The Leadership Squiggle

Since launching my little #maternityteacher campaign and talking, intensively and frenetically, to anybody who has had any experience of raising children, I have been given a great deal of well-meaning advice, some of which has been easier to swallow than others.  I am an instinctively rebellious and stubborn child, and more often than not, when I am told that I cannot or should not do something, I go out of my way to prove that I can and will, sometimes cutting my nose off to spite my own face, and sometimes achieving impressive and admirable things.  Some of the comments with the potential for the least catalytic consequences, therefore, have been along the lines of 'do what works for you' or 'have goals, but don't put too much pressure on yourself to achieve them, otherwise you'll feel like a failure', or 'planning and prediction go out of the window with a baby, but that's not a bad thing'.

I therefore find myself listening to parents and professionals for whom I have a great deal of respect, and attempting to visualise my place in this ambiguous world of working motherhood without the final piece of the jigsaw (the now six day overdue baby) to help to make everything a bit more concrete.  What I found really comforting to hear from @thosethatcan at the recent @WomenEd Lead Meet, therefore, were the personal anecdotes that exemplified a leadership journey similar to this image:

With experience in Senior Leadership Teams, as a mother, and eagerly awaiting her doctorate in Education, @thosethatcan is definitely an unambiguous role model for an ambitious upstart like me, but like so many leaders - male and female - she described the unexpectedness, the surprises, the direction changes and the steps backwards that have accompanied her career progression.  This experience was then echoed by @cjproflead, a former Headteacher and now Chair of the Leading Women's Alliance whose stepping in and out of the school system has taken her in all sorts of interesting directions like psychotherapy, and now into a very active retirement!

Hearing from these women reminded me that whilst guaranteeing success does rely on having a clear vision and set of targets and an idea of a trajectory, sticking too firmly to a given colour-coded 5-year plan (you bet I made one on the second day of maternity leave!) is as detrimental as having no plan at all.  Ironically, there is no-one who knows this better than myself: in the first four years of my career, I moved countries three times, fell in love and got married in the space of 13 months, switched from the state UK to the private international sector and back again, entertained and prepared to live in two additional countries and eventually returned to the UK with no job, nowhere to live and a new French husband in tow - none of which had been anticipated in the original 5 year plan!  One side of me is horrified by the thought of knowing that my life is mapped out without any unknowns or variables to jump out at me tomorrow or in six months or ten year's time, but the other side is desperate to control and orchestrate so that I can achieve the audacious goals I have challenged myself to achieve in one short lifespan.

What this period of reflective calm before the newborn storm has afforded me has been the reminder that the vast majority of my success so far has relied on my ability to adapt, seize opportunities, remain open-minded and endlessly optimistic, dream big, remain solutions-focused, plan in minute detail and function on very little sleep.  As illustrated in Jorge Luis Borge's short story, The Garden of Forking Paths (recommended read!), therefore, what is sometimes necessary is not a singular, rigid, inflexible paths, but a series of many possible paths that fulfil overall professional goals.  Having a clear idea of both these overall goals and the different routes towards them is helpful in that it marries flexibility with determination and direction, and helps you to avoid career decisions that will in fact derail your squiggly, ambiguous, but ultimately authentic and fulfilling journey towards your individual perception of success without leaving you worried that you may have missed out on a priceless opportunity.

If you are fortunate to have some time to reflect upon these plans, then why not join me in using the following questions/tasks to add clarity to this ambiguous and squiggled leadership journey?

1. How would you describe the end goal of your leadership journey?

Here, think about the zenith - the top of the mountain - the words that describe what you would like to look back on when you feel you have achieved all that you wanted to achieve.  These are likely to be vague, but should be more tangible than words that might describe your core values.  Gender equality, for example or school leadership or empowering others or the highest quality.

2. Draw your leadership squiggle and around or within it, write down all the ways that you could achieve these vaguely tangible goals.

Really think big, diverse and without any sort of ceiling for this: when leaving Vietnam to move to Singapore/ France/ Australia/ the UK (who knew where anyone was going to be at the end of that three months?) for me, this ranged from teaching in Nauru's detention centres to working for an Asian-based NGO to Teach for Australia to a distance learning MA in Gender Studies to relinquishing all control and accepting the jet-set lifestyle of a 'trailing spouse' (hideous term) and finally writing my long-dormant novel.

3. See if you can separate these blue-sky thinking ideas into different categories.

Again, as an exemplifier, my current plans for making productive use of my maternity leave fall into three fairly distinct categories: 'subject knowledge', 'leadership' and 'curriculum changes', knowing that my long term goals focus around either curriculum or CPD leadership.  Two years ago, at the exciting Asia-Pacific juncture of my life though, the above options fell roughly into the categories of 'study', 'educational charities' and 'freelance creativity'.  Accept that if you choose to complete this exercise in 18 months or three year's time, these categories are likely to have changed again, based on your experiences and preferences.

4. Make decisions based on these goals and categories.

At the end of the day, you have no idea which of these paths, or which amalgamation of these plans, or if any of them will eventually come to fruition, but what you can do is make sensible decisions based on what you know will help to lead you towards a future of job satisfaction and success.  I, for example, love gardening and considered spending some time on my maternity leave studying horticulture or volunteering at my local National Trust gardens so that one day in the future I could... and that's where the logic ended.  I have a lovely garden and I grow strawberries and visit the gardens in my big book of '1001 Gardens to See Before you Die', but this is not aligned to my career goals any more than baking is.  Because I have a clear idea of the categories on my leadership squiggle, I was therefore instantly able to rule this out, just like I was able to rule out anything to do with film or the circus (I'm being serious), and spend more time researching and committing to more productive action.

5. Take action and seize opportunities.

Be sensible and use your SMART targets to act upon these decisions: in six months, for example, I cannot complete my MA in Gender Studies or International Development with a focus on women's education - this would be to ignore the time bounded nature of effective target setting - but I can complete at least three online courses on Leadership and Management through Future Learn, get certificates and plan how I will communicate this professional development and 'sell myself' to my Principal upon my return.

When considering these actions, make sure that you prepare your mind to seize opportunities.  As @Miss_Wilsey would encourage us to do, be 10% braver: if a promotion presents itself that aligns itself with steps 1-4, then take step 5 and apply for it (and don't let your gender get in the way of this).  If an opportunity presents itself that means stepping out of the classroom/ office, but it aligns itself with steps 1-4, then pack up your desk and step out.  If you realise that what will be good for you in the long term is a wellbeing break in the short term, then book your yoga retreat in Bali and buy a new pair of sunglasses!

Lastly, if you want to pursue this sort of career reflection further, then I highly recommend getting yourself a coach, or if you can't do this, I hear Richard N. Bolles' 'What Colour is Your Parachute' is also a pretty handy guide, though this is third hand information, so don't quiz me on it!