The pressure is on. As a business leader, you need to deliver results, preferably exceed set goals. The way you do it is up to you. Maybe you got some guidelines from your board and shareholders. You can decide to be a value based leader or choose to lead by numbers relying on your CFO’s Excel sheets. You can create an environment of freedom and responsibility or micro-manage every single step of your employees.
And if you fail, what happens? You find yourself looking for new challenges, your company gets eaten by your rival or your business just comes to the end of its path. The end.
The pressure is on. As an educational leader, you need to deliver results, preferably exceed set goals. The way is highly regulated and pressured by politicians, educational administration, regional budget holders, parents, your teacher staff and finally your “end-users”: the students. Even though all of your teachers report directly to you, you don’t get to decide on a whole lot of anything. Your teachers have a great freedom and they like it that way.
And if you fail, what happens? You are maybe dismissed and find yourself struggling to get a new job. It takes a long time before your failure is visible but it can have severely impact the life of many young people.
4 tips from educational leadership to business people
How do educational leaders cope with the pressure and how do they maintain the feel of control at times of wicked decisions? What could business leaders learn from them to make business blossom?
An educational leader’s Swiss knife looks very much similar to that of any modern leader. Here is a top ranking list of best advice from Finnish educational leaders to each other. The list was co-created by educational leaders using Innoduel to find the answer to the question:
What are the best ways to maintain the feeling of control while making wicked leadership decisions?
- You need to accept that you cannot succeed every time and allow the same to others.
- Listen and respect. Be present.
- You need to engage your staff in decision making to create commitment
- Try to understand diverse viewpoints that are distant from your own thinking.
Based on the ranking above, Finnish educational leaders seem to advise each other to accept humanity, listen, be present (not using smart phone while talking to employees), engage to create commitment and be open to diverse opinions. This list could just as well be the result of co-creation in any modern company with its operations based on values, modern leadership and humanity.
The point I wanted to make for you business leaders out there:
All of the advice from Finnish educational leaders listed above are equally applicable in the business environment. So, feel free to use this list for guidance and start implementing this advice.
I bet that if you do, you’ll start to see some good things happening to you, your employees and your business.