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My Leading Instructional Coaches Blog Series consists of 6 parts which focus on some of the foundational elements in leading instructional coaches. In some of these blogs, I have shared a bit of my personal experiences and stories as an instructional coach. These situations are not stated as callouts or what some may view as being negative, instead, they are genuinely shared to bring awareness for improving instructional coaching leadership and leadership as a whole. I believe being respectfully candid and honest about your experiences impacts change tremendously. As an instructional coach and a minority within minority groups in education, I have experienced poor leadership behaviors by a few leaders/bosses. Some of these experiences were me being called in to my bosses offices often to be reprimanded, laughed at, blocked from doing my work, wrongfully written up and more by poor leaders, even though I was one of the hardest working ICs who went above and beyond for students, teachers and leaders. In my role as a coach, I have also worked with some extremely genuine, honest, professional and amazing leaders who were my support system and inspired me through it all. To impact change and ensure that all leaders strive to be as amazing leaders of instructional coaches or just amazing leaders, period, I believe we need to have a voice and share some of our challenging experiences. As a coach, I am also a leader, so my advice is also to make sure that I continue to reflect on my leadership style and continue to be a genuine leader. Introduce Whether your coach has been on your campus or organization for many years or is new to the role and/or the campus/organization, leaders need to take time at the start of the new year and/or within the service year to officially introduce newly and formerly appointed coaches to teachers and other staff members. As a leader, you want to exude and convey the belief you have in all instructional coaches' abilities, skillsets, uniqueness and talent to extensively support your teachers. There must be no favoritism! Know that any form of favoritism is quickly seen, spirals, kills culture and leads to many forms of inequity. Your introductions and messages to teachers and staff must focus on and reinforce the partnership between coaches and teachers. Doing this will help to lessen any resistance to coaching to a very large extent because teachers and staff will view coaches as their partners, instead of evaluators. At this time, also give all coaches the opportunity to introduce themselves, share a bit about their story and their "Why" as well as two to three of their coaching philosophies that they will authentically embody in this role (some examples might be, strengths-based, inspirational and goal-oriented coaching) and to emphasize the partnership they will have with teachers to not only support teachers' goals, but to also impact coaches' growth. Endorse and Reinforce the Coaching Roles and Responsibilities It is very important to share your coaches' job descriptions during this initial collaborative session or even before, and give teachers and other staff members the time to analyze the job descriptions. Also, let your staff know who is funding your coaches' salary in order to make the role of a coach more official. This will help staff gain a deeper understanding of the importance of the coach's role and the connection to the organization funding the role. During the meeting, give teachers time to make note of the individualized types of support they would like to receive from their instructional coach. Your coaches' job descriptions should also be shared electronically for teachers to revisit as often as needed. As leaders, you also need to revisit your ICs job description often to ensure that you are supporting and honoring the grant funded role of the coach. However, it is very important that we understand that support from leaders does not mean that they spend time with ICs complaining about teachers and allowing ICs to complain about teachers. This is unprofessional! Make sure that you are endorsing and highlighting the talents and roles of all your coaches, not just the ones you like, those who belong to your ethnic group, those who will help you climb the ladder, those who are "easy" to get along with, etc. There should be no favoritism! Coaching Culture As leaders, we want to ensure that we create a genuine and respectful coaching culture in our schools and organizations. This will help tremendously when your coaches engage in coaching staff. To do this, you have to focus on implementing practices aligned to a growth mindset. Some examples are, giving and receiving feedback, focusing on strengths, being open-minded, listening to and using feedback, being curious, asking questions, and embracing change to acquire growth and impact learning for the most important people in education, our students. Allow your teachers and staff to practice how to engage in coaching cycles such as, "Observe, Learn, Grow", " Hear/See, Try, Reflect", "State, Acquire, Generate and Execute" or any other. Coaching cycles do not have to be a fixed cycle/framework for all. It is okay to allow each coach on your campus to develop their own coaching cycle/framework in collaboration with teachers. Note here that you must give your coaches the full autonomy to decide on the coaching cycle they want to use because this will help them implement it with fidelity and authenticity. You don't have to have the same strategies all the time! If however, you, ICs and other staff members decide to use the same coaching cycle, then give all, especially your coaches, the autonomy to personalize it while keeping the same foundational elements and descriptions. The aim and goal here is to ensure that each adult is acquiring profound and genuine growth through deep reflection and implementation of new ideas, despite the style of the coaching cycle used. To set a great coaching culture that supports and heightens the impact of teaching and learning, it starts from the top. Not by "Talking the Talk" or "Talking the Walk", but by "Walking the Talk." You as a leader must walk the talk!!! Let your teachers witness you being coached by the coaches, and witness the ways you adopt feedback from them. One way is to engage in walkthroughs and let your teachers see you being coached by your coaches as you observe classrooms together. You could also start your staff meetings with a coaching session where your coaches coach you in regards to data, classroom management, representing learning, etc. Remember to not be selective in the coaches you receive coaching and feedback from. In addition, during staff meetings and PDs, one item on the agenda should be Coaching Practice and Role-Plays. This will give staff members the opportunities to engage in coaching sessions with their colleagues and coaches. This can be done in pairs or groups where the role of the coach and coachee is interchanged. Give participants time to genuinely discuss how they felt about the feedback, coaching conversations and strategies that made them buy-in to the ideas that they will adopt. Additional ideas to add to the coaching culture are asking staff to keep a coaching journal (in which they document ideas for growth) and creating a school slogan that will be implemented with fidelity. Your slogan could be, "Growth Your way, with a coach every day!" You can even have coaches and staff create songs, picture(s) and t-shirts to support your coaching culture. Your school and classroom walls can also have posters with your slogan and coaching ideas. Most importantly, make sure that you and the educators in your school are genuinely representing the messages in these posters, slogans and songs, and they are all truly walking the talk. If not, these just become wall fillers and words for others to see when they come to visit your school. Always remember to allow your coaches the opportunities to be creative in the ways they want to highlight and support the coaching culture. Allow the creation of newsletters or any other creative ideas to impact the coaching culture. Never stop one coach from creating and sharing because they have too many ideas. Give all your coaches the autonomy to have an impact in their own way. Repeated Leading Instructional Coaches Summary: Read it as many times as you need to understand how to reflect on and improve your growth as a leader of instructional coaches. Move on to the Blog Series and References sections if you do not need to read this reflective summary again. Being a leader of instructional coaches is an extremely important role, so you must ensure that you are exuding this importance in every single one of your actions when you lead instructional coaches, or lead any one. Here are some questions to reflect on:
If you realize that you are not being a fair, genuine, honest and true leader, what are you doing about it? If nothing, then you are doing a disservice to the instructional coaches you lead, your leadership role, your impact to your community, your impact to society and your impact in the world. There is always time to learn from our mistakes in order to become better leaders of instructional coaches or leader of anyone. It starts with you, now, today! Do not wait! Recognize and admit your mistakes, apologize and then let your genuine actions make it right and better. Leading Instructional Coaches and Others Blog Series - Click on each title to access the specific blog. Part 1: Leading Instructional Coaches: Introductions, Roles and Coaching Culture Part 2: Leading Instructional Coaches: Micromesages Part 3: Leading Instructional Coaches: Dignity, Class and Professionalism Part 4: Leading Instructional Coaches: Let the Coach Coach Part 5: Leading Instructional Coaches: Coaching Up Part6: Leading Instructional Coaches: Teamwork References Miller, A. (2019). The Value of Coaching for Instructional Leaders. https://www.edutopia.org/article/value-coaching-instructional-leaders Currence, J. (2018). How to Build a Coaching Culture. https://www.shrm.org/hr-today/news/hr-magazine/0218/pages/how-to-build-a-coaching-culture.aspx Forbes Coaches Council. (2016) 13 Ways Leaders Can Build a Coaching Culture At Work https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbescoachescouncil/2016/10/07/13-ways-leaders-can-build-a- coaching-culture-at-work/?sh=17bae83444b6
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Cherry-Anne GildharryOn this page, you will find blogs on educational connections and my life's experiences. Ideas, thoughts and views are my own and are not representative of my employers. References/sources used are public articles found on the internet to support my blogs. Archives
April 2024
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