Sheryl Feinstein, the best-selling author of The Brain and Strengths Based School Leadership, joins us to discuss how educational leaders can apply a popular business prototype of leadership strengths and the latest brain research to lead effectively. Feinstein outlines four leadership styles and shows school leaders how to make the most of their own talents while also playing to the strengths of colleagues.
Q: The main premise of your book is that school leaders and administrators bring a unique set of strengths to the job and that awareness of the strengths is the key to effective leadership. Can you explain this?
Sheryl Feinstein: As humans in school leadership positions, we bring a lot of different assets to the table, and a lot of times, we really spread ourselves thin. We try to be everything to everyone, which really results in a disservice to ourselves and to others. So, Gallup did some research and what they found was that the most effective leaders were those that focused in on their strength. They found that these leaders were more confident, they had less struggles, were actually more satisfied with their jobs. You know, I think, in education itself, people tap into their strengths when it comes to teaching. You know, you don’t try to teach science, social studies, and English, you tap into your strength. So then the same thing can be said about most effective administrators and leaders in our schools is that we are most effective when we tap into our strengths.
Q: Can you briefly explain the four specific strengths most leaders will fall into?
Sheryl Feinstein: There are four different strengths. They are the executor, the relationship builder, influencer, and then the strategic thinker. The executor is very much a hard worker. They are extremely industrious. They are the ones that are going to get down into the trenches, which really gains the respect of their colleagues. They are the ones that will go down and they will serve spaghetti one day. They are the ones that will take over a classroom, just to keep in touch with what teachers are doing in their classes and to keep also in touch with the students. They are also very consistent and deliberate. They are going to have maybe a process for, “Okay, how do we communicate?” They set their expectations very clearly and we all know that when expectations are clear, it is much easier to then live up to that expectation. Also, I really should have prefaced this by saying that each leadership style is equally effective. So whatever style you fall into, you can be just as an effective leader as one of the other styles.
Next, we have the relationship builder. These are our people persons. They are really good at communicating, whether it is formal, conversations in meetings, or if it is informal, conversations that happen in the hallway, they always keep in mind when they are making decisions, the individual, just as much as what is going to benefit the entire group. So, people really appreciate that; and they are empathetic. These people tend to really relate to other people in an extremely strong way.