“Waaaaiiiiit…this is practical,” exclaim the coaches I’ve trained in using Holistic Leadership Coaching. And, “Waaaiiitt…I can use this process again and again as my goals or roles or staff change, can’t I?” say my coachees.
Holistic Leadership, Thriving Schools (Solution Tree, 2019) https://www.solutiontree.com/holistic-leadership-thriving-schools.html helps leaders use their strengths while avoiding the traps of their blind spots using the “12 Lenses of Leadership.” The lenses are ongoing tensions that can’t be permanently solved but instead can be leveraged so that diverse communities, including professional learning communities, can move forward together. As you read the following list of the 12 core “lenses”, or both/and’s, of Holistic Leadership, can you think of any ongoing dilemmas these might explain? Where either/or thinking doesn’t do the job?
Leadership AND Listening
Breadth AND Depth
Community AND Individual
Reality AND Vision
Continuity AND Change
Short term AND Long term
Logic AND Values
Outcomes AND People
Power To AND Power With
Clarity AND Flexibility
Predictability AND Possibility
Goal orientation AND Engagement
Why Holistic Leadership Works
The lenses work to ensure that leaders are actually developing, not just being trained. McKinsey (2014) in “Why Leadership Development Programs Fail” lays out what needs to happen for leadership development programs to change how leaders lead. Here’s how Holistic Leadership fits with their criteria
- Situate development in the work of the leader. Rather than neutral case studies or readings on theory, participants select a goal crucial to their strategic goals. Not general goals like “Be a better leader” or “Increase student achievement” but “Ensuring collective efficacy, that all teachers believe we can reach our goals” or “Understanding teacher needs before planning professional development” or “Understanding how and when to incorporate student voice.” These are just a few examples I’ve seen.
- Account for context. Just because a curriculum or policy or initiative worked in one place does not mean it will work in another. Holistic Leadership involves understanding your school, your staff, your students, your community, and how your leadership style fits and doesn’t fit with your current goals and vision.
- Tackle mindset. We all have blind spots. Holistic Leadership uses multiple lenses to help ensure yours don’t derail your goals. Emotional intelligence. Polarity thinking—frameworks for understanding that either/or thinking can create bigger problems than the ones you’re trying to solve. Each of the 12 lenses is a polarity!
- Measure whether you are developing. SMART goals aren’t enough. They won’t work for development goals like being more empathetic or increasing student engagement. You need other measures, and they exist if you get creative.
Leadership and Reflection
While those are McKinsey’s four elements, I’ve added a fifth: time for reflection. Holistic Leadership, Thriving Schools lays out a process for creating goals and for reflecting on them that ensures you remember why the goal is important in the first place and how you’ll know whether you’re staying on course.
Reference
Gurdjian, P., Halbeisen, T. & Lane, K. (2014). “Why leadership development programs fail.” McKinsey Quarterly. Retrieved October 15, 2017 from https://www.mckinsey.com/global-themes/leadership/why-leadership-development-programs-fail.
