by Gregory Macur
This article is the first in a series of articles which will attempt to unpack and humble leadership in international schooling practically.
This article will:
- Introduce the importance and impact of humble leadership.
- Present data from a 2024 survey of international school administrators and teachers.
- Provide some practical suggestions to support humble leadership development.
Let’s start with why we should care about this…
Why Should We Care About Humble Leadership in Schools?
The IB recently commissioned the Wellbeing Research Centre at Oxford University to create a current wellbeing report based on existing literature. This report, titled “Wellbeing for Schoolteachers [1]” highlights the critical importance of teacher wellbeing as well as student wellbeing. A keynote: Teacher wellbeing significantly impacts student wellbeing and academic outcomes.
Why Are We Talking About This in an Article Titled “Humble Leadership: A Critical Divide & A Pressing Need”?
A 2022 meta-analysis of humble leadership showed that it positively impacts a range of performance indicators. These included affective trust, creativity, leader-member exchanges, job satisfaction, psychological empowerment, organizational identification, engagement, and voice (Luo et al., 2022). These essential interconnected elements are all factors of wellbeing.
Let’s get a little bit more clarity, shall we? Let’s explore what humble leadership behaviours are.
What Are Humble Leadership Behaviours?
There are many definitions of humble leadership, there are also many ways in which it can be described to manifest. One which stands out to be is characterized by nine key behaviours:
- Accurate Self-View: Realistically understanding one’s strengths and weaknesses.
- Recognizing Others: Acknowledging and celebrating team members’ strengths and achievements.
- Teachability: Being open to learning and accepting constructive criticism.
- Leading by Example: Embodying the values and work ethic expected from others.
- Modesty: Exhibiting modesty in actions and communications.
- Collective Good: Prioritizing group success over individual accolades.
- Empathy: Being approachable and empathetic, fostering a supportive culture.
- Respect and Fairness: Treating everyone with mutual respect and fairness.
- Mentoring: Investing in the personal and professional growth of team members.
(Oc, Bashshur, Daniels, Greguras, & Diefendorff, 2015)
These nine behaviours were used in the creation of the survey to assess the state of humble leadership behaviours in international schools.
Now, let’s look at the survey data and findings.
The Survey Data
43 international school teachers and administrators were surveyed in total. There were 9 administrators and 34 teachers. A 5-point Likert scale was used with 9 statements. Response options included: Strongly Disagree, Disagree, Neutral, Agree, and Strongly Agree. To meet the needs of this article, data has been grouped into Agree vs. Disagree. There was an average of 14.48% neutral votes for administrators and 10.93% neutral votes for teachers. To ensure data is simple to decipher, this data was left out of our charts. There was a final question which asked if the participant wanted more humble leaders.
Below are two charts which show the differences in votes from teacher and administrator responses.
Visually, this clearly shows the difference in experience between teachers and administrators. Whilst teachers marginally have a sense that their leaders do not manifest these traits, administrators more often than not feel that their leaders do. There was one case in which administrators agreed less than teachers agreed though; this was in relation to coaching and support. Perhaps this is a result of many administrators not necessarily having a coach or mentor. Alternatively, it could be a result of the expectation placed on Heads/Principals to be able to get the job done without ongoing support.
Let’s look at the reflection of the disagreeing responses.
A striking reflection is seen here. There is a significantly higher negative response rate from teachers. Teachers disagree with every statement more than administrators.
When we average these responses across both groups, a clearer picture is painted. Administrators agreed almost 52% of the time whereas teachers agreed only 38% of the time. Administrators disagreed only 33% of the time whereas teachers disagreed almost 51% of the time. This identifies a clear gap and tilt for both groups.
There was a final question which asked if the responder wanted more humble leaders. 100% of participants responded with a unanimous and resounding yes. This actually shocked me a little as very rarely do you find a consensus across a group of over 40 survey respondents.
Now, let’s unpack this a little more.
Unpacking The Problem
Why is this a problem? It highlights the fact that something teachers identify as a clear weakness, senior leaders in international schools identify more as a strength. This divide is possibly why school leaders are not addressing this critical problem. Simply put, why address something that you feel is more of a strength?
What is more surprising is everybody wants more humble leaders, and yet nobody is doing anything about it.
I can personally attest I have never seen a PD run in a school which is geared towards supporting leaders in the development of humble leadership behaviours. I have, however, been in many which talk about things such as “Holding Staff to Account,” which is essential, but missing an important factor, which as we know thanks to IB and Oxford, is: motivated staff with high levels of wellbeing will hold themselves to account.
Let’s break this down for clarity:
- Everybody wants more humble leaders, even leaders themselves!
- Reflecting on how humble we are as leaders is incredibly difficult, and it is possible to have misconceptions.
- This is potentially why there is a discrepancy in the data from teachers vs administrators.
- The administrative teams of many schools are not necessarily acting on the need to develop humble leadership behaviours.
- Likely due to their positive skew on their perceptions of how humble the leaders in schools actually are.
- Teachers are calling out for leaders to be more humble.
- Is this going totally unnoticed by administration teams?
- If leaders manifest more humble leadership behaviours, a range of performance indicators are positively impacted.
- These performance indicators are all related to wellbeing.
- Improving teacher wellbeing further impacts a range of factors such as student wellbeing and academic outcomes.
So… How do we actually improve the rates of humble leadership in schools?
Nine Practical Actions To Increase Humble Leadership Behaviours
This final section will present 9 practical suggestions that anybody can take, to help manifest humble leadership within their schools. Each action will link to one of the 9 characteristics of humble leadership:
- Accurate Self-View: Model reflecting on strengths and weaknesses. Do this in the leadership meeting and encourage your team to do the same.
- Recognizing Others: Celebrate the achievements of others. Set a reminder in your calendar to do this at least once per week, till it becomes a habit.
- Teachability: During 1 to 1 meetings and feedback sessions, designate a section of time for feedback from the person you are mentoring.
- Leading by Example: When a cover is needed, if you can do it, do it.
- Modesty: Focus interactions with your team on their goals as opposed to your own.
- Collective Good: Empower your team and do not make decisions based on self-interest.
- Empathy: Drop in on your team regularly, asking how they are and what you can do for them.
- Respect and Fairness: Regardless of who you are talking to, show respect.
- Mentoring: Ask your team about their goals and how you can help them achieve them. Create action plans with them so they can reach these goals.
These are all actions which you can take as an individual, I have personally seen that the more I work on manifesting humble leadership traits, the more others around me do too.
Endnote
There is much work to be done, and far more research is needed. In the coming months, I will provide more practical tools on how to support the development of humble leadership within international schools.
References:
Luo, Y., Zhang, Z., Chen, Q., Zhang, K., Wang, Y., & Peng, J. (2022). Humble leadership and its outcomes: A meta-analysis. Frontiers in Psychology, 13. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.980322
Oc, B., Bashshur, M. R., Daniels, M. A., Greguras, G. J., & Diefendorff, J. M. (2015). Leader humility in Singapore. The Leadership Quarterly, 26(1), 68-80. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.leaqua.2014.11.005
[1]https://www.ibo.org/news/news-about-the-ib/a-new-report-highlights-the-critical-importance-of-teacher-wellbeing-for-teachers-themselves-students-and-school-systems/
Gregory Macur is Vice Principal & DSO, Canadian International School of Hefei, China
To connect with Gregory on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/gregory-macur
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