How long do you have to be a principal before you are a truly confident leader? Ten years, twenty?
How about thirty-eight?
When Alison Spence, Principal of Kohia Terrace School applied for the Strategic Leadership for Principals Programme (SLPP), that’s how much experience she had.
And while she was confident in her ability to lead her school (and saw the results in operations, strategy and pedagogy), she couldn’t be 100 per cent sure.
She sought some comparative analysis – some ‘what if’ thinking, and someone to challenge her established way of doing things.
In Lindsay Cowley, Capacity Partner and GM at Spark, she found her perfect match.
Building the foundations of learning
Lindsay’s role was to give Alison fresh perspectives on leadership, supporting her learning process throughout the year long SLPP journey.
Meeting once per month in workshops, Lindsay began by asking Alison open questions centred around what she wanted how she wanted to change things.
“Alison had a good charter and strategic plan,” Lindsay notes, “but the story was missing.”
“So, throughout the year, we worked on what the strategic problems were. If this is her ambition for the school, what needs to happen to address these? Filling in the gaps between A and Z.”
Filling the gaps
As these discussions continued, Alison uncovered – with Lindsay’s help – some problem areas that held back her plan from being truly great. They found these by tracking backwards from strategic values or initiatives, and ensuring everything was as logical as it should be.
The process raised some important questions for Alison.
“A big thing for me became why we are doing what we are doing. Where does it fit into research? Or best practice literature? Then putting those answers in a succinct way, so anyone picking up the plan gets it.”
Lindsay adds that it was a tweaking process, rather than a transforming one.
“All the material to succeed was there – it just needed to be structured in a way that made sense to the layperson. What I respect so much is that Alison was always open to that feedback; to a fresh perspective and new ways of looking at things.”
Trading places and trading lessons
Springboard Trust’s cross-sector model is a unique opportunity for both New Zealand principals and business volunteers to learn each other’s ways of working.
For Alison, a highlight of this partnership was visiting Spark’s Auckland offices and seeing first-hand the modern environments that her students would experience when they joined the workforce.
This gave her great insights to take back to her Board of Trustees, giving gravitas and backing to her strategic plan’s focus on modern learning environments.
Just as Alison drew from business to inform her school, Lindsay learned a lot that he could take back to his role:
“Being a Capacity Partner is a great opportunity to see what goes on in schools. Things are really different now from when we were in school, it is a difficult environment with a lot to deal with.”
“SLPP gave me an opportunity to develop a real appreciation for how complex today’s schools are”
Lindsay Cowley
Leadership ripples in effect
While Alison believed she was already a confident leader, she jokingly notes that SLPP and Lindsay have made improved her to “a real eight out of ten!”.
Even better, she is growing a leadership team who are all aligned in achieving improved outcomes for their students – which Lindsay agrees with wholeheartedly.
“Alison has been able to divest herself of some of the responsibility she held and has brought her entire team into the journey with her. She recognises that they too have a role to play in leadership – there is much more shared accountability and people empowerment to achieve student outcomes.”
“I think Alison had those things before. But it’s one thing to have them in your head, and another to articulate it to people around you and bring them with you. Alison is just so much clearer. More than an eight, she is easily a nine or a ten in the leadership department!”
