At its core, a leaders job is to develop others to step confidently into leadership, harness their unique talents, and empower them to influence positive change. This belief has always been my guiding principle, and it’s the foundation of the work I’m privileged to share this month.

In leadership, one truth I often encounter is our reluctance to celebrate success. I admit, I’m no different—it can feel uncomfortable to shine a spotlight on my own achievements. But celebration is important. It counterbalances the ever-present shadows of criticism and self-doubt, reminding us of the value of honoring progress and impact.

This month, I want to shine that spotlight on an extraordinary group of educators at the Australian International School of Hong Kong (AISHK), and the work we’ve done together over the past two years. Through a Leadership Mentoring Program open to all staff and Career Progression Coaching for Heads of Year and Faculty, I’ve had the opportunity to support a motivated team in creating meaningful change.

What makes this work so impactful? And how might my experiences help you in your own leadership journey?

To answer these questions, I want to first give a Shoutout evidencing how they leaned into and supported the development of their colleagues, and then share the Lesson that will inform your work as a leader.

Shoutout 1

The Mentoring Program was launched at the end of the pandemic. It was small in scope, limited to Secondary, and championed by the Principal, Peter Phillips. Peter wanted to develop leaders, and not just the ones that already had titles. He wanted to build relationships across departments, create opportunities to lead and give staff greater voice in identifying opportunities for improvement in the division.

Lesson 1

Change requires a Champion. It is not enough to just want what Peter wanted for his division, he also fully participated, mentoring a staff member. His participation demonstrated the school’s commitment to developing staff, as well as lend credibility and authority to the change projects that participants initiated.

Shoutout 2

Change requires Changemakers. The staff that participated in the program each year did so voluntarily. Their projects were not timetabled, nor did they have explicit authority to influence the work of their peers in service to successfully implementing their projects. Many of the projects were interdisciplinary and cross-divisional, well outside their area of influence.

Lesson 2

What’s in it for me (WIIFM)? It’s a funny acronym, but if you want to inspire Changemakers, you better know the answer to that question. In the Mentoring Program, we call our Changemakers, the mentees, Improvement Leaders. They are empowered to identify opportunities to improve the school in new and novel ways that no strategic plan could ever capture. Changemakers are on the ground and seeing things senior leaders can’t.

What’s in it for the Improvement Leaders? Firstly, they aren’t influencing change alone. They have an experienced staff member or leader alongside them, helping them build their base, motivate them to overcome obstacles and reflect on the challenges and successes. Next, and more importantly, they are working to improve parts of the school that directly influence their own satisfaction with the school.

Shoutout 3

International Schools can feel like small islands, in that staff feel there isn’t much room to grow. This is in part because there are a limited number of titles and work is often delegated based on those titles. Even if you are fortunate enough to have one of those titles, you can still feel stuck. AISHK’s Head, Mina Dunstan, worried that a few middle leaders felt stuck and worried that that could lead to complacency, or even worse, feeling their only way up was out.

This led to the query as to whether or not career coaching could have a positive impact, as well as if that impact could translate to improved teaching and learning. The coaching targeted Primary Heads of Year, initially, and thanks to feedback and support from the Primary Principal, Brendon Kean, participants entered the process curious and engaged. Surprisingly, none of the participants wanted a promotion, they all wanted to improve as instructional leaders and see their team members play a larger role planning units and assessment, thus freeing them up to do more observations and build individual team member capacity.

Lesson 3

Coaching comes at a cost, and the WIIFM for the school and the coachee needs to be as clear as possible. Even if the coaching assignment starts broad, such as ‘how do you want to grow professionally’, it will eventually target a specific area for growth, as was the case for 12 leaders I coached. But, and this is a big BUT, you can’t outsource growing leaders. As a coach, I can unlock potential, build capacity and develop capabilities. BUT, someone then needs to tap into that potential, utilize the capacity and leverage the capabilities to reinforce and sustain the growth. To achieve this, I asked every coachee to be prepared to make a BIG ASK of their Principal. I also prepared the Principal for this. The BIG ASK was never related to money or a title, but often was a request for the Principal to hold them accountable to their progression goal.

Thank You Stuart

One final shout out, to someone that I only knew for a fleeting moment, but he managed to leave an indelible impression on me. Stuart, I want to thank you for your positivity, curiosity and courage to embrace new ideas. Those 3 ingredients will always make for a memorable cocktail.

Michael Iannini is an education management consultant that is recognized by the Council of International Schools as an expert in Strategic Planning, Governance, Human Resource Management, and Leadership Development. He is the author of Hidden in Plain Sight: Realizing the Full Potential of Middle Leaders. You can learn more about Michael and his work by visiting www.pdacademia.com and https://middleleader.com/articles.

Career Progression