My recent reading, research and thinking has all been centred around how Middle and Senior Leaders make sense of change and whether they see situations in the same way or different. It has been fascinating and I am enjoying developing my thoughts and understanding as I write my dissertation. Along the way, I also read “Be More Toddler” and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I particularly latched onto the idea of the school’s vision and the need to hold onto it as akin to being a toddler clutching on tightly to chocolate buttons and refusing to let go; having read widely about leadership, vision and the need to align the two, the analogy worked well – it allowed me to make sense of the power of a clear vision and the need to hold onto it.
But then I started thinking and reflecting more on what that means for Middle Leaders and how chocolate buttons work in practice. The role of a Middle Leader is complex; Balogun and Hailey (2008) describe their role as Janus-like because they are in the unique position of seeing up to senior leadership and down to teaching colleagues; they have to balance the two. My own experience would concur with this; often I find myself reflecting on the best way to implement change instigated from above in a way that my colleagues and I can manage with the capacity and capability that we have, middle leadership often feels like a balancing act.
I have a clear vision for my Faculty; as a languages teacher I want students to develop skills that enable them use languages in the real world, I want them to be linguists with real and transferable language learning skills. I arrived at this vision in conjunction with my language colleagues based on our shared philosophy of the importance of being able to speak a foreign language. Our passion for helping students develop as linguists is our guiding light as we work out how to deliver the GCSE and A level specs; all the time we are planning we are clutching our chocolate buttons to make sure that the students in our classrooms leave us able to speak French or German or Spanish.
I’m lucky; I know what my chocolate buttons are and I share those with my colleagues. I am also lucky that my chocolate buttons fit with the whole school vision. But what if they didn’t? Leadership occurs on many levels and those levels of leadership should be in harmony with each other because if they are pulling in opposite directions, little will change and everyone’s efforts will be ineffective. As I reflected on “Be More Toddler” I realised that I think that it isn’t about a single packet of chocolate buttons, schools are more complex than that; they are like a multi-pack of buttons. Senior Leaders get to choose the kind of buttons and they get to design the packaging; they are the chief manufacturer of all the chocolate buttons we have. However, as a middle leader, I have an element of choice about my buttons but they have to fit inside the multipack.
Taking the analogy further, if SLT have decided that the school is all about milk chocolate buttons and I want to have white chocolate buttons, that won’t work. If someone came along and opened the multi-pack and found three packets of milk chocolate buttons, one dark chocolate packet, one white chocolate packet, a lollipop, some fudge and a bag of crisps, they would be confused. So how does it all come together? Well, as a middle leader, if I know my senior leaders want milk chocolate buttons, I either have to make my buttons fit inside their multi-pack, I can present a case for white chocolate buttons or I have to take my buttons elsewhere, to an establishment where they do fit.
With my Janus-like view, I can see the vision from above and I can see the classroom; my role is to get the recipe right so that there is harmony between the two. Leaders may decide on the buttons but everyone has to want to eat them and that requires buy-in at every level; middle leaders have a pivotal role to play in persuading everyone that they will enjoy them if they try, whichever bag they take out of the multi-pack.
Chocolate buttons as a senior leader
I found so many things within “Be More Toddler” to be a reflection of time with a toddler and on how to lead effectively. It took me back to my maternity and whilst I was enjoying the coffee mornings, playdates, sleepless nights and tantrums I wasn’t aware of how many lessons there were to learn from the behaviours of the toddler. I particularly liked the reference to the presence that toddlers have; how once you start a family there becomes a working vision of how that family want to live, and even when the toddler is not there, their existence somehow still permeates the area. Isn’t this what all leaders strive to achieve, a school where the vision is evident everywhere where all the surroundings convey the vision and what the school is driving for. Emma’s second lesson talks about teams and how toddlers happily identify and sharing successes with anyone that will listen, no matter how small it may be. Leaders at all levels could use this to reflect on how we recognise and celebrate those successes and through that create positive teams. Emma’s analogy of being involved in that process as a senior leader resonated with me, are we happy to recognise our role in simply pushing the swing for hours?
It was as I read the chapter on taking the risk that I wondered if my toddlers taught me a lesson that I have brought into leadership. I have always been a mum that has not panicked about my children falling and have encouraged them to climb trees and had the approach, that if they take a tumble I will wipe down their knees and they will learn not to do it again (which may have been made slightly easier by having boys). I feel this is how I work and lead, I try to encourage staff to try new things to adapt and I have always been happy to take risks. I also however now recognise how having the right chocolate button to hold onto helps limit the risk. Which brings me back to Jude’s reflections on the chocolate buttons…
When I was reading this book and then Jude’s thoughts I got thinking about how holding onto the button can be seen at both senior and middle leadership and for some reason it took me to the work of Heifetz et al and adaptive leadership (2009). I think that Emma is right and successful senior leaders need to know when it is important to have a clear hold on their choc button and refuse to let go. Jude was also right that it is important for middle leaders to be empowered and feel they have some element of choice on a number of key facets within a school. Continuing with her choc analogy my key thought was; is having a single style choc button in a school the right approach? Middle leaders of various subjects all have a different approaches to the same problem and is this wrong? I think the difficulty comes in how senior leaders encourage and enable a level of flexibility with middle leaders whilst also ensuring that all staff stay true to the vision and don’t go rogue.
I feel a lot of this surely comes down to the problem or task at hand? Emma discusses how we need to pick our battles and know when to sit docile in the pushchair and when to have the ‘chocolate mentality’. This will largely come down to the type of task, Heifetz identifies that there are different types of tasks that leaders will face, technical and adaptive problems. Technical ones are often straightforward but may be crucial and therefore leaders can diagnose the problem and direct the actions. In doing so they will ensure the same message is heard and delivered across the school ensuring clarity and consistency for both staff and students. This to me would be the time for the senior leader to adopt the chocolate mentality and hold on tight, knowing what is right for the organisation. It may be that a share bag is needed and leaders at all levels are asked to hold tight to the buttons, ensuring an effective dissemination of the school vision and school priorities would certainly be examples.
However schools are filled with more adaptive and wicked problems to which senior leaders refusing to let go of the button may not be the right answer. These kind of problems often need staff to think outside the box and produce different ideas. Emma looks at this through her decision filter, with the production of ideas that align with the core value/vision or purpose. It may be in these situations that senior leaders need to consider a different packaging all together, one which allows for a myriad of ideas. Without blurring the line between Cadbury’s and Mars; is this where there may be a place for a pack of Revels (even the coffee one!)?
Jude’s notion of the packaging may be key to this, in ensuring the message is shared and is the same across an organisation it is more about the senior leaders deciding which type of pack, buttons or revels, is best and then holding tight to that and guiding middle leaders to drive that forward. I would agree with Heifetz, and feel that having a more elastic cognitive approach to certain things allows a deeper awareness and perspective and with this the views of all stakeholders can be considered, and this elasticity can be used to determine the packaging. Is it that Jude feels her chocolate buttons just so happen to align with the school or is it that they align with the school because the vision of the school has been held tight and communicated effectively?
This train of thought on choc not only made me hungry but also made me think of so many other applications such as how as leaders at all levels need to consider what happens if too many choc buttons are eaten by the toddler, end result is not pretty! There are many schools that see fixing a problem or driving success being about piling on new initiative after new initiative to the point where staff can no longer recall what the main focus is and they reach exhaustion. Emma’s decision filter is a great example of how to overcome this.
My final thought was how schools can be guilty of changing the packaging but the product is the same. Not a bad tactic as sometimes things simply need refreshing but this only goes so far and at some point the product itself needs to adapt; think of Cadbury’s new mix-ups. Does the product and therefore the packaging need to evolve and allows schools to flourish, and are senior leaders open to these possibilities?
Postscript
Jude – Thank you to Emma Turner for responding to my random DM on Twitter where I shared my multi-pack idea and asked if she minded if I wrote a blog about it. Not only did she reply, she then took the time to chat with me about it – the power of reading and social media to provide CPD for teachers is huge, especially when authors are willing to give up their time to help random teachers who contact them on Saturday mornings!
Jenny – To echo Jude, thank you Emma for this book it is a refreshing take on some of the complexities of managing change and driving success in a school and one in which I enjoyed relating to and learning from.
References
Balogun, J. and Hailey, V.H. (2008). Exploring Strategic Change (3rd edition). Essex: Pearson Education Ltd.
Heifetz, R. A., Grashow, A., & Linsky, M. (2009). The practice of adaptive leadership: Tools and tactics for changing your organization and the world. Harvard Business Press.
Turner, E. (2019). Be More Toddler: A Leadership Education from our Little Leaders. Woodbridge: John Catt.
Creating Cognitive Classrooms 