Standing on the shoulders of giants - making school leadership meetings better

Standing on the shoulders of giants - making school leadership meetings better

I used to think that I organised and led leadership meetings well. Now I know that they just seemed to be good because they were better than what the leadership team had experienced previously.

That said, there were some positives to the meetings I ran.

I distinguished between weekly tactical meetings and less frequent strategic meetings. It’s important to keep the aim of the meeting in mind.

They were relatively brisk - rarely more than an hour.

The agenda was carefully curated - rarely more than 3 items, each one allocated a chunk of time as a guide.

Information was shared in advance, with the expectation that it would be read, so participants could make informed contributions. We used a Google Doc for this. Anyone who had ownership of an agenda item was expected to share information in advance. Even better than that, everyone in the team was given a section to write into, so that they could let colleagues know what they were working on. This was good for avoiding “silos”. We invited middle leaders into meetings to show them this approach and asked them to use the same approach to their meetings.

We used the meeting to model and practise our ethos and values. At the start of every year, the first agenda item of the first meeting revisited the ethos and values of our team and how we put those values into practice every day. If the contribution of an individual or group didn’t reflect those values I challenged it either immediately or soon afterwards. So, we were always explicit about the ethos and values that we expected each other to model to the whole staff.

Standing on the shoulders of giants, I now can see there were some missed opportunities.

Label the goal of each agenda item. Instead of just each giving item a title, make it clear what the expected outcome will be. “Decide on…” indicates that a decision will be made before the meeting closes whereas “Brainstorm” indicates that the group will be in creative mode, generating ideas and “Discuss” will explore an issue with a view to a decision at a later date.

Assign roles to people in the meeting. These can help to professional develop your team (they are the Headteachers of the future). Rotate the chair, having first modelled the role of Chair yourself. Assign a timekeeper - the person who pushes the conversion on, with one eye on the clock. I love Kim Scott’s idea of appointing a disruptor - the person whose job it is to be the agent provocateur, ask the awkward question or the opposing point of view.

Listen to your leaders and give them feedback. This is your best opportunity to hear how your leaders communicate. If you really listen, you’ll learn a lot about them. Use the meeting to give them specific praise and if you hear something you don’t like, discuss it with them as soon as you can.

Speak Last. Unless the agenda item is owned by you, let each member of the team contribute before you do. This will encourage more candour from the team. It also puts you into listening mode (see above). You can summarise the exchanges in your contribution.

Further reading-

Episode 14 of the Radical Candor (sic) podcast - “Making meetings less awful”

Leadership: How to run effective meetings, Robbie Burns

Science for People, 17 Easy Ways to Make Your Meetings Better

Gareth Harris, How to manage and lead great SLT meetings

The Key for School leaders, SLT meetings: guidance and agendas