influenced by people?
  3. Evaluate the environment you are leading in.
  4. Armed with this, aim to use as many different methods as you can in your next encounter. Use your charm.

References

Baker, T. 2015, The New Influencing Toolkit, Palgrave Macmillan UK, London.

Baker, T. 2015, Date viewed 10th July 2019, <https://www.trainingjournal.com/blog/four-strategies-influence-learners&gt;

Leadership Styles

~ Pran Patel ~ Leave a comment

Activity 1

Think of a leader you admire. Try and make this as personal as possible.

What are their personal qualities?

 

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

 

Daniel Goleman’s 2000 sets out 6 leadership styles.

Table 1

lead

In schools we have all met leaders who espouse the above labels, however, should we as leaders (at any level) constantly interrogate which leadership style we are using and with who?

Leadership Style Examples of when this style be implemented?
Coercive The organisation is in disarray. Change has to come from the top down. The leader is the basis of all direction.
Authoritative Followers are pulling in different directions, or working in silos. Vision led, leaders set the vision and the vision is the basis of the direction.
Affiliative The organisation is in a toxic state where interpersonal work relationships are impacting on outcomes.
Democratic Value and input are sort from followers. This also the effect of empowering followers.
Pace-Setting High pressure; similar to coercive but is high accountability at a high pace. To use this style you must have motivated followers with high competence.
Coaching When the long term in mind; building a sustainable organisation.

There are some ingrained themes here; all styles must be coupled with essential facets; like being driven by a strong moral purpose and integrity. This is because leaders can only lead if they have followers buy in.

People within an organisation will always resist change. This inertial movement is in many cases, not a rational action. It comes from the basic reaction of fear, ‘What if things get worse?’ Or ‘Things are okay (even if they are not relatively)’.

Leaders should also be aware that these styles are interchangeable and non-exclusive. It is imperative that leaders employ different styles. Goleman makes an apt analogy with golf clubs.

Activity 2

Think about 2 or 3 actions that your chosen leader has implemented since being in the role. What impact do their actions have on the climate of the organisation (positive or negative)?

1.

2.

Impact on the Climate.

leadclimate.png

‘Leaders who have mastered four or more – especially the authoritative, democratic, affiliative, and coaching styles – have the best climate and business performance.’

Daniel Goleman

Pacesetting and coercive styles both have a negative impact on the climate of the organisation. This does not mean they should not be utilised. As a leader you do not serve the climate of the school; you serve the vision of all stakeholders. Personally, my core purpose always brings my actions back to the pupils. These styles must not be used for prolonged periods of time.

Sustainable Change Starts with Trust.

I have led in schools for 15 years. In that time I have learnt that for any initiative or change to be built sustainably. Your followers need to build trust, in you as a leader and in your vision.

Trust is built in 2 ways:

  1. Through your actions– do you practice what you preach?
  2. Through conversation

The first is part and parcel of professional standards and the latter is equally as important.

 ‘The conversation is the relationship’

Susan Scott

To increase trust leaders have to be able to converse articulately and more importantly listen. In our classrooms, we would not speak to our pupils with the same tone and content. This variety is equally important, organisational school systems are equally important.

Goleman describes the style and interactions should be determined through the leader’s capacity for emotional intelligence. This is to first listen, evaluate and process the situation, environment and the individual. Understanding must come before any vision or change is propagated.

The 4 capabilities are self-awareness, self-management, social awareness and social skills.

 

References

 

Goleman, D. (2000). Leadership that gets results. Harvard Business Review, March – April, pp.78-90.

 

Cwalina, Wojciech & Drzewiecka, Milena. (2015). Ideal president like ideal boss? Looking for preferences of political leadership style: Cross-cultural study in Goleman’s typology. Przedsiębiorczość i Zarząddzanie. 16. 99-115.

That Poll: A 1st Class Degree Vs Struggles at School

~ Pran Patel ~ Leave a comment

poll

On Friday 7thJune, I posted the above question. Contentious, yes, cantankerous probably? What is the correct answer?  Well, there isn’t one. The question is relatively balanced, it was pointed out that teacher B had more characters than teacher A. I guessed that as academia is linked to educationalism within the axis of privilege (between credentialed and non-literate) teacher B should have more words. Not scientific in the slightest, but interesting none the less.

 

This question was posted with completely objective intent. I should point out that this came from MT about a psychologist from linkED in. I have been asked if this is an attempt to attack TeachFirst, I can assure you it is not. As far as I understand the TeachFirst criteria is 2:1 and above.

I should point out that I am not in favour of either teacher A or B, as either facet is meaningless without context. I would also argue I have no skin in the game, as I could also fit into either/both boxes.

Over 135 replies. 30+ people explicitly mentioned them being either teacher A or B or both in these replies. Humans form personal constructs that inform their understanding of the world and the environment. This means that the same thing can elicit a different response from different people. An example of this could be Ross’s dog patch (@RossMcGill),

patchmcgill.png

I see an amazingly happy and bouncy puppy where other people may see a vicious and scary animal. The same dog two different perceptions, neither of these options can be said to be correct or to be incorrect, as all human construct meaning personally. This work comes from personal construct theory (George Kelly 1950) can be formed through 2 entities which are similar to each other and different from the third.

Where do these constructs come from? Is it from behaviourism (through positive and negative reinforcements)? From the psychoanalysis (the interaction between en conscious and the unconscious elements of the mind). George Kelly posits that these personal constructs are responsible and take control of their acquisition and interpretation of knowledge, we are active in our epistemology.

Through these constructs, we form a lens at which we see and interpret our environment. This is how racism, sexism, etc. are constructed, but that is for another blog and another day. Where the question posed was simply a hypothetical thought experiment with fictional teachers A and B, people through their own lens related it to their own experience. ‘I am Teacher A’, ‘I was both’. This act of putting yourself in the shoes of the hypothetical teacher (either A or B) made you agree with one side or vehemently deny the other. Where is the rational objectivity in these decisions?

Which I suppose does little harm in a twitter poll scenario. However, when recruiting or even in working with children do we let this creep in? Do we show affinity to those who have similar traits and experiences as us? Do we judge teacher’s lessons on our own experiences? Do we treat children and their reactions based on putting yourself in their shoes and letting our own experiences guide your decision?

If we look at this in behaviourist terms. We have to ask the question of propagation, is this propagated through the cognitive confirmation bias, the personal construct may set us up to look for a certain trait and then we look for it.  When we inevitably find it’s this confirms the original construct and reinforces it. (Further information on Cognitive Bias))

Meaning structures are understood and developed through reflection. Mezirow states that “reflection involves a critique of assumptions to determine whether the belief, often acquired through cultural assimilation in childhood, remains functional for us as adults”

(Mezirow, 1991)

George Kelly in his theory postulated that humans are in control of these constructs, these constructs may happen real time but also happen later. This would be like looking at something afresh later and seeing thing differently (you have decided to use another construct).

The good news is that Kelly and other psychologists have proposed we have a choice in both of these scenarios, the choice to use different personal constructs at the time or later. With respect to the behaviourist approach, we have the choice to replace the association and reinforcement by using techniques to ameliorate your actions.

‘You are Biased’. Accept that.

~ Pran Patel ~ Leave a comment

I’m not Bias – What is Categorisation?

Looking at the 3 pictures below, which person is darkest?

black white am darker.png

Look again

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

One more time.

black white am darker

Now let’s take away the features.

blacwhitamblock

‘I am colour blind, I don’t see colour, I see and treat all people as human beings’

Aside from the ableist language. The above statements are inaccurate, yes, I know your eyes see the varying frequencies of light but obviously I mean the processing of people you observe by your brain.

Holguin et al 2000 took a racially ambiguous face (one that could fit various racial types from photofit software) and assigned traditional Latinx / black hairstyles. Then groups of latinx and black candidates were presented with a multitude of various photos and ask if they recognised/remembered the faces, there was a correlation between the Latinx and black candidates and the rate of recognising the face which they perceived to be one of their ‘in group’. This shows that people are more likely to recognise those who look like them.

latinxblack

Dr Eberhardt’s team from Stanford looked at MRI scans of white people’s brains when shown different faces. When shown the same white face the resulting brain activity dims, this makes sense your brain is processing the mass of cognitive input from all of your senses, your brain is trying to be more efficient, it works through the analogy of it has seen this before it doesn’t need to process it with the same effort as I did before, this is process called suppression.

What is fascinating is that when shown a multitude and variety of black faces the MRI scans showed similar results, your brain goes through the ‘I’ve seen this before I know what this is’ no matter how different the faces are. Your brain is not wasting its cognitive processing power on people of colour because it has seen them before and placed them in a category. Black faces and consequently, black people have been categorised.

What is Categorisation?

This is not the result of a diseased mind (this ode to another ableist call out (thank you to Danny Baker for highlighting)) which is not the result of a racist thinking or a racist mindset. It’s how the human brain works. That is okay. Yes, it’s okay to have biases.

I refer to bias as a habit of the mind. Your brain skips to conclusions because it’s easier, more efficient and this is an evolutionary necessity. Cognitive processing capacity is a finite and precious resource, evolution has designed our brains to use it sparingly.

How many of us check the road, stop, look (both ways) and listen when the traffic lights have turned red and signalled us to cross? It’s a given that red lights mean stop for cars.

Snakes signal fear, to most people (apologies to the herpetologists I have just ‘othered’ you). Seeing a snake, means to me, move and move quickly. This may be as a seen as an irrational act; my brain could act more rationally and try to remember the book I read as a child and remember that red on black … means … black on red … and now I’m dead.

With this mind, what associations do you think that we all form with people of colour?

  • People of colour (particularly women of colour) are not featured in blockbuster films. (As shown in this blog from Serdar Ferit @SerdarFerit) 
  • Black Caribbean boys with SEND are excluded 168 times than a white girl without SEND. (Report)
  • People of colour are vastly unrepresented in our school curriculum. (Blog)
  • Black Caribbean boys are twice as likely to be diagnosed with SEMH needs. (BBC article)
  • Black men are over 3 times more likely to be sectioned under the mental health act.Number of detentions under the Mental Health Act per 100,000 people, by broad ethnic group (standardised rates)
  • Pupils of colour are regularly under assessed when compared external terminal. (Blog)

bias.png

  • One in seven prisoners is a British Muslim, compared to one in twenty-five in the wider population. (BBC Article)
  • Reporting of terrorists (Article)
  • Etc. Seriously I could go on all day.

Prototyping and Leadership Categorisation.

Categorisation comes from the brain’s attempt to be more efficient by grouping information together, creating a prototype is the first stage in that process. The brain assigns certain attributes to the typical role. For example, Firefighters are male, nurses are female, Doctors are male etc.

Leadership categorisation theory in which individuals will be evaluated as most effective when they are perceived to have prototypical characteristics of leadership Comparing a person to the (leadership) prototype is a recognition based process and this can influence perception (Lord and Maher 1991).

Leadership prototypes are formed when 1. When repeatedly people learn which characteristics are central among leaders and 2. The converse when they repeatedly learn which characteristics are NOT leaders. (Rosch 1978)

It is worth noting that this leadership prototype is impacted on by

  1. Gender
  2. Culture
  3. Politics
  4. Race

Rosette et al (2008)

Empirical data

In summary, people’s brains form categories of what leaders look like and this can change the way we perceive people, this is based on repeatedly seeing leaders with those attributes and repeatedly seeing non-leaders with those attributes. What your brain thinks a good leader looks like can influence your perception of the leader regardless of their actions.

Rosette et al Participants (all at undergraduates and with a racial mix) are were asked to read a newspaper story about an interview with either a leader or a non-leader from a business, the racial composition was manipulated (either 50% or 20% white).

Here if the candidate was being influenced by their leadership prototype then the expected result would that the leaders would be presumed to white regardless of the racial make-up of the company. Even if whites were in the minority of the workforce they would still be more likely to be leaders as opposed to non-leaders.

Racism Composition Leader Identified as white Non -Leader Identified as white
No Information 72% 56%

This shows that white people are much more likely to be thought of as the standard and there is a greater effect when talking about leaders.

What Happened When they told Candidates the Racial Make-up of the Company?

Racism Composition Leader Non – Leader
50% 82% 63%
Racism Composition Leader Non – Leader
20% 50% 37.5%

White people were more likely to be assumed to be leaders than employees in all settings. Now let’s consider what this actually means when the candidate is told that the company is 50% or 20% white, the likelihood of the assumption that the leader is white considerably higher, over (or equal to) 30% higher than the base rate itself. There was no significant dependency when considering the candidates own ethnicity, this means that this is ingrained across all of society, all races and genders.

In Today’s Society who do we see as Leaders in Education? Who do we not see as Leaders in Education?

BAME colleagues make 10% of the workforce and less than 3% of headteachers. When an interviewer and chair of governors see a candidate are they comparing them to the prototype of a good leader? Is this a possible explanation of the deficit in the role?

Racism from negative racial stereotypes (aversive racism) was found to consistently impact through bias against people of colour and favour white people in non-leadership and leadership roles (Aberson & Ettlin, 2004).

What Impact does this have in the Classroom?

Remember that class/group of pupils you disliked? Where you were worried about the behaviour? Generally, you found that the behaviour is worse. There are 2 different facets to this. Let’s start with talking about the cognitive bias, confirmation bias, this is means once an association has been made people will look for the same confirmation and reject information to the contrary.

Ross McGill Morrison (@teachertoolkit describes confirmation bias in his blog on cognitive biases)

There are many other types of bias I could have chosen, but confirmation bias is vital for all teachers to know, particularly those using social media. This is when an individual focuses on information that only confirms their existing preconceptions. An example:

“We listened to what teachers said. Most of them said that there was no problem.”

Or an example, when a teacher presents an idea to a school leader: “I’d like to use virtual reality in my classroom.”

School leader: “Ooh, I’m not sure this will work well with our behaviour policy.”

When we tend to search for, interpret, focus on and remember information in a way that confirms one’s perceptions. This is an irrational decision to be able to estimate correctly what is happening.

The other cognitive bias is to do with the day to day expectations we already know that teacher judge pupils of colour lower than where they are (Blog), what we expect from pupils has an impact on their actual performance. These are called the Pygmalion and Gollum effect.

Which can be summed up as

Gollum: Expecting pupils to be more confrontational actually increases the chances of them behave more confrontational.

Rosenthal or Pygmalion: Expecting a child to do well, actually increases the chances that they will do well.

  1. Associations are made.
  2. Expectation through Pygmalion and Gollum effect causes these behaviours to exist or to do be noticed more frequently.
  3. This reinforces the original association through confirmation bias (looking to confirm your association).
  4. Go to step 2 and repeat.

How do we interrupt the cycle? That’s for another blog, but it’s coming. There is much work to do.

References

Brössel, P. Rev.Phil.Psych. (2017) 8: 721. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13164-017-0359-y

https://www.deepdyve.com/lp/springer-journal/rational-relations-between-perception-and-belief-the-case-of-color-pel6PXHAaI?key=springer

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18642982

https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2013-43969-001

https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/b82d/fc7f135c5f0df950f539346eb39458d23467.pdf

Eberhardt J (2019) The New Science of Race and Inequality Biased. London: Penguin Random House UK.

Underachievement and Teacher Bias.

~ Pran Patel ~ 2 Comments

 

bias.png

Let me start with the Rosenthal effect or more commonly known as the Pygmalion effect, this is where the observer or teacher expectancy directly impacts on pupil outcomes. This is a widely accepted concept in education, although the research underpinning does have its issues (that’s for another blog).

“When we expect certain behaviors of others, we are likely to act in ways that make the expected behavior more likely to occur.” (Rosenthal and Babad, 1985)

That means if I expect that a pupil will perform better, I will act in a way that makes that behaviour more likely. The converse is also true.

The golem effect seems, unfortunately, to be not only more frequent but also more powerful than the Pygmalion effect. (Eccles and Wiglfield)(1). Pupils will react to what teachers think about them, what teachers expect from them.

Do teachers have lower expectations for certain groups than others? I can hear the protestation through the screen. “I treat all pupils the same. I have high expectations for all my pupils.”

Do teachers expect more of certain groups than others?

Babad et al 1991 people of all ages respond immediately to both verbal and nonverbal behaviour of teachers based on what they expect from a student. While speaking to researchers about their students, teachers used verbal cues to relay how they felt about pupils. Although while in front of those very same pupils non-verbal cues were used to display the level of expectation of that student. Words are fickle as teacher actions in the classroom will uncover their true expectation of the people.

Let us all just reflect on that for a minute. The way you act verbally and non verbally based on your preconceived notion of that pupil will impact onthe outcomes for that pupil. If that preconceived notion is biased we are likely to impact negatively on those groups.

Do you as teachers expect more of certain groups (including race/ethnicity) than others?

‘Especially along socioeconomic and racial lines (which are to a large extent linked) gaps in both educational opportunity and educational achievement persist in our supposed democratic, egalitarian society.’  H Adams

David Burgess and Ellen Greaves look at the teacher assessment vs actual attainment of external exams of 11-year old across 16557 schools, 3 subjects and 4 years. This showed that the past performance of a specific ethnic group directly impacted on the current teacher assessment.

Bias is a habit of the mind. To judge every single person on their merit is incredibly exhausting and time inefficient. [Burgess and Greaves’] approach suggests that a teacher will categorise students and create prototypes or exemplars to make conscious or unconscious judgements about future students of the same group. (Chang & Demyan, 2007) show that teachers hold these exemplars or stereotypes, and show that they differ across ethnic groups.

It is worth stating the Key stage 2 SAT are marked quasi-blind i.e. with the name of the pupils, this may skew results negatively towards external marking, implicit bias along the lines of race should lower the results of externally assessed pupils as a result. How precisely the opposite was found; Pupils of certain groups were assessed lower than others.

‘We have shown that there are enduring and significant differences in teachers’ assessments of pupils from different ethnic groups. On average, the Black Caribbean and Black African pupils are under-assessed relative to white pupils.’

Those of us who serve homogeneous groups of white pupils this is even more important as Burgess and Greaves found the stereotype factor was more important in schools where that group is relatively scarce.

Tables of data

English

Ethnic group TA < External Exam Difference compared to White pupils Percentage discrepancy compared to White pupils
White 12.4% 0.00% 0.0%
Black Caribbean 17.2% 4.80% 38.7%
Black African 18.3% 5.90% 47.6%
Pakistani 20.2% 7.80% 62.9%
Bangladeshi 18.1% 5.70% 46.0%
Indian 13.8% 1.40% 11.3%
Chinese 13.3% 0.90% 7.3%

In English, all pupils who do not ascribe to the white label have a higher percentage of teachers assessing them lower than the external test. The rate at which Pakistani pupils are underassessed (vs external SATS) when compared with white pupils is at a rate of 62.9%.

Maths

Ethnic group TA < External Exam Difference compared to white pupils Percentage discrepancy compared to white pupils
White 7.90% 0.00% 0.00%
Black Caribbean 10.20% 2.30% 29.11%
Black African 10.60% 2.70% 34.18%
Pakistani 11.90% 4.00% 50.63%
Bangladeshi 11.20% 3.30% 41.77%
Indian 8.40% 0.50% 6.33%
Chinese 6.00% -1.90% -24.05%

Science

Ethnic group TA < External Exam Difference compared to white pupils Percentage discrepancy compared to white pupils
White pupils 13.60% 0.00% 0.00%
Black Caribbean pupils 17.30% 3.70% 27.21%
Black African pupils 16.90% 3.30% 24.26%
Pakistani 19.20% 5.60% 41.18%
Bangladeshi 16.50% 2.90% 21.32%
Indian 13.80% 0.20% 1.47%
Chinese 10.60% -3.00% -22.06%

Interesting that pattern is repeated in Maths and Science, barring the Chinese group.

Are we, as educators, letting our own bias,

  1. Create a self-fulfilling prophecy for the pupils we serve?
  2. Impact on how we treat these pupils?
  3. Influence behaviour (Is there a link between these expectations).

References

  1. H Adams http://smartfuse.s3.amazonaws.com/e2c7482630406945015caf56704f2890/uploads/2016/12/Golem-affect.pdf
  2. Test Scores, Subjective Assessment and Stereotyping of Ethnic Minorities. Simon Burgess and Ellen Greaves http://www.bristol.ac.uk/media-library/sites/cmpo/migrated/documents/wp221.pdf
  3. “Pygmalion or Golem? Teacher Affect and Efficacy.” College Composition and Communication 46 (3): 369-386. https://www.jstor.org/stable/i215235

 

UK Teachers:  Reclaim your Tax £300

~ Pran Patel ~ 3 Comments

This is easy, DO NOT use a third party company their cuts of 40%+ are completely unnecessary. It takes less than 30 mins.

As a teacher, I understand it, you are permitted to claim back £60 a year ‘to cover the cost of upkeep and replacement of specialist or protective clothing’; Teachers of Science this covers lab coats, aprons, etc. I’m sure lots of us also have other clothing to upkeep.

You are allowed to claim for the last 5 tax years. That means £60 x 5 years is £300 (a minimum you can claim tax relief on).

tax1

‘Thanks Pran YOU’RE AWESOME’

It and I get better. God I sound like a [insert expletive]

You could also reclaim tax on fees or subscriptions you pay to professional organisations but it has to relate to your job (sorry your membership to the professional gardener’s guild isn’t going to cut it). These cannot lifetime memberships and you have to pay for them yourself.

teachers-unions

Some common organisations,

  1. The NEU / NASUWT / NAHT / ASCL – Yes your union payments. These will add up. Either contact your union for the amount you paid or use your online banking app to find out.
  2. Royal Societies of Arts
  3. Association for Science Education (ASE)
  4. Chartered College of Teaching.
  5. For a full list go here – https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/professional-bodies-approved-for-tax-relief-list-3/approved-professional-organisations-and-learned-societies
Claim tax relief on the NEU / NASUWT / NAHT / ASCL - Yes even your union payments. These will add up. Either contact your union for the amount you paid or use your online banking app to find out. Share on X

278e78b1abddd5afed7fab7b51e33231c13de24a452c14af0a46bbf0f2db8a5e

“Please, sir could I have some more?”

Okay, just a little.

Conferences, journeys to temporary places of work, trips, etc. if you are paying out of your own pocket, that means you don’t claim it back from school (like all of the above), you can claim, public transport costs, hotel accommodation if you have to stay overnight, food and drink, congestion charges and tolls, parking fees, business phone calls and printing costs. This does not cover travel to the normal workplace.

more

Any more Patel?

Erm Maybe

Yes one more and this is a contentious issue, I don’t think that teacher should be buying resources for their classroom. However, teachers do. If the upkeep of your uniform and the tools you buy to replace is more than £60, keep the receipts you can claim the tax on these back. I have never done this but it’s in the process below.

Steps:

  1. Go to https://www.tax.service.gov.uk/claim-tax-relief-expenses/who-claiming-for
  2. Then fill in the following – https://www.gov.uk/guidance/claim-income-tax-relief-for-your-employment-expenses-p87
  3. Sign up and fill in the form. The link is called claim online. (example below)
  4. I think you will need your passport (or other ID) and your employers PAYE reference (on you p 60).

tax2

  1. Your tax code will now change – you don’t have to do this every year. If your circumstances do change i.e. you start paying more fees – you can do this via the phone.
  2. Then wait for them to come back to you.
  3. As a freelancer, these times are extremely hard. Finally – please do visit, consider and share our support us page.

Lockdown Update

On March 24th 2020 the British government enforced a lockdown which means that you are forced to work from home. This means that every teacher in the country is allowed to claim for the increased costs due to working from home that heating, electricity, broadband, etc.

On March 24th 2020 the British government enforced a lockdown this meant that some of you were forced to work from home. This means that every teacher in the country is allowed to claim for the increased costs due to working from home… Share on X

To make it simple HMRC have stated you can claim £6 a week. You can attempt to claim more but it becomes complicated quickly. School can pay you this directly, however, this will come from already stretched budgets although there is no harm in asking. The other way is to claim tax relief on the £6 you can claim more but you need to evidence this.

You can claim tax relief on £6 per week (that’s £1.20 if you pay 20% tax, £2.40 if you at pay at the 40% higher rate).

It’s really simple, on the P87 form in the same process as described above. All you do is fill in the ‘using your home as an office’ and that’s it.

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The Johari Window Model and Valuing Dissonance

~ Pran Patel ~ Leave a comment

“… that greater understanding of self-efficacy and self-awareness is important for individual growth and can enable ethical leaders to empower themselves, their colleagues, and the organization in which they work.” Cam Caldwell 2016

johari1

image from https://www.communicationtheory.org/the-johari-window-model/

window model is designed to encourage self-awareness, looking at the window this area is in the top left called the Open Arena. I won’t go into detail here as it’s well known. The aim is to increase the open arena in both dimensions;

  1. To make the open arena larger in the y-axis is through leaders sharing information and giving honest feedback.
  2. Enlarging the x-axis is through gaining honest feedback.
  3. This process also decreases the unknown arena by the encroaching open arena.

johari2

This model like many aspects of leadership is built on trust, and trust is built through integrity and communication. In the case of small senior leadership teams, it is vital you amass or train a team who are humble enough to receive and give feedback. Even more important is to incorporate dissonance into your team, in fact, the acceptance and encouragement of active dissonance.

tweet

I recently tweeted on the value of dissonance (and blog) thinking and the value of having diverse leaders within your team. It is easy to be self-indulgent to have similar voices and follower who fawn over your every word. Come on every like to be told they are doing the right thing. The question, we as leaders, need to ask ourselves is ‘are these voices going to ever deliver honest feedback on your actions and decisions?.’

References

Picture from http://activitydirectorlive.com/the-johari-window-model/

Cam Caldwell, Linda A. Hayes, (2016) “Self-efficacy and self-awareness: moral insights to increased leader effectiveness”, Journal of Management Development, Vol. 35 Issue: 9, pp.1163-1173, https://doi.org/10.1108/JMD-01-2016-0011

Leadership: Creating an Organisation Where People Believe.

~ Pran Patel ~ Leave a comment

We have all worked in organisations, where leaders make us feel like we can do ‘it’, whatever that ‘it’ maybe. Think about that leader who you’d walk to the end of the world for, scratch that, who you’d walk to the end of the world with. After 15 years in schools, I have seen this in various examples in peer collaboration, a singular visionary and even constructed through systems and structures.

How does this happen?

Albert Bandura’s defines ‘Perceived self-efficacy’ as being concerned with people’s beliefs in their capabilities to produce given attainments (Bandura, 1997). Well, I define it the feeling or the belief that you can lead or teach well, it’s well documented that teachers with high self-efficacy are more effective in the classroom. Teacher’s taking more risks with the curriculum (Guskey, 1988) to using new teaching approaches (Gibson & Dembo, 1984) and increasing pupil’s motivation (Midgely et al. 1989) and consequently their overall achievement (Brookover et al. 1979).

Having a greater sense of self-efficacy is linked to the Rosenthal effect (Pygmalion effect). If we swop ‘other‘ in the following quote with ‘self’ we observe a similar effect.

“When we expect certain behaviours of others, we are likely to act in ways that make the expected behaviour more likely to occur.”

(Rosenthal 1985)

As a side note: The ultimate aim of all leadership is organisational and efficacy and professional (the profession) efficacy but that is a blog for another day.

We can increase our self-efficacy through

  1. Mastery experiences (repeated successful experiences doing it)
  2. Vicarious experiences/Role modelling (seeing others do it and learning from that experience)
  3. Verbal persuasion (being told that they can do it)
  4. Controlling Physiological arousal (controlling your emotional states such as anxiety, etc)

(Bandura 1997)

selfefficacy

Ways to Increase Self Efficacy Implications for leaders
Mastery Experiences Creating an environment of trust that allows teachers to develop their practice.
Vicarious Experiences Making the capacity for practitioners to see great practice.
Verbal Persuasion All organisations are built on trust, where teachers are told and convinced that they can achieve their goals. This has to be exhibited by leaders at all level.
Controlling Physiological Arousal Imposter Syndrome, fear, anxiety, stress, etc. of followers have to be managed. Yes, some followers will have an innate propensity for resilience, however, others will not. I advocate a coaching and mentoring system which factors in the above.

References

Guskey, T.R. (1988). Context variables that affect measures of teacher efficacy. Journal of Educational Research, 81, (1), 41-47.

Brookover, W., Beady, C., Flood, P., Schweitzer, J., & Wisenbaker, J. (1979). School social systems and student achievement: Schools can make a difference. New York: Bergin

Midgely, C., Feldlaufer, H., & Eccles, J.S (1989). Change in teacher efficacy and student self- and task-related beliefs in mathematics during the transition to junior high school. Journal of Educational Psychology, 81 (2), 247-258.

Gibson, S., & Dembo, M.H. (1984). Teacher efficacy: A construct validation. Journal of Educational Psychology, 76, 569-582.

Bandura, A. (1997), Self Efficacy: The exercise of Control. New York. W. H. Freeman & Co. https://www.uky.edu/~eushe2/Bandura/BanduraGuide2006.pdf

Rosenthal, R., and E. Y. Babad. 1985. Pygmalion in the gymnasium. Educational Leadership 43 (1): 36–39.

Leadership: Difficult Decisions 

~ Pran Patel ~ Leave a comment

Being a leader is not easy, not matter what anyone thinks or says it is never simple. There are times when you are tested with curveballs which stretch your leadership skills and decision-making ability. From moving staff on to making a decision on pupil exclusions.

Emotions are crucial in leadership, connecting with followers is part of leading them towards the joint vision. However, when difficult decisions need to be made, leave them outside of the office door.

Policies are in place for a reason, make sure every single policy is written to incorporate every eventuality and with reference to government guidance. This is of paramount importance, these are the inner workings of your organisation, they have to sufficiently detailed that there can be no dissonance when judgements are passed.

When you have an important meeting scheduled tomorrow, print off the policy and read it inside and out (pre-meeting) and then practice taking all emotion out of the situation. If you cannot, or are finding this difficult make you have someone present to support or pass this responsibility to another leader.

It is never personal, it’s always about the policy.

Post meeting understand those difficult decisions, although not personal, are still not easy. Moving a member of staff on is really hard, no matter how right the decision may be. It may have caused untold amounts of stress to the people suffering as a result. In school leadership, I myself to shut my eyes and think of the pupils. Realign yourself with your core purpose remember why you do what you do.

Leadership – Valuing Dissonance.

~ Pran Patel ~ 1 Comment

It can be argued that the only job of a leader is to strategically keep an organisational culture on a path towards the vision.  Let me define management as the day to day tasks which are involved in the running of an organisation

This is often constrained by the need for the leader to step into a management mindset to reaffirm and sure up skills before stepping back into leadership. (Wallace 2004, calls this the meta-task of orchestrations).

The leadership of any organisation is dependent on its followers and stakeholders, of course, models of change which involve mass exodus of the staff body bring about shifts in culture. However, within many contexts, this simply isn’t an option, for reasons such as recruitment and more so due to social and moral integrity.

The vision should be set out early by leaders, this means followers, can make their own choices on whether they choose to follow or not follow. This may to seen as a risky strategy. What happens if are mass of followers who cause dissent and refuse to participate? Here I would go back to your core purpose, interrogate the core purpose of the resistors and re-evaluate the vision of the initiative. Analysis of the shifts post introduction I refer to as the observation phase.

Organisations will always take the path of least resistance. There will be resistance to any change, no matter how glaringly positive, articulate and succinct the vision is. Prepare yourself for this. 

Through the observation phase. Identify your resistors, the people who will hold sway in staff rooms, the power players with the staff and… talk to them. Take real value in their views, the success of the uptake/buy-in may depend on listening to those misaligned as you are sure to get a more honest appraisal from them.

The first step in any change is trust, trust is always built through conversation and then the resulting actions. Leadership literature rarely references ‘talk’ to build trust. The first step in any change is trust, trust is always built through conversation and then the resulting actions.  Your resistors are in many cases your greatest asset. These are not only the people in your organisation with natural leadership potential but with the strength and bravery to challenge your vision/ actions because it doesn’t align with their own. 

‘They are challenging my authority that can’t be a good thing’.

Well that depends on why they are challenging you, is it because they fundamentally disagree with you, your policies or is it because your vision is quite right, is it articulated clearly? 

Leading people is always about personal gain for the follower, whether that is moral, financial or social gain. As a leader you have control of all three, controlling someone pay is a sure fire way of making people do what you want. However, this will create nothing but an echo chamber within your organisation. 

If this is the only means a leader leads, the only currency a follower has is blind faith and unforgiving allegiance. Fear is stepping out of line could mean a falling out of favour, ‘you paid to do this and keep stum about it’.

Many teachers are naturally drawn to the ‘vocation’ nature of our profession. There is an inherent value in working with young people. The salary is often a side to this.  What does that mean? Working in school leadership relies heavily on moral and social gain for your followers.

Leadership is about integrity, I fundamentally believe that it is never about one person exerting their power over another, followership is a choice. This choice is not necessarily linked whether they choose to work for the organisation or not.

If it’s not about power, how do I make change without solely directing people?

This is why I have always advocated a protracted time as a middle leadership before senior leadership. At those levels you have no real ‘power’, skills in manipulation (or a more positive word charm) have to be employed. Leaders at these levels have to rely on their personal or team integrity to recruit followers to their vision. 

Senior leadership should involve exactly the same process. Remember leadership is never about individual ego but the ‘we go’ of the organisation.

Resistor Check List 

  1. Is my vision clear in the mind of my followers? What will I have to clarify with the resistors?
  2. Is this reaction simply fear of change? Will this subside naturally? Do I need to reassure with my integrity?
  3. What are their concern and ideas? Are they and do they feel valued?
  4. How are you going to support this passion to bring about positive change?