Harvard Graduate School of Education - Leadership: an Evolving Vision 2007

Yesterday I moved very definitely into my “stretch zone” when I volunteered, in front of over 140 delegates, to participate in a role-play situation with Barry Jentz.

Barry asked me to engage in one of those “difficult conversations” we sometimes have to conduct as leaders. The scenario, in brief, was that I, as the leader, had to share with Barry, the new teacher to the school, that I was unhappy about his conduct in a recent staff meeting.

At the end of the role-play I thought I had done a fairly good job in that I was “cool, calm and collected” and I had also managed to give Barry the bad news.

However I was making these conclusions based on my reflexive thinking i.e. I gave Barry the information I had to share with him BUT I conducted the conversation in a “closed” manner.

With some input from Barry I was able to see that I need to move to a much higher level of engagement and shift my thinking from this reflexive mode to the more open, reflective mode where one is entering into a two way, problem-solving approach.

This reflective mode has far more intellectual rigour and also it is something we ask the people around us to engage in regularly so if we are asking them to do this we must show that we, as leaders, are ready and able to engage in this too.

A reflective skill set is about giving good data i.e. sharing accurate information AND listening. The outcome of this is that we can decrease the amount of defensiveness from the person with whom we are speaking which in turn increases the openness to change. This in turn leads to more opportunities to improve performance.

I found yesterday that, as Jentz says,

“Any information that helps improve your performance will make you sting inside.” 

However I can now see that

“A Reflective Mind is a Learning Mind.”

A challenging day!