Finding a Balance?
Can anyone help me with finding a balance between working with colleagues and being assertive with them? I am now entering my second year as the department chairperson at my school and these are the same individuals that I've been working with over the past seven or eight years. Some of them have made it extremely difficult for me to do my job and some of them have made it quite easy for me to do all of the things that I have to do as a department chairperson. But I still sense that there is some sort of tension coming from some of the department members. I guess I'm struggling with how do I be assertive and not seem like I'm trying to be too dominant?
In education, I have now come to realize that the person that is teaching on your team or the person that is on your administrative team may at some point become your immediate supervisor. I know that it may seem like a trivial issue to some but I really feel like, to some people, that this is a bigger issue than what it seems like or what it should be. Should this be something that should even be on my mind? Or should I just move on with duties as necessary? I feel like sometimes that as a leader not everyone is on your team and that is something I fully realize and no matter what you do to try to get them on the team it's not going to happen. In those kinds of situations what is a leader to do? Not only has this happened to me personally but you see it all over education. A principal becomes promoted to assistant superintendent and is now the immediate supervisor over the principals that he or she worked with just the previous school year. Or one of the assistant principals at a school now becomes the principal of that school and now has to supervise the assistant principals that he or she worked with just the previous school year. As a leader, how do you navigate that? Are there any resources to dealing with getting people on your team?
Before being thrown into this position and this situation, I've always told the students that I taught that being in the classroom with them was the absolute best part about teaching. And I told them that one of the most difficult parts about teaching is actually dealing with the grown people. But now that I am in this kind of a situation, I truly see what it means to deal with grown people. I think that as leaders it's not all about mission and vision and certifications and classes and the knowledge that you have but you have to lead people and in order to lead people you have to know how to deal with people and I think that has become a major challenge for me.
In education, I have now come to realize that the person that is teaching on your team or the person that is on your administrative team may at some point become your immediate supervisor. I know that it may seem like a trivial issue to some but I really feel like, to some people, that this is a bigger issue than what it seems like or what it should be. Should this be something that should even be on my mind? Or should I just move on with duties as necessary? I feel like sometimes that as a leader not everyone is on your team and that is something I fully realize and no matter what you do to try to get them on the team it's not going to happen. In those kinds of situations what is a leader to do? Not only has this happened to me personally but you see it all over education. A principal becomes promoted to assistant superintendent and is now the immediate supervisor over the principals that he or she worked with just the previous school year. Or one of the assistant principals at a school now becomes the principal of that school and now has to supervise the assistant principals that he or she worked with just the previous school year. As a leader, how do you navigate that? Are there any resources to dealing with getting people on your team?
Before being thrown into this position and this situation, I've always told the students that I taught that being in the classroom with them was the absolute best part about teaching. And I told them that one of the most difficult parts about teaching is actually dealing with the grown people. But now that I am in this kind of a situation, I truly see what it means to deal with grown people. I think that as leaders it's not all about mission and vision and certifications and classes and the knowledge that you have but you have to lead people and in order to lead people you have to know how to deal with people and I think that has become a major challenge for me.
I have found in some cases that the easiest way for this to be avoided is to set norms as a group. What do you expect of them? What do they expect of you? What are the roles of each person in the group? Write them down and review them at every meeting. Helps meetings stay focused and conversations from veering off track. One of issues I've had in the past is that there is always the negative person in the group and the person who questions why about everything discussed/introduced. Address that while establishing norms. Be candid but frank about the fact that you are the messenger in many cases and questioning may be normal but it's a waste of time because XYZ still has to be done. We also identified a person to keep us on track. If people started the unending questions, complaining, etc our tracker shut it down. After that I address it with the person. "Hey, can we talk? I have been feeling maybe you're unhappy about something..... What can I/we do to fix this?" Difficult and much easier said than done but necessaray sometimes. Good luck!
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