Best Practice

Calm leadership: Honesty, integrity, and humility

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You cannot be a leader if no-one will follow you and no-one will follow you if they do not trust you. Patrick Cozier continues his series on how to be a calm leader in schools with a look at the vital place of honesty, integrity and humility

“The first thing is to be honest with yourself. You can never have an impact on society if you have not changed yourself. Great peacemakers are all people of integrity, of honesty, but humility.”

 

Nelson Mandela was an iconic leader with an incredible story. For a man to be incarcerated for 27 years, to be released from prison and to help negotiate the end of apartheid, and then to serve five years as the president of the country that imprisoned him is inspiration enough.

However, it is more than his amazing journey that singles him out. When people talk about Nelson Mandela, they talk about an aura that surrounded him. He stood for something greater than himself and lived by it – he was a man of honesty, integrity, and humility.

The ability to lead calmly requires these characteristics. These three traits when aligned to a compelling and worthy purpose will allow you to lead calmly – to convey a calmness that transcends any organisation because the leader is seen as someone who is authentic, trustworthy, and consistent.

 

Calm leadership: A nine-part SecEd series

 

 

The importance of honesty

“Be honest. They may not like your worst truth… but they certainly don’t want your best lie. Just be straight with them and allow them to have their own reactions to what’s going on.”
Charles J Orlando

 

Leadership is about people – this is a key tenet of calm leadership. Without people who willingly follow, there is no leadership. Without gaining the trust of those you attempt to lead you have no followers. The ability to build trust is dependent on honesty.

Most people can spot a “fake” – insincerity (whether actual or perceived) is a leadership killer.

My advice is to always tell the truth, whether it is going to land well or not. People may not want to hear it and you may not be liked – but the likelihood is that you will be respected and trusted. The culture and ethos of any organisation is likely to be stronger and more positive if the leadership is open and honest. It encourages others to reciprocate and that is a good thing.

Honesty is also important personally as a leader. It is easier to be calm and at ease with oneself when you know you are being honest with people; it is much easier to sleep at night too.

Don’t be afraid to be vulnerable in your leadership. We are all vulnerable at times and being open and honest about this with colleagues is a positive thing. It reveals your humanity and allows others to see you as a person as well as a leader.

Contrary to what some might instinctively feel, showing your vulnerability empowers your leadership rather than weakens it in my experience. Admitting your fears, concerns or simply the fact that you don’t know is nothing to be afraid of. It takes real courage to show vulnerability and over the years I have found this quality to be admired and appreciated by those I have worked with.

Finally, be honest with yourself. This is the most critical and yet the most difficult thing of all. Staying grounded as a leader involves being truthful about what you can and can’t do – who you are and who you are not, what you are willing to do and what you won’t, your strengths, and where you need help.

Facing our own reality as people and leaders is a skill that calm leaders possess.

 

The importance of integrity

 

“Integrity means you do what you do because it is right and not just fashionable or politically correct.”
Denis Waitley

 

What is the difference between honesty and integrity? Indeed, it is something we recently asked of a candidate applying for a leadership role at my school. Their response was spot on: “Honesty is about telling the truth. Integrity is about doing the right thing for the organisation/community.”

I would go a step further and suggest that integrity is an examination of what motivates your decision-making. Do you put the needs of the organisation you lead first, or do you allow self-interest to dictate? Do you act with fairness at the heart of your choices, or do the interests of individuals or small groups influence your decisions? To what extent do internal politics have an influence on decisions?

In article five of this series, I talked about how much I hate the “computer says no” approach and the need for us to keep a human element in our decision-making.

If you are prepared to use your judgement to consider nuance, emotion and context when making decisions, then your integrity becomes vital to the process of making good judgements in the interests of all concerned.

Showing integrity is inextricably linked to purpose otherwise there is nothing to anchor the judgement about what is “right”. This is where the purpose of any organisation becomes vital.

The problem with doing “the right thing” is that it is subjective. Having some clarity over purpose and priorities is crucial to deciding what is “right” and then being able to stick to it.

For example, at my school, we have an acronym – SHOW UP – which describes our staff culture:

This (alongside our school mission statement) guides my thinking and judgement as a leader when trying to navigate what is right – in particular the S. Students must come first in all our decisions.

 

The importance of humility

“There is no respect for others without humility in oneself.”
Henri-Frederic Amiel

 

Calm leadership is purpose-driven not ego-driven, and this requires humility. The willingness and capacity to keep learning comes from being humble as a leader. After all, if you already know everything, then you have nothing more to learn.

I often say that one of my priorities in life and leadership is to be less wrong today than I was yesterday. This is fuelled by a belief that we are wrong frequently. The evidence for this is easy to find. Just look back to one year ago, five years ago, 10 years ago – how many things can you think about that you’d now consider to be a “wrong decision”? The same will inevitably be true in the future, regarding the things that we believe are correct today.

Being humble means accepting that you don’t know everything and knowing that learning, development, and improvement is always a priority.

Humility can have a profound impact on the way you lead others. Humble people listen to others and learn from everybody. They are not obsessed with rank or status – there is a belief that everyone is valuable and can offer good solutions to important problems. This leads to a consultative and collaborative approach to leadership that empowers others and leads to better decision-making.

In 2015 we lost a very well respected and loved member of staff at my school following a short battle with cancer. The school was devastated. She was an incredible lady, and she was a friend to everybody. I had never had to deal with something of this emotional magnitude before and it was a huge challenge. I did not know what to do.

Two things helped me massively and as a result I think we got it as right as we could have done. First was a decision I took right from the start to liaise with those members of staff who were closest to our colleague, checking in with them at every point as to what they thought about the decisions we took over how to pay our respects and to cope with our collective grief.

The second was purely by chance. We were gathered in the staffroom just being together as a staff and talking about our colleague. I was involved in a conversation with some relatively new members of staff and one of them asked me whether we would be doing anything to help staff get to the funeral. From that, the idea came to close the school on the day of the funeral and to hire coaches to transport staff – a decision we were thanked for by many people.

I learnt a lot during this time. I showed my vulnerability, which was difficult – but I am glad I did. I have no problem admitting to staff that I don’t always have the answer, asking for help where I need it. I have a great staff team and I know that collectively we will always find good solutions.

I am comfortable with the belief that there a lot of staff in my school who are better than me at many things – and this is a good thing! Humility allows us to give people the autonomy and space to do their jobs in the way that they see fit, playing to their strengths.

 

Final thought

As ever, I will leave you with a couple of activities/challenges until my next article:

 

Integrity: What does it mean to you? Try to define as clearly as you can what the “right” thing is for you, both personally and for the organisation you lead. How do you define the purpose of your leadership in relation to your context? What are the priorities of the organisation? Write out a list of five things that will always be the “right” thing to do given your reflections.

 

Practising humility: Be honest about what you know and don’t know. Practise asking staff members for help on issues where you know people are stronger or more knowledgeable than you. Admit mistakes, say sorry, show gratitude, marvel at the amazing work of the people you work with and lead. Write down a list of five things that you know you could have never achieved without the input of others (outside of the leadership team). Finally, accept that you are constantly wrong and make it your aim to be less wrong tomorrow than you are today.

 

  • Patrick Cozier is an experienced secondary school headteacher of 16 years. He leads Highgate Wood School in Haringey. In addition to his day job, he chairs the Haringey Secondary Heads’ Forum and takes a leading role in the work of the Racial Equity Group (part of the Haringey Education Partnership). He serves as a trustee for the charity Show Racism the Red Card As a member of the black community, he is passionate about seeking equality, justice, and fair outcomes for people of colour. He is currently developing his “Calm Leadership” approach. Find Patrick on Twitter @CalmLeadership and LinkedIn. Read his previous articles for SecEd and find his appearances on the SecEd Podcast, via https://bit.ly/seced-cozier