Leadership

Last week I was fortunate enough to travel to Shanghai to attend a workshop on the topic of leadership. The main emphasis of the course was 'Adding to you Leadership Toolbox'. It was an incredibly worthwhile and rewarding course predominantly by an excellent presenter and the opportunity to network with other middle managers from international schools in China was invaluable.
Much of the course content one would think is straight forward information that we are already aware of. Some of this included conflict resolution, problem solving as a leader, communication skills. The tips given set out one would assume that we are aware of but this is not necessarily so.
For example the section on emails was quite fascinating. As handy as emails are they can be incredibly impersonal, rude and at times, vicious. People will write things in an email that they may not say to a person face to face. Tips we were given included making use of the save option, re-reading an important email before sending and never sending an important email if you have only 5 minutes before you have to do another task. Don't over capitalise,italicise or underline. End your email on a personal or happy note such as 'Have a nice day' etc.
Conflict resolution was another fascinating topic. Role plays helped us get in the practice required to perform such a task. As a leader we need to develop the skills required to listen to all sides of a situation before we act taking into account personalities and emotions.
We conducted what is called a Belbin's personality leadership assessment on ourselves. After the responses I gave I came out as what is termed a 'shaper'. Apparently this is someone who is challenging, dynamic, thrives on pressure and has the drive and courage to overcome obstacles. These types of people are also prone to provocation and may offend a person's feelings. What me? I thought that most of this I could relate to somewhat particularly with the ICT role I have. A great deal of this is role involves overcoming obstacles. I like to shape where classes are going with IT so in this sense I can relate to the role type I was given.
I came from this workshop with some constructive ideas of what I can do back at school. I have a series of emails I need to send this week that may cause some angst, issues and problems for those involved. I am looking to use the knowledge gained in the course to assist me with this task. I need to make these emails personable and helpful and not demanding and overly assertive.
I have already put to use two ideas I gained from the workshop. One was a problem solving task involving 7 hands on top of each other and having to rearrange them. Difficult to describe in words, even more difficult to undertake. This was a great activity to use in leadership training for Year 6 students. It involved the essential skills of communication, problem solving and cooperation.
The other great take away was this superb video which is all about leadership.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hO8MwBZl-Vc