Effective leadership is rooted in strategic planning, unified goals, decisive actions, and clear communication.
As the workforce grows more global, leaders must pay attention to how they lead and motivate their team. Team members come from different backgrounds and have different life experiences.
To build trust within a diverse team, education leaders should appreciate and consider the input from individuals with different perspectives.
Trust is earned through actions over time but can be broken in an instant with a poor decision or lack of action.
Since leaders are humans and naturally fallible, it is essential that leaders build a firm foundation of trust so that team members remain committed to the learning community when missteps occur.
Missteps are different from callous disregard for a person or group. When trust is broken by not showing value for a person, leadership recovery is unlikely.
Fostering an Inclusive and Diverse Work Environment
Leaders foster inclusive environments by showing value and empathy for all team members. Effective leaders gain input from people whose ideas and backgrounds differ from their own.
There is richness in gaining a well-rounded perspective by gathering feedback from a diverse group. Diversity brings a wealth of ideas. Leading with empathy means that the leader must seek to understand team members.
Hiring a diverse team and appreciating their input creates a workplace focused on purpose and inclusivity. Further, by fostering this supportive culture, decisions, work, and policies are more likely to be sound and thoughtful.
Our nation was not built by one person, but rather it was built through the actions of many bringing diverse backgrounds. Leaders realize that there is far more to bring us together than the differences among us. Leaders value their character and make conscious efforts to support all of their team members.
Effective Communication and Collaboration
Effective and timely communication is a cornerstone of productive learning communities. All communication needs to be clear, explicit, professional, and timely. Leaders need to maintain transparent and open communication channels with team members.
If leaders do not share their thoughts and story, others will create the narrative for them. Communication comes in many forms including, but not limited to, written, verbal, unspoken, body language, and listening capacity.
Regardless of the mode of communication, communication needs to be professional and mindful of all stakeholders and group members. Skilled leaders are both confident and clear in all communication.
Good communication and teamwork are important when leading a diverse team. These help build trust and keep the team focused on shared goals.
Communication and messages do not need to show preference and more consideration of one group over another. As such, it is imperative that leaders understand their team members and the background/unique life perspectives each one brings to the table.
Diversity comes in many forms. We all have unique life experiences. Understanding team members helps a leader build trust, and team member strengths can be leveraged to accelerate movement toward a common vision.
Educators make significantly less progress when they operate on islands of isolation. When all team members own the vision and its related goals, collaboration is more easily facilitated.
For learning communities to offer the best educational experiences to their diverse student groups, it’s important for all team members to collaborate effectively.
Collaboration simply means that team members work together toward common goals. For collaboration to be successful, it is essential that targets and group norms are clearly defined. Those norms must include parameters on how to show respect, engage with the group appropriately, and consider others’ viewpoints.
Good written and spoken communication is important for leading a team with different backgrounds. However, leaders should also pay attention to what is not said.
Our body language and tone often communicate more than our words. Leaders should show a “we” mindset. This means they focus on the group’s needs and the needs of students, not just their own. Trust is earned over a career but can be eternally broken in an instant.
Leaders must be mindful of how they communicate through unspoken means. Actions are probably the most essential element of unspoken communication. Our actions must align with our words, or our words are meaningless.
Collaboration and communication both take the form of listening. As leaders listen and model this skill for team members, they are communicating, accepting feedback, considering possible direction changes, and showing value for the perspective of others.
Listening is an active skill and not a passive one. We need to listen, absorb, and reflect. If we listen to respond instead of to understand, we damage the communication process.
It is critical to remember that listening to a team member does not mean that he or she will get his or her way. The feedback will be considered though.
While practicing active listening, leaders need to ask clarifying questions to let the team know that he or she is being heard.
A final consideration of communication and collaboration is that leaders must embrace feedback regarding their own leadership style. Leaders should rise to the occasion and earn their role through servant leadership.
Leaders cannot be narrowly focused on the impact on them and bruised feelings. Feedback can be considered and used to move the learning community toward its common goals.
Leaders should thank all team members for trusting them to lead and proceed accordingly.
Motivation and Engagement
Leaders of diverse teams need to build capacity in cultural competence. They need to understand and be mindful of what different team members value.
As team members begin to trust that the work environment is safe and conducive to innovative thought, they will become more engaged and motivated to contribute.
Innovative thought is often a byproduct of unique life experiences that lead to the best solutions to complex problems.
Team members need to know that their thoughts and ideas will be embraced as plausible solutions. It is important to create guidelines that ensure team feedback is respected and reviewed for potential implementation.
Recognition is one of the most valued motivators for the workforce. As such, leaders need to offer team members feedback and offer recognition for gains in performance and outcomes.
Skilled leaders value the unique contributions of members and celebrate milestones in the pursuit of strategic goals.
Leadership Development
Team leaders need to invest time in leadership development. Learning communities understand that leaders must model the way and train the next generation.
Furthermore, growing leadership capacity within the current team will help move the organization towards its strategic goals.
A graduate degree in administration prepares you to lead as a school administrator and help shape the future for generations of students. Check out our available leadership and administration graduate degrees and get started today!
