Balancing Care and Candid

In my school leader’s reflection on building a stainable culture of care, he spoke on the need to have people with high personal mastery, self-efficacy whose purpose is in service of others. He also spoke on the failure to communicate shortcomings of each other with love and care for each other’s well-being – to be open and frank.

Since my appointment as a middle manager about one and half years ago, I have been trying to strike a balance between care and candid with my teachers and trainers.

I shall first attempt to articulate my experience on care – the idea of treating my teachers and trainers in my team like family. To me, such commitment to the team focuses on two areas, namely building of the team spirit as well as giving and expecting responsibility and accountability of each team member. The later part of the commitment is what I came to put into action this year.

As mentioned in my reflection at the beginning of 2011, one of my intentional focus as a middle manager is to build the team spirit – on the importance of informal communication (lunches outside school) and the need for holding formal interactions (biweekly meetings) so that the teachers feel valued and feel a sense of belonging to the team. I came to realize that having a system in place helps but should not be considered as the main factor in building team spirit. Instead it is the personal touch whenever I deal with my teachers that mattered most. One of the key principles I have adapted from my experience working with my teachers is – “Seek first to understand, then be understood” (by Stephen Covey). My listening with the intent to understand, my learning from such communications and finally my leading has helped me developed positive relationships with my teachers. And finally, going through the learning journey together with my teachers has enabled me to connect and get the most out of my teachers and trainers.

There is this tendency to think that being caring means giving my team (teachers, trainers) permission to do whatever they want – that I appeared “soft” to some teachers and fellow middle managers. Some teachers even came to expect that I cater to all (even the simplest) of needs. This idea is wrong. I came to believe and expect that all in my team will work with responsibility and accountability. I believe that my caring about people has helps all parties involved (my teachers, trainers and I) establish a positive relationship. In this way, I can actually have many more opportunities to speak to them candidly and have hard conversations with them to help them grow and perform better – therefore, expanding our relationship. Everyone has problems and makes mistakes. Everyone needs to improve and needs someone to come alongside to help them to improve. I see this as my responsibility to be that person who helps my teachers and trainers to get better, especially in getting a team to move together to accomplish our common goal and that requires being open and frank. And since it involves responsibility to the welfare of a group or cohort, there will be teachers and even my fellow middle managers who will get angry at my actions and decisions. It is inevitable – I felt that it is the right time to do and I will do it all over again. So how does one maintain the relationship while trying to move people forward? By balancing care and candid – that my caring should not suppress my candid, while being candid should not displace my care.