Dr Lesley Murrihy Principal Amesbury School, Wellington explores leadership for 21st century learning including the supports and structures that need to be put in place to enhance capabilities and capacity at the personal professional and organisation levels and enable the ongoing involvement in cycles of growth, development and innovation.

2. COACHING

3. THESIS
i. Coaching does create the kind of growth
and development that paves the way to the
development of 21st century pedagogies
and 21st century leadership aptitudes.
ii. Those same capacities that enable ongoing
change over time, also increasingly
empower individuals to nurture their own
spirits and take responsibility for their own
well-being.

4. MULTI-LAYERED PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT
INTERVENTION
-Coaching and being coached
-Learning and practicing the skills of coaching
-Understanding the theory
-Reflecting on experiences
-Facilitated
-Implementing coaching via action research in own
institutions. Participants became the facilitators and
teachers
-Assignments – high motivation for involvement
-Year long

27. 21ST C EDUCATIONAL LEADERSHIP
*Broad range of leadership styles – but mostly a
coaching, democratic style
*Both/and – not either/or binary thinking
*Ability to cultivate distributed/shared leadership
*Occasional leadership – in complex times
knowledge cannot be held by one person –
students, parents, teachers and leaders can all
show leadership
*”Get out of the way” leadership
*Ideas able to travel up the organisation
*Freedom and accountability/control

28. GET OUT OF THE WAY OR GET BOWLED OVER –
THE MILLENNIALS ARE HERE!
*Born early 80s or later
*Searching for genuine satisfaction and meaning from their
work
*Need to feel as though they are personally making a
difference
*Looking for opportunities to lead – don’t want to wait in
line for ten years
*Strong passionate beliefs
*Optimistic and highly pragmatic
*Work with others to solve problems
*Bring great energy to the workforce and get things done
*Generate change from the bottom up

29. HINT
Millennials: will present enormous
challenges for positional leaders who who
think this is a place where you control what
happens and supervise closely

30. “Leadership thus becomes a rather
fluid concept, focusing on those
behaviours which propel the work
of the group forward.”John
Mirenberg (1993, p. 198)

31. 21ST C EDUCATIONAL LEADERSHIP CONT’D
*Diversity – ability to derive value from human difference is
a core leadership skill – cultural diversity and diversity of
ideas.
*Development of supple, agile cultures in which the “way
we do things around here” are emergent and always
evolving
*Deploying resources for learning (teachers, parents,
peers, ICT, time, buildings etc) flexibly
*Continually open to learning – continuous learner –
embracing permanent beta mode.
*Profoundly human-centred

32. COACHING AND MENTORING RESEARCH
“Does coaching assist the growth and development of
educators?
Growth and development = transformational change
in multiple dimensions (the “whole” person)
-emotional
-social
-spiritual
-cognitive

33. FINDINGS
There was evidence of significant growth and development
across all the dimensions. For example:
*Put others before themselves
*Increased empathy and ability to see things from others
persepctives
*Changed from making decisions based on personal preference
to making decisions based on strong rationales and principles
*Increasingly their espoused theories equated with their theories-
in-action - authenticity
*Greater knowledge of their weaknesses and propensities - as
well as their strengths – and they were able to laugh at
themselves
*Greater emotional self-control and ability to self-manage

34. FINDINGS CONT’D
*Realised that they needed others and had shifted from
individualism and isolation to interdependence
*Thinking took on a richer and more fuller form as multiple
ways of viewing the world became integrated into a
more coherent narrative
*Greater sense of agency/empowerment – of being able to
make a difference in their institutions and sectors.
*Taking more strategic, politicised and even subversive
action
*They were increasingly distributing leadership and sharing
power.

35. FINDINGS CONT’D
*More able to make decisions about where to place
themselves in interactions and to make choices about
which action or response was appropriate – acts of
leadership
*No longer needed to be the experts or the ones who
always showed initiative
*Involved in on going cycles of growth and development
*They exhibited more joy and excitement

36. NURTURING SELF
*Involved in continual cycles of growth and development
*Each participant had developed multiple relationships with
aspects of coaching:
- Reciprocal
- For particular purposes.
- Found in unexpected places.
*Involved in challenging projects with others that they were
confident would make a difference

37. HEIGHTENED CONSCIOUSNESS
1. It assisted the participants to see “who I want to
be” or “how I want to be different”.
2. Secondly, they came to understand much more
clearly “who I am now”.
3. Knowledge of how to be different on a very “micro
level” – skills and practices of coaching
4. The consciousness that “I can be different” “I can
do it” – experiencing small wins

38. COACH – A HORSE DRAWN CARRIAGE THAT CONVEYS A VALUED
PERSON FROM WHERE HE OR SHE IS TO WHERE HE OR SHE
WANTS TO BE.

39. COACHING DEFINITION
Coaching as presented in this book, is a special,
sometimes reciprocal relationship between (at
least) two people who work together to set
professional goals and achieve them. The term
depicts a learning relationship where participants
are open to new learning, engage together as
professionals equally committed to facilitating each
other’s leadership learning development and well
being (both cognitive and affective)” (p. 24 –
Coaching Leadership)

40. What is the nature or
characteristics of the coaching
relationship?

41. A COACH DOES NOT:
*tell another person what to do
*give advice
*tell another people where they need to go
*have power over the coachee
*know better/more than the coachee (it is not an
apprentice/expert relationship)
*act as a teacher

42. A COACH DOES ASSIST A COLLEAGUE TO:
*Reflect critically on his/her practice
*Problem pose
*Problem solve
*Think creatively
*Think laterally
*Construct new knowledge
*Get underway

43. Coaching is not a deficit model of learning
Coaching does not blame
Coaching is not a transmission model of learning (e.g. that
coachees are empty vessels who need filling)
Coaching is constructivist in its approach to learning
Coaching is about coachees having the answers.
Coaching treats teachers as knowing and knowledgeable people
Coaching believes that people can be trusted
Coaching believes that people are the solution and not the
problem

44. ACTIVE LISTENING
*Focus on the speaker
*Give full attention
*Maintain regular eye contact
*Use facial expressions and verbal encouragement to display
interest
*Show empathy
*do not break in with war stories
*Do not give advice
*Do not ask questions
*Listen with an open mind
*Listen to the end
*Do not move into conversation

45. DESCRIPTIVE FEEDBACK
Write down only what you see…
*Observable events
*No judgements or interpretations of behaviour
*Key quotations
*Non verbal communication
*Description of relevant physical environment
*Watch your body language – keep it neutral

46. DESCRIPTIVE FEEDBACK TASK
The teacher is introducing Shakespeare to his class.
He is aware that there is some resistance among
students to studying Shakespeare. His goal for the
lesson is to engender enthusiasm among his
students for the study of Shakespeare and he
wants feedback on the effectiveness of the
strategies he uses.

47. REFLECTIVE QUESTIONING: LEVELS
Level 1: Clarifying questions
Level 2: Questions to clarify purpose,
reasons and intended consequences
Level 3: Questions to explore
underpinning ideas/thinking/theoretical
perspectives