Daniel Goleman, a psychologist best known for his work on emotional intelligence, states that, ‘Being a great leader means recognizing that different circumstances may call for different approaches.’ In his 2000 Harvard Business Review article, ‘,’ he outlines the following six leadership styles which the same leader may utilise depending on the circumstances:
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Coercive leadership style, which entails demanding immediate compliance.
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Authoritative leadership style, which is about mobilizing people toward a vision.
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Pacesetting leadership style, which involves expecting excellence and self-direction.
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Affiliative leadership style, which centers around building emotional bonds.
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Democratic leadership style, which involves creating consensus.
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Coaching leadership style, which focuses on developing people for the future.
If you are looking for an article for your PLG or to create some discussion in your leadership team, Rebecca Knight’s summary of Goleman’s work is short and clear and does a great job of replacing the outdated notion that we only have one leadership style.
I consider myself to be effective at consultation and consensus building because I have had ample opportunity to practise! I spent the first decade of my leadership in International fee paying schools where parental expectations are high and the school environment can be one of the few places, for expatriate parents, where someone speaks your language and understands your culture. I learned to be good at bringing together disparate views and achieving consensus.
Despite this, I have found recent whānau engagement around the Health Consultation and specifically the Relationships and Sexuality Education element really challenging. The latest ERO research (summarised in this issue) helped me to realise I am not alone in finding this really difficult.
I have a group of parents in my community who have some very strong views on the Relationships and Sexuality curriculum. They are intelligent, organised and prepared to read everything I give them. They are committed to their children’s education and prepared to fight for what they believe in. This group come from a faith based community and represent one end of the spectrum of views on RSE – I like and admire them despite the fact I don’t share their viewpoint. ERO’s findings talk about a situation where, ‘Parent and whānau views are split on teaching about gender identity, different sexual identities, and gender stereotypes. A “split” view means that there are significant groups at both ends, wanting to learn more/less, and earlier/later.’
Having previously worked at a girl’s high school and an area school prior to my return to the Primary sector, I feel strongly about the need to educate around consent. I am also aware of the statistics around self harm and suicide for rangitahi from the Rainbow community. According to the Skylight Trust:
‘A report commissioned and published as part of the Ministry of Health’s Suicide Prevention Research Fund in 2012, found that LGBTQI+ people have higher lifetime risk for mental health problems, including , , and self-harm, substance misuse and eating disorders, than their peers.’
This group is a less strongly vocal part of my parent body – yet I am mindful of the fact that I have a responsibility to them and to tamariki who will later recognise that they form part of this community.
In my area, there have been significant challenges experienced by other schools – resulting in incidents reported in the media – both in delivery of the RSE Curriculum and the Health consultation process which I know cause my BoT and kaiako to be wary. My kura falls into the group of schools whose response to the complexity has been, ‘scaling back RSE teaching, which results in students missing out on learning opportunities.’ In fact, when we audited the RSE curriculum we identified that while there are often discussions in response to incidents of bullying or relationship breakdown, very little within the RSE curriculum is proactively planned and taught by teachers in the classroom. Areas that are covered fall within Keeping Ourselves Safe programmes run by NZ Police and Life Education Trust visits. Whilst I value the work of both of these outside agencies I am very certain that our children need more than can be provided by an unfamiliar (usually male) authority figure in a uniform and a giraffe hand puppet. For this reason, I am committed to a consultation which leads to a curriculum which we plan and teach in the classroom.
And yet, a consultation which I am required to do biennially is proving to be very challenging. In 2024 I met with a group of whānau who were concerned that we were preparing for a Health Curriculum consultation. In response to their concerns, I set up a focus group with whānau who held a balance of opinions and I worked hard so that we did not get to the point where, ‘consultation processes result in abuse and aggression.’ Out in the wider community there has been much discussion and criticism of my leadership amongst those who have not been part of the focus group and it is likely there would have been more to come had I gone ahead and sent out the consultation documentation. In addition there would have been much work to do with kaiako who understandably feel nervous about whānau responses to the content they will be required to teach.
Teachers are already subject to challenges – which can be aggressive and hostile – on any number of issues. Last year, three of my teachers experienced onsite altercations with whānau (none of which related to the RSE curriculum) and several have experienced uncomfortable questions in the local supermarket or on the sidelines at Saturday sport. As part of our start of year workshops, I ran a session for teachers on Positive Strategies for Addressing Whānau Concerns. I have linked this below.
For this reason, I wholeheartedly agree with the findings of ERO’s report and their conclusion that:
‘The Government should consider replacing the requirement on school boards to consult the school community on RSE (as part of the Health and Physical Education curriculum) with a requirement to inform parents and whānau about what they plan to teach and how they plan to teach it, before they teach it. Schools should also ensure that parents and whānau know that they can withdraw their children from any element of RSE that they are uncomfortable with.’
In case you missed it (I did!) the Beehive released a response to ERO’s report on December 10th 2024 – the day it was released. Erica Stanford announced:
‘The RSE Curriculum will be refreshed for the first time in nearly 20 years, in that time society has shifted significantly. The Ministry of Education will convene a group of curriculum writers with expertise in RSE to develop a new curriculum which explicitly lays out what gets taught and when. A draft of the topic areas to be taught will be available from Term 1 with consultation open later in 2025. This will coincide with the current gender, sexuality and relationship-based education guidelines being removed by the end of the first term. This will meet a coalition commitment between National and New Zealand First.’
Since it meets an NZ First coalition commitment – presumably their promise to ‘remove gender ideology from the curriculum*’* and perhaps the curiously phrased policy promise to, ‘focus on education and not parent-unmandated indoctrination.’ I will await with interest the composition of the ‘group of curriculum writers with expertise in RSE’ and look forward to receiving a draft of the areas to be taught.