Skills Repeat

It’s the first time (without Covid restrictions) that I am not working during the summer holidays. Trying to organise every day to match the curiosity of the children is challenging- I would never downplay being the person solely responsible for various activities that they are interested in but may not be your own personal strength or enjoyment.

It’s not all the way into the school holidays but so far every day has been full on. It’s made me think about leadership and empathy. How do you lead a diverse team that you clearly don’t know as well as your children in areas that are both your own strengths and weaknesses? The answer; the leader uses listening, understanding, engagement and outcome based guidance understanding their team are not children.

It is challenging, it isn’t easy to coach your team on 100% everything because you can’t be a perfect performer. It’s about being confident in understanding your abilities but also the abilities of your team members that can compliment your overall team outcomes. A strong leader understands their personal weaknesses, understands how they can work with others and around them to achieve something, but then also is happy to work on themselves to learn and improve for next time.

It can be challenging to accept if this is your first leadership role and you want to assert your authority. However, leadership isn’t asserting your authority, it’s about successful business outcomes and keeping this in mind together moves everything else out of the picture.