Build Momentum - Thought Leadership for Education, Global Workforce Edition

How do you Create a Thought Leadership Mindset | Sean Slade

June 10, 2021 Sarah Williamson Season 1 Episode 35
Build Momentum - Thought Leadership for Education, Global Workforce Edition
How do you Create a Thought Leadership Mindset | Sean Slade
Show Notes Transcript

In this episode of Build Momentum, we are joined by Sean Slade, A global education leader, speaker, author, and policymaker with over 25 years of experience. 

Sean is from the US head of education at BTS spark a global education nonprofit focused on developing the next generation of education leaders. He is also a co-founding member for the UNESCO chair on global health and education, a member of the OECD Future of Education and Skills 2030 project. And he's also an NBC today show social and emotional learning expert.

Some Questions I Ask:

  • Tell me more about your new role at BTS spark and what led you there? (1:52)
  • What are the big challenges educational leaders share and some of the challenges they face?  Where are they asking for support? (4:45)
  • Now that we know there's a big problem, How are you helping? And what kind of support are you providing? How are you helping them to hone their skill so that they can address some of these challenges? (7:45)
  • What advice you would have for our listeners to apply some of the skills that you're teaching (10:40)
  • What do you say to those leaders that are really heavily focused on data and demonstrating results in that way? And is there a balance between the two? (15:12)
  • How do you anticipate the shift on how we approach education and leadership? (16:09)
  • Have you seen an increase in interest in your program?(17:54)
  • What final advice do you have for our listeners today? (21:05)

In This Episode, You Will Learn:

  • BTS spark is really focused on the education sector, and primarily principals & superintendents. What they do is educational leadership development. (2:31)
  • The biggest issue of our educational leaders. (4:51)
  • The support that BTS Spark is proving to our educational leaders. (7:55)
  • Perceptions about social-emotional learning. (16:29)
  • Better understanding and appreciation that our emotions and our health and our mental health, and our relationships and our connections matter. (21:38)

Quotes:

“We might be sort of trying to infuse certain concepts or skills or attributes in our students. But we often miss out on making sure that our teachers and our educators are not only role modeling the same thing, but also are experiencing the same thing."

“We are living in a world now where things are getting a little bit more volatile, and still uncertain, and we're gonna need school leaders to deal with uncertainty, and also who are able to make decisions.”

“To be the most effective leader, you need to bring your personal self into it.”

" Leadership and education is a human endeavor. And the best leaders are the ones that can make it personal, make it relevant, and provide meaning."

"We believe that the best leaders in schools are the ones that make education human and make leadership human."

Connect with BTS Spark:
Website
Twitter (BTS Spark US)
Twitter (BTS Spark Canada)




Stay in touch with Sarah Williamson:
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About "The Secret to Transformational Leadership," which Sarah co-authored with Dr. Quintin Shepherd:
Transformational Leadership Secret website
Purchase the print or ebook

Sarah Williamson:

Hello and welcome to build momentum where we make PR easy for education organizations. This show was created to help edtech startups, research institutes and schools learn how to develop simple, replicable PR strategies and how to execute on those strategies. I'm your host, Sarah Williamson. And I've spent the past 15 years working in PR, where I've been able to understand what works and what doesn't when it comes to making an impact. I will share my tips for success and interview others who have done the same to provide you with a framework that you can use within your own organization. Be sure to grab my free guide how to create a killer case study even if you don't have data at casestudy.swpr-group.com that's casestudy.swpr-group.com Okay, and on today's episode, we have Sean Slade, Global Education leader, speaker, author and policymaker with over 25 years of experience spanning five countries and four continents. He is the US head of education at BTS spark a global education nonprofit focused on developing the next generation of education leaders. He is also a co founding member for the UNESCO chair on global health and education, a member of the OECD Future of Education 2030. And he's also an NBC today show social and emotional learning expert. Welcome, Shawn. It's an absolute pleasure to have you on the show today.

Sean Slade:

Thank you very much. It's a pleasure to be here again.

Sarah Williamson:

Yes, absolutely. So Shawn, in your impressive bio, I didn't even mention that you're the former senior director of old child and global outreach at ascd, where you focused on promoting an expanding ASCD whole child approach across the US and globally, which is also an impressive role. So I'd love to learn first of all more about your new role at BTS spark and what led you there and just start there if you wouldn't mind?

Sean Slade:

Yeah, certainly. Yeah. And yeah, no, I recently moved from ASCD where I was directing the mission and the whole child work at ASCD. And I've been there for over a decade. And a lot of the work that I'm doing now with BTS spark aligns back to that and my belief, but it's really taking more of a whole educator or a whole leader approach. So BTS spark, is the nonprofit arm of the larger BTS company. And both are focused on developing leadership skills, and leadership development. But BTS spark is really focused on the education sector, and primarily principals, superintendents, that also experienced educators, the focus of what we do is educational leadership development, and developing the same skills that we actually want to see in our kids. And so things around collaboration, problem solving, empathy, decision making, you know, it's weird sometimes how in education, we might be sort of trying to infuse certain concepts or skills or attributes in our students. But we often miss out on making sure that our teachers, and our educators are not only role modeling the same thing, but also are experiencing the same thing. Yeah. So it's really yeah, for me, it's a move along that same line of progressive education, and more learner centered education, and a progression towards making schools have more agency and decision making in their own right.

Sarah Williamson:

Hmm. I love that you're focusing on the leadership for those educators. One of the things we talk about a lot on this show is thought leadership, and helping to build the profiles of those thought leaders. But I think it's pretty fascinating that we often don't talk about how to create the leadership skills for our educators and people who are running our school districts, even though we talk about the kids, we want them to have that experience, but we really don't focus on teachers and educators. So I think that's amazing that you're focused in that in that area. And I think that's important work they're doing so thank you.

Sean Slade:

Well, one interesting part of it is what we do have in education is we do have instructional leaders. And so we have people who were mentors, all printable was a former principal was going into classroom and giving some instruction on how the pedagogy is what we are doing is a little bit different. So we're really focused on not on the pedagogical side, but we're focused on the leadership development side. And as you say, These things don't exist widely in education. It's almost you're promoted up because of experience, then you're promoted up into roles, which may be very different than what you've been doing previously.

Sarah Williamson:

Yeah, absolutely. So curious, when some of these leaders come to you, what are the big challenges they share and some of the challenges they face of where they're asking you for support?

Sean Slade:

Yeah, well, you want to hear that after the last 12 months. The biggest issue is around well being. We were talking about the well being and the mental of Kingston students, but the mental health and well being of teachers, and also principals, or superintendents or other administrators is funding an education that you're the higher up, you get in the hierarchy, you tend to get fewer colleagues and peers and support networks. And so even last year, during COVID, we were talking to a lot of school leaders who really had no one else to turn to, they were seen as being top of the pyramid. And people were coming to them for advice and decisions, often when there were no correct decisions to be made that will finally you know, what decision will do the least harm. And so there's a lot of stress, and there's a lot of pressure out there. So wellbeing has been a big driver of our work over the last probably nine months or so. We have been doing work with Surrey schools have been British Columbia around well being and that expanded to some work with education candidates are offering a well being programs and coaching via F. Ken up there. And, you know, even if you look at some of the recent articles that have come out in a week, although I'm using Dewey's educational leadership, a lot of them are focusing on the mental health and the principles on district leaders around there was some report, I think, a couple of weeks ago from Brian association that was talking about 42% of principals are looking at leaving the profession issue meant typically it's about 18%, at annual review. Wow, there's a lot of stress out there.

Sarah Williamson:

Yeah, there is. It's funny that you said a pyramid, I was just talking to some of my colleagues about this, how we kind of forget how lonely it can be at the top, literally, it's that one person at the top of the pyramid looking down, they can see both sides, the airson up there, and there's so much pressure.

Sean Slade:

But we were even talking to people cheering the last couple of months, basically starting new roles in a new district when COVID hit and schools got shut down. And so there they are, they don't even have peer groups or relationships that they have established in that district. And all of a sudden, they're put into this leadership role. And at the same time, we did not do a good job as a country of making decisions. And then having those decisions flow down, whether it's from the federal government or the state government, or anything else. And we left a lot of those decisions around what to do, whether to open when to close, whether to be hybrid, what services to put in, we left those decisions predominantly to the districts, and often to the individual school leaders as well. And that's a lot of pressure.

Sarah Williamson:

So much pressure. I know. Okay, well clearly, there's job security for you, for the next several years. So now that we know there's a big problem, how are you helping? And what kind of support are you providing? How are you helping them to hone this skill so that they can address some of these challenge.

Sean Slade:

So much of it is having them understand what they're in control of who they can learn to, but also some of those skills, and mindsets around things to do with resilience, or perseverance, or leading in times of uncertainty. So we have at the base of our work, we have four key areas, which is the relate, inspire, and think. And then inside those four key areas, we have what we call hexagons, there are three of them, or you could think of them as mindsets, each of which sort of target a different aspect of leadership, you know, some might be around to have good conversations with others, some might be around decision making. around like I was saying to do with empathy and personal resilience and focusing more on well being. And so what we end up doing is, we find the take individuals through coaching sessions, or we take small groups, typically, these could be groups of four to six people through coaching sessions, and these coaching sessions would span over, you know, several months, but it allows them to one get someone to refer back to them, and also understand what their reactions are, or what their mindsets are, and then how they can react when these things that will come in more uncertainty comes their way because unfortunately, we're living in a world now where things are getting a little bit more volatile, and you're still uncertain, the old word, and we're gonna need school leaders to deal with uncertainty, and also who are able to make decisions when it may not be a pandemic that next time but there's certainly going to be times when they're required to make decisions to resolve situations and really to try and get the climate and the culture of their school district working more effectively and efficiently.

Sarah Williamson:

Yeah, absolutely. It's almost like just building all those social emotional skills that we're requiring for students into those educators as well, to manage them. So

Sean Slade:

it's one thing I was mentioning before where it's really from my point of view, I think we did a pretty good job at ASCD of pushing the whole child approach, which I still

Sarah Williamson:

Yeah, I love that. Yeah, that's great. So a believe in 100%. And I really think this as now taking the next step, what's been stopping, or what could really be as a springboard to take a more learner centered approach? And I think it's the leaders. And so this is really looking at making a more educated approach to education. lot of our listeners are leaders of some kind. So I'm curious what advice you would have for them to apply some of the skills that you're teaching these educators, and some of them are CEOs, some of them run edtech. Companies? How can they apply some of these learnings that you're teaching within their own organizations,

Sean Slade:

a lot of what we do comes back initially to mindset. And so the way that you think about something or the way that you look at a problem, or you're looking at an issue, and so it's changing people's mindsets about what they can and what they can't do, I think it was Bernie Brown, who said, you know, who you are as how you lead. And I think we're coming to a realization at the moment. And this is not we as the BTS Spark, but I think we as in education, in general, is to be the most effective leader, you need to bring your personal self into it. And it's not effective leaders are not the ones leave their personal sign outside the school guy. And they're only working by numbers and bar graphs inside the leadership and education especially is a human endeavor. And the best leaders are the ones that can make it personal, make it relevant, provide meaning be human, basically, you know, the best teaching we've seen, for many years now, the best teachers in the classrooms are the ones that develop relationships with their students, they understand who the students are, they understand what context they come from, they understand where they are educationally and what's going to pique their interest or what help they need. So the best teachers in our schools are the ones that make education human. We believe that the best leaders in schools are the ones that make education human and make leadership human. And so what we're trying to do really is apply some practical skills, but also allow the leaders to understand that who they are, is important in how they live, and you shouldn't divorce one from the other. And if you do it, it makes the task a lot harder.

Sarah Williamson:

Yeah, I think that is also something we talk a lot about on the show, as well as being human, so easy to forget that as leaders when we're running big companies, but having empathy for what people are going through, and really trying to put yourself in their perspective in their shoes. And if we leave that way, I'm talking to myself here, too. I mean, it's so important to try to remember that every day, everyone has their own issues going on.

Sean Slade:

And it doesn't mean that you bring all of your issues. And there's obviously there's a continuum here of too much, or too little. But you shouldn't also, I think we've talked about our fallacy of leadership in education, where we have said for a number of decades now, we have to be more businesslike, we have to act more like the corporations. For some reason, we've been assuming that that means that everything is driven by data, and there is no room for emotion. And there's no room for individual personality. curious thing is the our parent company, BTS worked with the fortune 500 companies and the big organizations. They're wanting their leaders to be more empathetic. They're wanting them to bring their own personalities, they're wanting their companies that they're bidding to be more human, we have a human industry, in education. And so this fallacy of leadership that we think, you know, being more of a business leader being means being more cold and distant. No, it actually means the opposite. And so hopefully, we can start to convince educators and education leaders that they need to take a little bit more time and care for themselves. Unfortunately, in education, we tend to give away everything that we get. And so if the teacher gets a gift or money from the parents, they use it on the kids. And if a principal gets some extra funding, he or she uses it on the teachers and if the superintendent gets something extra, they're going to give it back to the district. Now all of that is wonderful when it's part of sort of the education ethos, but there also comes a time when we need to be more realistic and understand in order for our districts and our schools and our system to be effective and functional. We need to spend time on our leadership, because the cultures of the climate of our school are impacted by those leaders.

Sarah Williamson:

Yeah. So question for you. You mentioned data. I'm curious, what do you say to those leaders that are really heavily focused on data and demonstrating results in that way? And is there a balance between the two?

Sean Slade:

Yeah, being pro leadership development or pro empathy does not mean that you're anti data. So even I'm making a bit of a stereotype. But I talked about, you know, the leader that focuses only on data, that two things are not incompatible. And I think if you can want to be a leader, who understand the human side of leadership, the social development of that, and you also understand what the outcomes are, and you have metrics to prove that, then that's wonderful. You know, that's what you should be aiming for, is when we swing too much in one direction. And I think it's when we swing too much, especially in the numbers or heavenly direction, I think we lose a lot of what education is about. Yeah,

Sarah Williamson:

I agree with you. Okay, so back to the social emotional comments we were talking about. So I know that you have obviously vast experience, and you're an expert for the today show, which is incredible. How do you anticipate we're going to see a shift in how we approach education and leadership? When it comes to SEL, moving forward?

Sean Slade:

optimistic, you know, maybe I'm foolishly optimistic. But I think what we've gone through over the last year has changed a lot of people's perceptions, about taking care of themselves and about social emotional learning, like, what's been amazing is the amount of attention and money that's come out from government, but also, like governments recently have around social emotional learning around mental health, mainly for kids. But it's great to see that this potential is there. I think we're also coming to a realization and I think it will hit home this year, when we get teachers going back into physical classrooms, or perhaps retiring and deciding No, I'm not going to do that. I think we're gonna understand and realize how important potential is for the social emotional development of teachers and leaders as well, it's, they need to be there, they just start taking care of the room will be I think, have to adjust the thought as to some of the funding that's coming down has been wonderful, you know, more funding for social workers for school counselors for school nurse, that was what the students needed. But I think there will be a ripple effect. And we'll start to seek more attention and given to educators themselves.

Sarah Williamson:

Yeah. And of course, we continue to hear about investments made in PD, especially this year. But have you seen at BTS Spark, have you seen an increase in interest in your program? I'm curious about that. And if you anticipate that will continue. When I think of ETS Spark, it seems like it's very similar to an insurance company offering an incentive for wellness programs. When you think about people earning, you know, they go run, they track the running, and they're getting reduced rate, it seems like that's something that would be very similar to what you would offer in terms of the health and well being of these leaders.

Sean Slade:

Well, it's only a preventative measure, one, I think it can be reactive majorly, because, you know, people are stressed, and they are suffering, so they need to be attended to. But I think you can also, as you're saying, Be a preventative measure. If you start to develop these understandings and mindset, you are able to take control of your mental health better, you're able to make decisions around that better. When you're able to develop teams of support better, as well. You're also able to develop more of the decision making skill so that you're not thrown back into these situations where the stress becomes overwhelming. Right. So I think we are moving in that direction. You know, just focus on the whole trauma focus on the whole move in or the focus on the whole educator is growing. And as I was saying before, the biggest interest we've got at the moment from the spark is around well being. And in fact, this week, we have an article out in ag week this week, which really focuses on the work as well. It's not even by the common grounds. But the article was called, let's not forget the effect the pandemic has had on our teachers now, talks directly to this point, and then starts talking about some of that funding coming down in grant and most of it is directed towards learning loss or well being. There's a lot of that as well, which is directed towards professional development of leaders. So we've had a monthly focus this month on the well being one because it's such a timely topic and unfortunately a needed topic. I can see this word growing, you know, I would love to be in a place in five years where we don't need to have our own well being with our before, students or therapy for teachers or leaders, you know, it'd be lovely to that the systems that we develop, tend to be self helping and supportive. And so, you know, when I was talking about whole child, in the last interview, we did, it'd be great that we don't have to keep on talking about it. And the tools just are friendly, accepting learner centered places of learning, take into account, the social, the emotional, the mental, the physical, as well as the cognitive, and what would be great in five years, if we're not having to call out that we need to address the mental health of educators and school leaders, because the system hopefully will have come up to speed and will start taking care of key stakeholders.

Sarah Williamson:

Yeah, I love that goal. Let's hope that's the case in 5 to 10 years, right? Yeah. So Shawn, what final advice do you have for our listeners today? I mean, this is a bit of a sad topic right now, because we're in dire state, anything, we can uplift us at the end? Again, maybe

Sean Slade:

it's me, but I'm foolishly optimistic. I think there's been all of this, like, we've gone through one of the most traumatic years that most of us have experienced, you know, some far more than others. We're coming out of it with a better understanding and appreciation that our emotions and our health and our mental health, and our relationships and our connections matter. And so I think we've actually turned the corner in education, about changing our mindset about what education is, is not just gained from tests. And it's not just academic results, it's about developing people who are going to be successful in their lives, and successful in society. I think the positives I would take out of that is we're coming to an understanding, not only in education, but I think in our society, that will be is fundamental, that well being is foundational. And if we don't take care of our own well being and the well being available, then it makes the rest of what we do. Very difficult to do.

Sarah Williamson:

Absolutely. I agree. I love that perspective. That's a good positive note to end on. where can our listeners learn more about you and BTS spark?

Sean Slade:

The first thing is we actually have a webinar coming up, we're doing a summer series of webinars for having in June, and the first one you'll won't be surprised to hear is on a well being. If people go to bitly/btssparkwellbeing they can get information. They can also follow us on Twitter,@btssparkus or at @btssparkcan for Canada, or our website, which is bts.com/spark. The webinar, by the way, should be a fun chat discussion with people that you listen to avoid over ever talking to them with Andrew Harper, his colleague, Dennis Surely the two of them are writing a book for ASCD. On wellbeing. We have Tara O'Brien has been leading the leading work in Canada. And we've also got Dr. Josh Garcia, who's the new superintendent over in Tacoma schools in Washington. And he's also been a big champion of the whole child approach that they've been doing in Tacoma, and strong advocate of making sure that mental health and well being and not only for students, but also for educators across the district. So that should be fun.

Sarah Williamson:

That sounds like fun. I will definitely include all those links in the show notes. And I encourage our listeners to I will try to attend that sounds great. Oh, it's free, by the way as well. Perfect. Good, even better. Oh, thank you, Shawn. It's so great to have you on the show. I hope to have you back soon. And yeah, thank you again, have a wonderful day. Appreciate it. Thanks very much. Yes, and build momentum listeners. Don't forget to grab my free guide to creating a killer case study even if you don't have data. Again, that's available at case study.sw pr dash group comm case study.sw pr dash group comm thanks so much for tuning in today. And if you've enjoyed this episode, be sure to subscribe to our podcast and write us review on iTunes, Spotify, or whatever platform you choose to listen. We will be back with another episode of build momentum next week. Thanks so much and have a fantastic day.