So what, Now what?

As many of you will already know we do quite a bit of work in education, which is how we first came across this TED talk from Linda Cliatt-Wayman, but in truth it’s contains some very powerful leadership messages regardless of your occupation.

 

In her TED talk Linda describes what happened after taking over as the principle of Strawberry Mansions, an under performing school with low expectations of both student behaviour and academic results. She talks with great passion about how she and her leadership team team set about turning the school around.

Now by her own admission Linda is known for her ‘slogans’ and there are two in this talk that really resonated with us.

 

Slogan 1. If you are going to lead – LEAD.

What this means in practice is you have to get out there and be amongst the people, you can’t lead effectively from behind a desk in an office

 

Slogan 2. So What, Now What?

In essence what Linda says here is things happen, some of them bad and some beyond your control but, as a leader, what are you going to do to make things better? Its simply not acceptable to let these things (excuses) get in the way of what you need to accomplish.

 

To illustrate this point she describes how she implemented a set of ‘behavioural expectations’ or ‘Non Negotiable’s’, as she calls them, a school wide behaviour system designed to promote positive behaviour amongst the student population. For those of you who are familiar with our very own ten golden rules of leadership, we are certain you will see the similarity to our ‘Never negotiate on behaviour’ golden rule.

 

If you listen carefully you may hear some of the other golden rules in her talk about how she and her leadership team turned Strawberry Mansions around. Here’s a link to our very own golden rules video if you want to check them out for yourself, its less than 2 minutes long

 

https://tendevelopment.com/the-golden-rules-of-leadership/

 

As always, please give it a watch and let us know what you think.  Linda’s talk is 17 minutes long, but in our humble opinion, well worth it – gives us goosebumps every time!

 

Martin & Elizabeth

 

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