Choose One Leadership Move and Practise It
The start of a new term is not the time to choose seventeen leadership priorities.
Even one is enough, if it is chosen carefully and practised consistently.
During the school holidays, it is easy to think about the term ahead in broad language: improving learning, strengthening culture, building consistency, supporting staff, lifting outcomes. All of that matters. But once the term begins, school life gets very full very quickly. The urgent work starts crowding out the important work.
This is true for principals and assistant principals, but it is just as true for leading teachers, learning specialists, curriculum leaders and team leaders. Middle leadership often sits right in the messy middle of school improvement: close enough to classrooms to see what is really happening, and close enough to leadership priorities to feel the weight of implementation.
That is why I have been revisiting the Victorian Academy of Teaching and Leadership’s Academy Leadership Excellence Framework. One thing I appreciate about the framework is that it gives leaders a way to think, not just a list of things to be good at. It invites us to consider the domains we are working in, the capabilities we need to draw on, and the dispositions that shape how we show up with others.
That is the value of a good framework. It can slow our thinking down before we rush to action.
For a middle leader, that might mean asking: Is this work about teaching and learning, developing others, or leading change? Do I need to use more relevant knowledge before proposing a solution? Is this actually a complex problem that needs deeper diagnosis? What would building trust look like here?
So, as Term 3 approaches, I wonder whether the most useful question is not “What do I need to improve as a leader?” but “What is one leadership move I am willing to practise repeatedly?”
That might be starting planning with, “What evidence are we using to make this decision?”
It might be slowing down before offering a solution and asking, “What do we think is really causing this?”
It might be making one meeting more purposeful by clarifying what is being discussed, what is being decided and what action will follow.
Small, repeated leadership behaviours often matter more than big aspirational statements.
So, if you have some space before Term 3 begins, it may be worth looking at the Academy Leadership Excellence Framework and choosing one domain, capability or disposition to focus on.
Not as a goal written somewhere and forgotten. Maybe as a reminder on a post-it in your workspace. One thing, done deliberately and often enough that it starts to shape the way you lead.
What is one leadership action you could practise repeatedly next term?
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