Superintendants: Leading schools today calls for a unique and profound leadership profile.

We are at a place of transformation and few industries will be exempt!  Transforming education will require brave and bold leadership.  Creating the opportunitity for innovation and collaboration is critical.  Peer to peer learning is a powerful way to influence behavior and to ensure there is enough gas in the tank to endure the journey! 

A tip of the hat to BOSS! 

Laura Goodrich

 

http://www.prweb.com/releases/2011/12/prweb9065415.htm

 

Board of School Superintendents Announces Cohort Learning to Reduce Stress and Isolation of School District Leaders

School Superintendents are constantly attacked and diminished by many stakeholders. This issue is only accelerating as districts are challenged with depleting resources. BOSS aims to reverse this through cohort learning.

A belief is not merely an idea the mind possesses. It is an idea that possesses the mind. ~ Robert Oxton Bolton

Minneapolis, MN (PRWEB) December 30, 2011

School Administrators continue to be under great stress as they conduct the leadership work necessary to improve public education. In a recent national survey conducted by American Association of School Administrators(AASA, 2010), Superintendents report the highest levels of stress in history.

Board of School Superintendents, has seen that this ongoing stress leads to isolation of the School District Superintendent and hinders growth and improvement in public schools. Beyond the personal costs, stress and isolation contributes to superintendent turnover. In some school districts a new superintendent is hired every two or three years. Turnover leads to inconsistency of action and ultimately the chronic under performance of public schools.

BOSS will provide cohort learning and coaching for active school superintendents as the solution to stress and isolation. Isolation takes a physical and emotional toll. Isolation encourages personal defensiveness and potential unhealthy responses to stress. The greater the isolation the less effective the school superintendent becomes. A way out of this common trap is to find a safe place to confide with other leaders. This moves the superintendent from the conditions of fatigue, drained, worn out, down, low energy, and depressed to the abundance of energy, creativity, engagement, courage, and strength.

“Leading schools today calls for a unique and profound leadership profile. A leader that can achieve high results for all students while simultaneously eliminating the achievement gap. Keeping a focus on this goal while also navigating multiple agendas can lead to exhaustion and isolation for any superintendent. BOSS is a place for superintendents to meet together, problem solve, learn and generate and sustain positive, proactive leadership. It's a place that will compel the moral imperative and change that superintendents need today as they work in partnership to achieve results," says Dr. Melissa Krull, a Minnesota Chair for BOSS.

Gary Cohen, CEO and Co-founder of BOSS says, “You cannot address the major issues facing public schools today if the superintendent is withdrawn, worn out and feeling diminished. We believe that in order to provide the required leadership development for School Superintendents so they lead adaptive changes in public schools, you must first address the emotional isolation and stress.”

“School Superintendents who join a Board of School Superintendent Cohort become engaged with other school superintendents who are experiencing similar job stress and isolation. Through a time tested and research based model for cohort learning, BOSS Fellows find their leadership performance improves by reducing the deleterious effects of stress and isolation. The level of confidentiality within this group provides a safe place for leaders to learn while doing a very difficult job,” says Dr. Mark Wolak, President of BOSS.

BOSS partners with national and state organizations, both public and private, who share the commitment to develop leaders and improve outcomes for students in public education.

If you would like more information about Board of School Superintendents please go to BOSS or call 612-204-2044. Board of School Superintendents (BOSS) strategic mission is to Elevate Learners by Elevating Leaders. BOSS is based in Minneapolis, Minnesota and founded by Gary B. Cohen and Dr. Mark A. Wolak.

“Developing Leaders, Driving Change and Improving Outcomes”

HR - Help managers make better people decisions, and enhance the quality of the dialogue with employees.

It's time to improve the management/employee interaction. HR - Your job is to help managers make better people decisions, and enhance the quality of the dialogue with employees. HR professionals must ask the questions... “Am I really helping managers to manage more effectively?” and “Am I impacting the employment experience of the employee?”

 

Insights from Taleo.

http://www.taleo.com/talent-management-blog/2011/12/13/three-key-themes-that-...

 

 

Three Key Themes that Emerged from Taleo Europe 2011

by Chris Phillips | December 13, 2011

The first ever Taleo Europe customer conference took place in Paris on Tuesday 8th – Wednesday 9th November. With a turnout of almost 300 customers, partners and media, it was a huge success and a lot of fun too! We definitely plan to hold Taleo Europe on an annual basis in future years. One of the great pleasures from the two days for me was that I had the opportunity to have a lot of interesting discussions in a short period of time. In this post I will distill down some of the key themes from both the formal presentations and the informal chat around the (extremely tasty!) Parisian canapés.

1. Business Management and Talent Management Are Converging

Several of the speakers (Michael Gregoire Taleo’s CEO, Laurent Geoffroy of Alcatel-Lucent and Thomas Otter from Gartner) explored this theme, and there were several levels to this discussion. At the macro-organisational level this is about strategic workforce planning. A part of planning for any business strategy should be to plan the impact on the workforce who is going to have to execute that strategy. Do we have the leadership? Do we have the skills needed? Are our best people in the highest impact areas of the workforce?

However, there is a more operational level at which business and talent management is converging. It is based on the realization that in practice talent is best managed by managers not by HR. The business impact of ‘talent management’ activities sponsored by HR is orders of magnitude greater when they improve the quality of the management/employee interaction. It forces talent management professionals to ask themselves questions like “Am I really helping managers to manage more effectively?” and “Am I materially impacting the employment experience of the employee?”

So just like workforce planning becomes a part of business planning, so talent management becomes a part of day-to-day operational management. The role of HR then becomes to help managers in the business get better at it. Several customers told me that such a mindset shift forces you to start to think more in terms of decision support and less about process. The focus shifts away from making sure managers complete processes like annual reviews or hiring in a timely fashion. You begin to think more in terms of helping managers make better people decisions, and enhancing the quality of the dialogue they have with their employees.

And that brings me on to the second major theme…

2. The Need For Better ‘Talent Intelligence’ Is Driving Suite Adoption

One powerful way to help a manager make better decisions is to make sure that they are armed with better data or better ‘talent intelligence.’ It is true in every other area of the business and it is true when it comes to people/talent management. Relevant data, put into context, arms a manager with the insight needed to make more informed decisions. Further, when a manager sits down to talk to a current or potential employee that dialogue will be more honest, objective, and productive if both of them have the relevant facts at hand.

Thomas Otter made the point in his excellent presentation that HR and data analytics have not always been natural bedfellows! It certainly raises some questions about the skills that HR will need going forward. It also spotlights the challenges that many organisations have just getting access to the data. Most companies have evolved their systems to be focused on individual processes like recruiting, performance reviews, learning, etc. But if I am a manager I want to be able to understand all the relevant information about an individual if I am to make the right decision about them. If I can’t see all the information about someone in one place I am likely not to bother looking and fall back on my gut feel and personal observations. It is not surprising then that many customers are looking for a more unified, manager- and employee-friendly approach to their talent management systems.

And in fact it’s worse than that. In many organisations, an increasing amount of the information about each individual doesn’t even exist in any system, which brings us to the third major trend…

3. Mobile Devices and Social Networks Are Changing The Way We Work

Several of the presenters talked about the rise of consumer technologies like mobile smartphones and social (or often professional) networks. If talent management means helping managers to manage better, then you really need to give them the tools where it’s convenient to use them. And that increasingly means on their smartphone or through their chosen social and professional networking sites. You also have to make sure that any technology tools you provide are as easy to use as their day-to-day experience of Google, Amazon or Linked-In.

Several people I spoke with were very excited about this because it turns the threatening world of rapidly evolving mobile devices and external social networks into a huge opportunity for HR. If you can give managers and employees useful, easy to use tools that enhance the quality of management for both sides, then they will likely use them…every day. You can then start to collect and consolidate massive amounts of useful data, which in turn enables you to provide better talent management services. A true virtuous circle.

So it seems that all three of these themes are interrelated. At heart they all boil down to an understanding that really influencing the business means improving the way people are managed on a day-to-day basis.