Month: January 2023

Each year UN Women choose a theme for International Women’s day that becomes the focus for events throughout the year. The theme for #IWD2023 is #EmbraceEquity and I have mixed feelings about it.

Diversity, Equity and Inclusion are fundamental to be work as a leader, a trainer and coach.

Diversity – I ask people to reflect on who is represented and who is present, also considering who is missing from the space we are occupying which could be a team, a meeting, a library or the curriculum.

Inclusion – I ask people to reflect on how we are doing inclusion by design. We often assume that others feel included because we feel included but the inclusion is not intentional. We need to interrogate how inclusive we are as a workplace and as an employer.

Equity – I ask people to consider the differences between equality and equity. We often think we are being fair by being equal, however the gaps remain the same and get moved up the system when we focus on equality, whereas equity is about identifying and dismantling the barriers.

It is interesting how many schools want to DEI work with the pupils and are less comfortable to do it with the staff. Schools are very focused on meeting the needs of pupils with different needs – there is a tangible commitment to find and remove the barrier pupils are experiencing, but we often neglect the different needs of the staff or do not have the data to inform us.

I ask schools to reflect on how data rich we are when it comes to our pupils and how data poor we often are when it comes to the staff. I ask schools to gather staff voice/ feedback and hear the uncomfortable truths of where the inequities for employees exist.

So having a spotlight on equity is brilliant and much-needed as it is the hardest part of this work. We need to make our workplaces more equitable and we need to address systemic, structural and societal inequities. However, embracing feels too soft for me.

Glass ceilings need shattering. Concrete ceilings need smashing. Inequities need dismantling and redressing. So ‘embracing’ equity feels like a bit of a cop-out. It is well-intended but misses the mark. Values need to be lived not laminated, and the value of equity needs activating for concrete actions not stroking. If it needed to be alliterative perhaps some better options could have been: Expecting Equity? Ensuring Equity? Embedding Equity?

A lot of DEI work does not stick, is not sustained and does not get results because it is framed as good intentions when instead we need to be focused on good outcomes. It is the impact that is essential in transforming how we do things to make a more inclusive workplace for all and a more equitable workplace for diverse employees (ie people with lived experience of the Protected Characteristics).
Thus, we need to consider: How will we measure it? How will we know when and where we are having impact? How will we track our progress?

In my DEI training sessions I talk about the 3 Cs of this work: Consciousness, Confidence and Competence. So here are my calls to action:

• How will we become individually and collectively, personally and professionally, more conscious of the inequities experienced by women in our workplaces? How will we activate more #HeForShe allies and advocates?
• How will we build confidence in analysing the gender data and openly discussing the inequities such as position and salary? How will we build confidence in calling in and calling out the gendered behaviour and the language that have become normalised in our workplace?
• How will we develop the competence to do this work in an intersectional way to consider the experience of women who are doubly, triply and quadruply disadvantaged as they have lived experience of multiple protected characteristics?

It is no surprise that I am a fan of coaching. Coaching has been transformational in supporting me in navigating my journey.

When I was an unhappy Deputy Headteacher I was coached by Carol Jones and Viv Grant. Both helped me get clear on my values, my purpose and helped me communicate my frustration. Moreover, they helped me be intentional about my next steps.

As a busy and very stretched Headteacher I was coached by Eve Warren and Nikki Armytage-Foy. Both helped me process the immensity of the role. Eve helped me focus on my strategic leadership as my job starting a new school was so operational. Nikki helped me focus on me and what I needed to be healthy, happy and fulfilled.

I made sure that my own SLT had access to coaching too. We had training with Fierce Conversations and Graydin, and we had a pool of coaches around our teams to support us on our leadership journeys, personally and professionally, individually and collectively.

Accrediting with Resilient Leaders Elements as I set up my own business accelerated my strategic thinking and goal-setting. I loved the practical and reflective tools that RLE and then Colour-Me Profiling enabled me to put in my growing toolkit of strategies to support my own coaching clients.

I then started my ICF certification journey with the Co-active Institute and I am finishing it with the Teleos Leadership Institute, at the same time as certifying with the British School of Coaching on their ILM L4 Executive Coaching and Mentoring Certificate. As I collated my coaching journey including coaching hours, clients and CPD over the last few years for one of my assessments it made me realise a few things about my experience of coaching:

Coaching is an investment
You need to invest time, energy, finance and resource to be coached and to be trained to coach. I have self-financed most of my journey as it has been about me, in my own time getting clear on different aspects of my life.

Coaching is a cultural commitment
We committed to creating a coaching culture as a school so everyone was trained and developed the skills and language to have courageous conversations. Through me DEI work I am thinking more and more about how coaching is the tool that organisations need to make changes to how inclusive they are as workplaces.

Coaching is about listening
I have definitely become a better listener as a coach. I hear what is being said, how it is being said but also what is not being said. The more I coach the less I say, the more powerful the questions are that I ask.

Coaching is a reflective practice
Yes the coaching session is where most of the action happens. But the mind is activated in the session and the thinking, talking and journaling continue beyond it. I encourage my busy school leaders to be coached from home, at the end of the day/ week so they can give themselves some processing time following the session.

Coaching is important, but so is mentoring
I find the hierarchy between these two support mechanisms an interesting one. In education mentoring is for those starting their careers and coaching is for those progressing up the ladder. Lots of people come to me for coaching when they really need mentoring – especially when they are new to role.

So as my coaching journey continues in 2023, what am I hoping to achieve?

I trained in 2021 with Resilient Leaders Elements & C-me Colour Profiling.

I trained in 2022 with Co-Active Training Institute & Teleos Leadership Institute.

In 2023 I will achieve my ILM Level 7 in Executive Coaching and Mentoring and I will certify with ICF.

In 2021 I coached 60 people, I coached for 265 hours and I trained to coach for 85 hours.

In 2022 I coached 35 people, I coached for 135 hours and I trained to coach for 155 hours.

In 2023 I want to coach less people more and do less training to apply the learning I have experienced.

I am also keen to build the bridge between my Leadership Development Consultancy, Coaching and Training and my advocacy through Diverse Educators. For me coaching is the gamechanger for the individual leaders I work with but also for the organisations I am supporting so systemic coaching for cultural transformation is the goal for my future coaching practice.

This is my 10th year of doing the #OneWord commitment where you choose a word to set an intention and to frame your year ahead. I really recommend it as a goal-setting exercise as my previous choices have helped me to manifest some opportunities and to make some big decisions.

My previous #OneWord commitments since 2015 have been Courage, Connection, Change, Thrive, Joy, Purpose, Freedom and Legacy.

Since leaving headship in 2019 and setting up my business in 2020 (following a short stint working in Higher Education) my lifestyle and my mindset have changed a lot. Some of my reasons for leaving the system were to have more autonomy, be more independent and to have more freedom. But there were also the factors of my wellbeing, my stress-levels and my increasing frustration. I basically wanted and needed more being and less doing. In a nutshell more life and less work!

I pledged that when I left the craziness of school leadership, because it is just that – the expectations, the pressures and the demands are unrealistic and unsustainable – that I would make some changes. When you are in it you know it is full on, but it is normalised as everyone is feeling the same and doing the same to survive. It has taken me a good 3 years to decompress and to unlearn/ relearn some of the survival techniques I have developed that have ultimately become bad habits that I needed to break.

I have worked on sleeping more, relaxing more, being less stressed, maintaining stronger boundaries and eating lunch every day! I am less institutionalised but I am still working on abandoning some of the systemic and structural ways of working that have been drilled into me over the last 20 years. They served me then, but are they serving me now?

I am definitely healthier and happier than I was, but with what I have gained there are some things that I have lost. One of the big ones is going from being on my feet and being active all day everyday to now being much more sedentary and sitting down far too much!

So my focus for this year is not wellbeing, nor self-care but health.

I have always taken my health for granted. I was brought up with my Mum running a large nursery school so I was exposed to everything quite early and I became very resilient to illness. I was the kid who was always at school and never got ill.

In my teens I had a ski accident and a car accident which impacted my back so spine health has been something I have managed throughout my adulthood, but osteophathy, massage and acupuncture help me manage any pain.

As a teacher I was also always in school, I was not susceptible to the cold, the flu or any other bugs that flew around the classrooms and the corridors. I had a few back issues and a few things triggered my mental health but on the whole I was healthy.

In my adulthood the only sickness I have experienced has been travel-induced – food poisoning, salmonella and other bugs (usually water-born) that I have picked up in far-flung destinations.

Then I turned 40, left teaching and the pandemic struck. And things changed…

I have had Covid three times and it took me a long time to get over it, with lingering symptoms like a chesty cough and a breathlessness… I have had joint pain in my knees which is aggravated by being in static/ enclosed spaces… every time I leave the country, despite being careful I pick something up and have a reaction to something I eat or drink… I fell over in the Ugandan jungle and damaged my left knee… and then I picked up a horrific bug when I was in Canada which took me weeks to get over.

A few of my friends have called me out on my mantra ‘I am never ill’ and held up the mirror that in the last few years I have actually been ill quite a lot. I have brushed it off a few times but being honest I need to face the reality my health records are not as flawless as I recollect them.

So my question to myself as a self-coach is what I am going to do about it? I coach everyone else to be empowered and to make changes but do I listen to my own advice?

Someone who coached me a while back made an observation once that I project manage everything else in my life but who is project managing me? I am going to start there and leverage some of the skills that have made my career/ business successful and apply them to myself.

Thus my #Oneword for 2023 is going to be health. I am going to prioritise getting healthier and getting stronger. I am going to make some changes and commit to a different, a healthier lifestyle as all of my excuses are thinning out.

“To keep the body in good health is a duty… otherwise we shall not be able to keep our mind strong and clear”.
Buddha

“Take care of your body. It’s the only place you have to live”.
Jim Rohn

“Health is not valued, til sickness comes”.
Thomas Fuller