The following list of suggested strategies are rules that we followed that I believe can help you deliver the kind of useful and meaningful PD to your teachers that they need and deserve.

Develop a 3-5 year plan. Before you do anything else, you need to know what your PD and growth-related goals are, for the short and medium range. Too often, principals live in the moment and make decisions on what feels right. Worse, they may feel obligated to offer “something” simply because it’s on the calendar. The risks in doing so, however, is that you can fail to deliver what is really needed. By developing a 3-5 year plan of the PD areas that you would like to focus on for your staff, you can approach the topic strategically and start to figure out such important areas as topics, schedule, budget and more. You can also loop back from time to time to reinforce and deepen previous learning, especially now that there’s been meaningful opportunity for them to practice.
Revisit the plan annually (if not sooner). We all know how quickly the winds could blow in the field of education. Yesterday’s “hot” topic can easily be replaced by tomorrow’s latest and greatest. By revisiting your list often, you can start current and see how such changes may or may not impact your thinking.
State and repeat: “One size fits none.” As with classroom instruction, PD also needs to be differentiated. We cannot expect our middle-school language teachers and our primary-grade teachers to benefit equally from the same presentation. Yes, some topics are generic and can be presented to an entire staff. However, there needs to be various examples for different sub-segments of the population to relate to. More about this later.

business, coaching, education, leadershipNaphtali HoffNovember 5, 2015leadership, training, professional developmentComment

8 qualities of strong mentors

Mentorship is a relationship that is created between an experienced professional and a less experienced mentee or protege. Its primary purpose is to build a support system that allows for the natural exchange of ideas, a forum for constructive advice, and a recipe for success.

Superior mentors possess most if not all of the following qualities:

Skilled and knowledgeable. Good mentors possess current and relevant knowledge, expertise, and/or skills.
Trust builder. The mentor establishes a high level of trust. He/she indicates that their relationship is about building capacity and offering support, not “zapping” the mentee for poor decisions or performances.
Active listener. A strong mentor knows how to listen. This includes using eyes and body posture to convey interest and attention. More about strong listening skills can be found here.

Connecting with parents

Many teachers use the relationships and the trust that they engender with parents to lay the foundation for student success. Unfortunately, in my years as a teacher and a principal, I too often observed an unhealthy dynamic between teachers and parents. Such teachers commonly found parents to be people that they needed to “deal with.” They viewed them as nuisances, if not worse. They wanted parents to stay out of their way and let them do their thing. After all, they were the experts.

Parents, for their part, can be quick to get upset with teachers for such things as rules, policies, perceived negative attitudes towards their child and, of course, poor student performance.

The sad reality is that the ones who suffer most from this tension are children. They need to feel the security of the rapport between school and home, rather than to be confused by an undercurrent of disharmony. As the African proverb states, “when two elephants fight, it’s the grass that gets trampled.”

education, leadership, relationshipsNaphtali HoffOctober 14, 2015education, connection, teachers, parents, relatingComment

Foster a growth mindset

A fixed mindset refers to the belief that skill and capacity are fundamentally attached to a person’s genetic composition. Either you “have it” and are good at it, or you’re not. This applies to everything from academics (“I’m not much of a math guy”) to business and social situations (“I don’t know marketing,”) as well as music, athletics, and more.

Those with growth mindsets, on the other hand, tend to believe that skills can be learned, at least to some degree of proficiency. They maintain and that success depends mainly on one’s willingness to learn, practice and pursue their goals. These men and women are not content to rest on their laurels. They continuously strive to learn new things and to develop new capabilities. They do so in part because of a great drive to succeed. But they also possess a deep sense that they can stretch their inborn talents if they are willing to make the effort.

leadership, coaching, relationshipsNaphtali HoffSeptember 8, 2015leaders, leadership, growth, mindset, learning, teaching, inspirationComment

Own Your Board

It goes without saying that the chief executive must make board relations a top priority. While board function and impact range significantly between companies and organizations, it is the board’s responsibility, at the minimum, to evaluate you and your work in advancing the organization. (They are also typically tasked with fiduciary oversight and maintenance of the mission.) As with any evaluative process, you want to position yourself on the right side of things, interpersonally and in terms of establishing an agreed-to and properly supported agenda.

leadership, coachingNaphtali HoffAugust 20, 2015leaders, leadership, board development, board of directors, relationshipsComment

Make your feedback personal

It is not a secret that job satisfaction in this country is not where it should be. A 2014 Conference Board report says that the majority of Americans (52.3%) are unhappy at work. What makes our workers happiest? The CB report says that “interest in work” provides satisfaction to 59% of the workplace. Even more fulfilling was “people at work,” which 60.6% said they liked. Similarly, an expansive study by Boston Consulting Group found that the No. 1 factor for employee happiness on the job is getting appreciated for work. The question for me is this: If interpersonal relationships and the expression of appreciation are so important to employees, why aren’t leaders spending more time doing it?

coaching, leadershipNaphtali HoffJune 26, 2015leaders, leadership, feedback, communicationComment

It Needn't be Lonely at the Top

Loneliness is, in a relative sense, measured in the eyes of the beholder. Some argue that the loneliest professionals in the world are those who toil in isolation, with limited opportunity for interpersonal communication. Yet there are others who weigh loneliness not by the frequency or infrequency of their interactions with others but rather with the quality of such exchanges.

leadership, coachingNaphtali HoffJune 23, 2015leadership, loneliness, connection, leaders Comments

Unleashing the Introverted Leader

The reality is that introversion has little to do with our levels of social comfort or verbosity. Rather, it reflects on our energy source. Extroverts are people who gain their energy from others. They walk into a room and feel energized, feeding off of the collective energy as they navigate through the crowd. They seek other’s company and feel somehow incomplete if they are left in isolation for too long.

Introverts, in contrast, gain their energy from quiet, private time. They love to think and reflect privately, with the door closed, and enter into public settings out of necessity rather than preference. While many introverts can be described as quiet, introverts are more than capable of speaking and engaging as circumstances dictate. It’s more about their preferences and inclinations rather than their disposition or capacity.

leadershipNaphtali HoffMarch 11, 2015leadership, introverts, social, skills, energy Comments

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