Blogs, forums, chat rooms, listservs—the list goes on and on. These are valuable resources to find alternative opinions and information about almost anything. From HR concerns to just needing a quick laugh to fuel the rest of your day, blogs can help remind you you're not alone in the all to often chaotic world of private-independent education.
Here are a few leadership and employee development-related posts that stood out to us this month and wanted to share:
Employee Development: Just What Are You Doing With Your High-Potential Employees?
HR blogger Tim Sackett opines on the best ways to support and inspire your “high potential” faculty and staff members. A brief snippet gives you a sense of where he stands on this question: “Give them lead positions on projects, putting them in positions to communicate to senior leadership and shine, getting them into the organizational “circle of trust.”
Performance Management: Performance Appraisal: 5 Sure-Fire Ways To Fail
Performance coach Joan Henshaw uses “reverse psychology” – or, some might say, witty but all-too-accurate sarcasm – to illuminate the failings of most performance evaluation meetings. A sample: “If possible hold the meeting somewhere noisy, too hot or too cold and smelly. Be sure you can guarantee a number of interruptions and that other people can overhear your conversation. Anywhere in an open plan office should work well.”
Leadership: Measuring Great Leadership After Steve Jobs
A great deal has been written about Apple CEO, Steve Jobs, since his recent passing. Here, leadership expert Eric McNulty ponders an organization’s ability to sustain excellence after the passing of a legendary figure. To wit: “Jobs’ role as CEO and leader was to deliver short-term results, while building the conditions for long-term success. Long-term has only just begun, and the most important dynamic to track will be whether the genius of Apple was Steve Jobs, or a genius in building a company that has a collective capacity for striking innovation and discovery.” Substitute “Head” for “CEO” and “school” for “company” – and almost all points should translate directly to a school environment.
Change Management: The Power of Incremental Change Over Time
Michael Hyatt explores the nature of incremental change, and whether this is more realistic and attainable for most people than dramatic, quantum leap-type change. As he notes, “Most people underestimate this. They think they have to take massive action to achieve anything significant.” Not so, as he explains here.
