Joining me now from the Academy of organizational neuroscience is Dr. Judy Newman. Judy, thank you for your time.
You're very welcome. Thank you for asking me.
Now we're here to have a conversation about the interesting combination of understanding how neuroscience applies to school leadership. But before we get into the details of that, the one question I always like to unpack when it comes to the topic of leadership is, how do you define leadership? What is your working definition of leadership, particularly in schools?
That's a really good question. And I think there are 1000s of definitions of leadership. But I what I've come to understand from my research and my experience, as a former school principal, and my research around leadership influences, leadership is about influence. It's not about just authority, because thinking you're a leader, just because you've got a badge, that that belief would be embedded in positional power. And leadership is so much more than that. It's about a person that can inspire the not just the emotion, but uplift the emotion, the intellect, of a team to move in the one direction. So it's about changing thinking to change behaviors, which is so much harder than thinking leadership as just a to do list.
Within that definition, would you? It's interesting that you mentioned positional authority, not necessarily being the sum total of leadership. But would you then attribute effective leadership to you say it's not a to do list? But is it based on the behaviors of the person in a leadership position? Or is it primarily about maybe the qualities of the person enacting those behaviors? Like, where do you see the locus of that influence emerging from?
Yeah, I see it as the mindset of a leader, the behaviors of the leader, the interpersonal, of, of the leader, facial expressions, actions, I see it as the tone they use, I tell leaders to use pass the salt tone, not a parent tone, or a teacher tone, and the words they choose to use because words have power. So it's about I talk about, in my research, identify 12 leadership attributes, which are behaviors of a leader that can inspire a team to engage at their best performance. So it is around their behaviors. And unless someone is highly self aware, and they know their strengths, or their own behaviors, and their gaps in their areas of development, I call them edges, edges that you have to smooth off, that people find annoying, or that can trigger people into a threat mode, if I put a neuroscience lens on it. So yeah, leadership is about behaviors.
So when we are looking at leadership in schools, and you mentioned that you've got a list of 12 behaviors, what do you identify as effective leadership in schools?
Yeah, I found that we judge people in the first few seconds by their trustworthiness, their warmth, and their competence. And there are leadership attributes that align with those three judgments. So to build trust, for example, we want to see a leader that has integrity. And when I talk integrity, I mean, respectful, truthful, fair, transparent, we want to see a leader that strong. So when I talk about strength in leadership, I'm not talking about a leader with a big stick. I'm talking about a leadership that has strength, a character that can have the conversations that need to be had, even if they're unpopular, that has strong boundaries and cast on valued action behavior. So there are attributes that align with those three brain needs, if you like. And because of the way the brain has evolved?
Well, I mean, one of the things you mentioned earlier relating to neuroscience was that inappropriate behaviors can trigger a threat response. Now, one of the things that really stood out to me in this one of these, this paper that I've read of yours was the idea that the notion of effective leadership has changed away from, you know, the very strong leader centered model and the word that really stood out to me was the ego centric model of, of leadership, which seems to me to have a lot of those qualities that would trigger a threat response You know, what? What is it about that model that you think was so persistent for so long? If it was making people feel uncomfortable and triggering, that that feeling of being under threat in the workplace, why do you think that has been such a default model of leadership for so, so long in education, and in all other areas of society? Really?
Yes. And you still see that today that taught that style of leadership, that style leadership has survived in some quarters, and definitely, as you said, is a large part of leadership in business in the past many, many years ago. Because when you were a manager of a factory, for example, you needed to tell people what to do. And they did it. And everyone had a specific role. So it worked. But you can't do that today. And top down leadership is not enough for a leader to develop high performing leaders, particularly in schools, but anywhere, it's very easy for a leader, any leader of a power house, school or bank, multimillion dollar CEO, business, or company, to tell stories of the generate fear. And that breeds negativity, very easy to do that, and divide people very difficult as a leader to tell stories that inspire hope, positive stories that inspire, as I said, the intellect and the emotion to get people moving together. Because the trouble with fear based leadership, it even though it does get things done, it can get things done. And we can see, we can point to examples of that in politics or business in the past, but it's not sustainable. So when I see a school where I rarely see a leader that's works on a fear based leadership style. If I do see that, they get things done, they get results, but they only develop a compliant culture, not a high performing learning culture. And what happens, they get that that type of leadership erodes trust, and rapport. And over time, that is a real problem. Because as soon as they leave the school, then that that whole culture in this compliance culture in the school crumbles, and they just default back to their behaviors, or the behaviors that were there before they were in that school. So it's not sustainable.
That does pose an interesting hypothetical, which is that people who might be inclined towards that type of leadership might be more concerned about the results they achieve while they're there, then the sustainability of what happens after they leave.
Yeah, exactly. And you see that happen. I'm sure. There are a lot of examples of that. But if you're not bringing the people with you, then imagine what they could do if they brought the people with them. So that's how they have to think they could even get more done. If they had a whole team where they're growing other leaders around them. And that they built the trust and the report, they have the unity, and everybody loves coming to work wants to come to work. And we'll you know, you don't have to that there's self accountability, there's self regulation, you don't have to go around with your big stick to get things done.
So let's let's look at the alternative, then what's the what's the more positive approach to leadership? You talked about trust and about rapport, and about building other leaders around you with opportunities for growth? What does the effective leader do to build those but I suppose more importantly, what is going on in the mind of the people who are part of the team or the people who are part of the school that makes that approach to leadership that much more effective?
I think the first thing, there were so many things, but one thing that comes to mind that I look at first when I walk into a school is is there a leadership approach where every leader in the school can differentiate their leadership approach to manage mentor and coach to build performance and then there are three different things. So if I was an inspirational leader, that cared about my people, and we're building Lee It is around them, I need systems in place. And I need to train my leadership team, my whole leadership team in coaching skills, executive coaching skills, I mean, I don't mean sports coaching, but also put processes and systems in place that will support that. And an excellent support and excellent mentor system. So when I say management, I mean, putting in policy systems, induction programs training, that's management, to build performance. When I talk about mentorship and mentor system, I'm talking about sharing observations. In other words, teachers coming to other teachers rooms, model role modeling, shadowing, acting up. So in schools that work really well I see, every head of department has a deputy if you like a shadow, and then they can exchange jobs, every deputy has a head of department that can a couple of heads of department can step up, the principal has three to five people that can step up as deputy level. So you have that lovely mentoring going on. And every teacher in the school has a mentor. And then there's coaching, which is high, a whole new level. Now coaching is not for everybody. So we only coach people that are willing, and that are high performing and have some experience. Everyone else needs to be mentored or managed first. So it's a layering effect. So coaching is about asking questions, to build the leadership within the person making them self reliant, self regulating, very different from giving advice, which is mentoring, that would be one just one aspect of it.
These things that you're talking about, obviously, are very much centered in positive, trusting relationships and professional collaborative relationships. And if we're talking about you know, obviously, the the opposite, or in my layman's understanding the opposite to something that triggers a threat response is something that triggers a sense of safety and connection. So I mean, he's fostering these relationships, kind of the, the mental opposite to making people feel threatened what's going on, in the mind of the teacher being mentored effectively or being coached by someone they trust?
Yeah, so it is about building trust and rapport first. So because we have a brain stem, we have an emotional brain. And our emotional brain is means that we're hardwired to detect three, four or five times non consciously a second. And in fact, we have four or five times in neural networks than negative emotion than we do to positive so brain tips to the negative. So that just means it's very easy for a leader to trigger a team member or anybody into threat mode. And it means that leaders need to build trust. And understand that distrust is the default of the lower regions of the brain. And that means that a leader has to be worthy of trust as well. We also have a social brain. So our social brain means that we evolved to belong to and operate in a social group. And that means that leaders need to be able to build rapport. So first, build trust for mostly first and foremostly. Second, build rapport. And the third brain, I call it the thinking brain, or the learning brain, you may read about in some other articles. But the thinking brain means that we have an innate desire to learn and achieve. And if we build trust, build rapport, then people are willing to grow and, and take on feedback, learn new things, because that's their default. But what's going on their head is because our foremost and fundamental role of the brain is to minimize threat and maximize reward. It means that the first brain the emotional brain is going to be asking a couple of nonconscious questions and sometimes they're conscious, but in the first few seconds, can I trust them? Am I safe? And what have I got to lose? Especially in times of change, schools are bringing change all the time because they're improving pedagogy improving teaching strategies, in proving reading program, so teachers are used to change and back they often change fatigue But during change, it's not the change that teachers don't like. That's what you will read in textbooks that, you know, human beings don't like change in the Western world. I've never seen a person who's just won a lotto ticket, you know, for $10 million, say, No, I don't want that change. Thank you. It's what I've got to lose in this. So when you bring in new IT systems, for example, it can be quite scary and anxieties will build in teachers. So they're the first three questions. When I talk about warmth. Teachers are going to be thinking around the leader, you know, do I feel a warm connection of acceptance by this person? Do I feel valued and understood? Do I feel like part of their tribe? And these questions that is going on now unconscious, non conscious brain has implicate significant implications for leadership and team behaviors? Because if you think about are they from my tribe, what does that mean for when we, when we create innovative diverse teams, it means that we naturally attract and are attracted to team members that are like minded, like us. So if we had our, our natural way, we would collect people on our team that just think like us, but that's actually, the research shows that that actually doesn't make an effective team because teams need diversity. And team needs diversity for creativity and innovation. And the third networks, in the brain, the neural networks are around our thinking brain. And when I meet the leader, or an interacting in a personal space for the leader ongoing be thinking, are they competent? Are they a rational thinker and open to learning? Have they got credibility? So they're like human needs. And they're sequential. And the key here, you asked about what's happening in the brain is you can't separate cognition, from emotion, so you can't separate feeling from thinking. So there's going to be a feeling attached to everything you think so all decisions that you make about that person or about that program. And that has implications. So it's a tricky business, you know, we're high, our brain is highly socially sensitive.
This sounds like one of those things that gets talked about a lot in teacher student relationships, particularly the need to build rapport before learning can happen, and yet seems to get forgotten in, you know, teacher leadership relationships. It's almost as though people step outside of the classroom and sometimes forget that they still need to build that rapport with people that they're working with, in order for them to learn and improve regardless of age or status.
Yeah, it's a good point. And I think to teachers need to not underestimate that rapport building with students, because that trust and rapport, you're right directly relates to the teacher student relationship, and students that like that teacher, try harder, and actually have less anxiety in the classroom. So it's really important. Yes. And usually teachers do that. Well.
Can I just, I just want to comment on one thing that really stood out to me. And I just realized, we haven't actually said the name of the paper that we were using as a springboard for this discussion, which was reshaping leadership in schools or social neuroscience lens. But when you're talking about those three brains, the emotional, social and thinking brain, you have, in the paper, a social interaction model, which is informed by the work of a few people, including Dr. Bruce Perry, and you mentioned the ideas of regulating relate and reason, which, you know, the first time I encountered that was in Dr. Bruce Perry's work, and what led to the neurosequential model in education, dealing with highly traumatized children in a learning environment. And so I was somewhat so not surprised, but it was just it caught my attention that we're seeing this model that has been so central to Dr. Perry's work around dealing with traumatized children turning up as a model for understanding effective leadership in schools because I imagine if you I imagine if you were to walk into a room and say, Okay, we need to treat teachers like traumatized children that would immediately get people off site very, very quickly. So is this I mean, is this sort of just a universal biological aspect of how peoples are Emotions relate to thinking, is this something very fundamental to how our brains work when we are relating with other people?
What you're talking about there as my conceptual model for my thesis, and it's actually you, right? Part of it is actually built on Dr. Perry's work. But a large part of it's built on Dr. Avion Gordon's work, and also Yang, and Willis. And you've got to, to, to actually use this as a fundamental framework for behavior in schools, you actually have to draw in all of it's informed by all of their work. So yes, Perry worked with me as a psychiatrist worked with trauma trials children. And it's his work is so relevant to this the work I do, but it's only a small part of the conceptual model.
Well, get close, get back to what you were saying before about how our brains are hardwired to constantly look for threat. And the quick, the way you phrased the question that really stood out to me was always asking, What do I have to lose it whenever there's a change? How subjective is that concept of loss? You know, from a sort of evolutionary biological perspective, threat? Could be anything from sort of existential threat, you know, is this thing going to kill me? But when we're in a workplace environment, when we're, you know, talking about changing the IT system as the example that you used or changing your school practice? Just how subjective and how much of a scale does that concept of loss cover that might trigger negative feelings and emotions in the people that you're trying to lead through a change process?
very subjective, to answer your question, and very individualized. So what what you might lose, I may not feel that it's a loss at all. So it really just depends on what that change means for your skill set. So for someone I can remember way back, it'll show how old I am. When email was first came in as a regular rule, every teacher was expected now to communicate on their new laptop, with email. Now, for some people that were very excited around that change. But others avoided that training for a long, long time, because they were frightened of it, their anxiety was so high, they couldn't do anything on the computer, because they've never used one before. So it really is individualized. And the other thing that you mentioned was threat in regard to whether it's a tiger in the workplace, or something else. Now, of course, there's not a tiger around our door anymore, where we feel threatened. And our amygdala is overloaded, you know, in that in that space where we feel threatened. And we feel highly conscious. But what we do need to be concerned about in leadership in schools now is the social threat. side, because we all have a social brain, we want to be mindful that every teacher is going to in every student, for that matter, every learner in the school is going to be more inclined and more engaged and more willing to take part if they feel part of the tribe, part of the team. When you look at a brain scan of someone that feels alienated, embarrassed, frustrated, angry at a social hurt, it looks very that pain on the brain scan looks very much like the pain of a broken arm. So we can't underestimate the discomfort that social pain causes. And that's why a leader today has the role of many, but one of the roles is to actually unite the tribe.
Can I just pick up on that comparison? Because that raises a couple of interesting questions. I mean, you say that somebody feeling embarrassed out of the social hurt, feels it or has a similar neuro neurological reaction to a broken arm? How easy is it to trigger a response of that scale? And you know, if somebody breaks their arm that's months of healing and may never heal properly, again, how long can such a an effect last? If somebody does feel like they've been, you know, loss of status or being humiliated in a public setting? How long can that effect actually be working in their brain that they might have to consciously overcome to become part of the tribe again?
It does. That that would be determined by the Individual because we are all different we we have different brain networks. However, we can change brain state. And this is some one of the things that we teach students and teachers and leaders. You can, you can't fix a broken arm overnight. But there are certain techniques we use to change brain states. Now, it depends on the seriousness the depth of that feeling. Because your brain state is simply neurotransmitters and hormones released into your brain. That's a chemical reaction, like serotonin, oxytocin, dopamine, and oxytocin. And serotonin and dopamine are the positive emotions where you feel warm and fuzzy. You feel pride, joy, you feel good. And you want to engage. Cortisol is the stress hormone. Among others, there's, there's over 100 of these are the main ones. And cortisol is one of the few that is really hard to get rid of out of your system. And yet, we create it every day, particularly in schools, you don't have to try hard to make cortisol in the workplace. And we want to make sure that we get rid of that out of our system if it builds up chronically, because that can make us ill. And there are things that we can do to actually get rid of that. However, the good neurotransmitters serotonin and dopamine, oxytocin, there are ways you can change brain states to actually gain those movement, having a chat with someone having a joke with someone or taking a brain break, anything, any brain break, is any activity that's joyful, and doesn't involve new learning that effortful thinking. And sometimes we simply need a brain break two to 10 minutes to actually refuel our brain, refuel those neurotransmitters, and take us off that cognitive and emotional overload that we tend to get when we do timeouts.
How much does how much can someone be led through that process versus needing to willfully participate? You know, I'm sure lots of people listening to this podcast who've been in leadership positions, particularly probably middle leadership positions, have had experience as someone who's very reluctant to return to the table after there's been a disagreement or a misstep. So I suppose the question I'm asking is, how much does it depend on the individual's willingness to reengage, as opposed to how much they can be led back to the table?
Yes, and this is where it comes back to, you know, is this a management conversation and mentoring conversation or a coaching conversation, that's about changing your leadership approach to that to meet the needs of that situation and context. And if they're unwilling, you can't coach them, you need to manage them. So in that case, you might run a conflict management process, the former one or an informal one, and have that sort of a conversation. But if they're willing, then, you know, simply a coaching session and PDT professional development training. If that's what they asked for, for example, I do work around how you change brain state. So one of the I guess, I don't know whether the top is the right word. But the one of the most effective leadership tools a leader can have today is to be able to change brain states at critical times, because a leader needs to stay composed and calm at all times. And they need to use what I talked about before, past the sole tone, because that's calming for everybody else. But there's another important reason, if the leader is stressed and showing that stress, they're not going to be able to think clearly. Because when we're stressed, that means the blood flow, the oxygen level, and the electric electrical activity is all in this lower emotional brain area. What we want is leaders to be thinking from their prefrontal cortex, which is this area, their thinking brain, and we want the activity to be here, because that's where all your conscious and executive function is problem solving, critical thinking, planning, prioritizing, taking on feedback, putting a stop on your emotion, being able to regulate your emotions, your empathy is also there. So that's where we want them. So being able to change brain states from here to there is really important. And if they're unwilling, then you're not going to be able to drag them.
Can we just take a moment to discuss that difference? You mentioned the need to sometimes have a management conversation versus a mentoring conversation versus a coaching conversation. And it seems to me like a lot of the things that might come under the title of a management conversation, are the kinds of things likely to trigger that threat response we were talking about earlier. And I suppose the question that the question that seems to eternally circle around issues of leadership is how effectively can one person be manager, mentor and coach to the same person if a third of that role is triggering a threat response? Potentially?
Oh, there's so many things in that question. First of all, leaders need to be trained in how to have a hard conversation and keep the relationship intact, so that that trigger response to threat Mode isn't as high. And that's doable, very doable. I've seen some fantastic fierce conversations. The The second thing is sometimes you can't avoid it. Sometimes, a leader has to have the courage. Remember that strength as a leadership attribute that I talked about, to have those hard conversations despite whether they're going to be popular or not. Because if you have a dysfunctional, disruptive team member, that's not being accountable to their role and not doing their job. And you're the leader and you don't address it. Both informally and casually early first. But then if it still continues, if you don't address it with a hard conversation for one of a better word, then you're going to lose team members because people take the job because they want the nature of the work. But they leave because they leave the boss they don't like. And one of the biggest blockers the research shows for losing staff is a boss that doesn't address dysfunctional, unhelpful, continuous behavior in others. And I think this is where the balance needs to be very, I guess we need to be mindful that we need a balance of integrity, humility, and strength in leadership.
I understand what you're saying regarding the role of the person in a leadership or management role. I suppose I'm approaching it from the side of the person being mentored, coached, or managed, because you know, what we're talking about earlier with the idea of things triggering a threat response being counterproductive to effective behaviors. And I wonder if the question I'm asking, I suppose is, can it be if somebody needs a lot of management? Can that relationship? Can you still navigate through that to be an effective coach or mentor, if the person is feeling more under threat? I sort of I suppose in my head, I can see it becoming a bit of a cascading situation, where even if you have a good, you know, you mentioned that the threat response can be highly subjective and highly individualized. And I suppose I can see it being a bit of a cascading situation where a person, you need to have a hard conversation with them, they feel triggered, they feel threatened, they struggle to reengage with effective professional practice and to be mentored and coached by the same person. And that leads to the need for another management compensation. Now, I can sort of see it becoming a bit of a spiral. Is there a way to break through that spiral effectively? Or is it possible that some people just can't get on?
Well, some people just can't get on. Yes. And you've got to remember that in the education department doesn't work with private schools and independent schools and state schools across Australia. And they all have a code of conduct. So you've got to remember that most of you know within that code of conduct, and within the even professional ethos of the school and the expectations of professional behavior. Teachers are asked to be ready for feedback. Teachers need to know that they are a lifelong learner, that they need to build their own leadership, their self awareness. So yes, there will always be disagreements. We're human we have. I'm amazed that there's it's not given the brain we've got and that it's so easy to trigger someone into threat mode that there's not more inviting, but I think You can also the leader has to be able to anchor into expectations around professional ethical behaviors. And if you've had those conversations with your staff, it makes it much easier. And I use the blue line conversation. So, you know, the what behaviors do we want to see above the blue line? We want to see more of those. How, what behaviors represent the ethos and the values of our school and our professional behaviors? And what don't we want to see under the blue line? We want to see less of those. What happens when we break this code? In how are we going to call behavior? So it's a conversation you have together. Now, no, that doesn't answer your question. But that's the work that needs to be done before. Something like a continuous downward spiraling problem happens. So if you do have some years, sometimes you do have as a former high school principal, I did have staff members that were taken through the management, managing underperformance process, and they did leave at the end of it. But the end of the day, students deserve high quality teachers. And I can say from going into schools, most of our teachers just love their job, love the students want to learn and adjust highly professional. But yes, you are you in any work. It's no different any other workplace. So you are going to get sometimes that conflict, aren't you?
Unfortunately, so I think I realized that you said that our brains do have a tendency to latch on to the negative and hold those negative thoughts a bit longer. I don't want that in this interview to come across that way and focus explicitly on the negative in the work you've done with schools, when schools can engage in a leadership model that really does foster positive, inspiring relationships. What does that allow to happen? What have you seen schools do by engaging in a more positive collaborative approach to leadership?
So many things, I guess the main thing that comes to mind is they have a setting where effective collaboration happens, and they're sharing their practice. So as a principal, my role would be to encourage teachers to share their practice and collaborate and to give them the space and the skills to do that. Not just resources. But you know, I try this great pedagogy, this great teaching strategy. And this is a result I got, can I show you would you like to come into my classroom and you have this sharing going on, and mentoring and coaching and everybody in that school has a coach and mentor? That's not going to happen if you people work alone? And because that's the opposite. So the other style, if you like, where there's no positivity, and no collaboration is everyone sticking to their own classrooms, and they build the walls up and no one's coming into my classroom. But my answer to that if a teacher says to me, Well, no, you're not coming into my classroom, I have a responsibility to the students. They're the clients and the parents, not just the teachers. And if I've got this fantastic teacher, in this particular area, then I want every child to actually benefit from that expertise. So unless that teacher is willing to share that practice, not every teacher is going to be exposed to that practice. So you get this sharing across the staff. And that happens in the classrooms, but it also happens at staff meetings, and a lot of the big schools have a weekly staff meeting where professional development and sharing can happen. I know some principals and deputies, they prioritize timetabling pods of teachers into the ones we call them, schools call them spare, so time off, where they get their spares preparation time, and they can collaborate them so they're actually creating a setting where that's possible. And they're not trying to do it after school before school in the lunch hour. Because teachers are really busy and very tired by the end of the day. So yeah, so collaboration comes to mind first, but it's the mindset too. So when you walk into a school, and the teachers are willing, they talk about their school with pride, they talk about their affection for their students, they talk about their achievements in the classroom and what they know their students by name. And they talk about their leadership team. And in a positive way, and the leadership team, you know, uses the word we not I, and that, you know, look what we've done, it's not what I've done, look what the team's done. So it's the language and the mindset, that, that you see, as I guess, a symptom or a feature of that positivity. So you get this high performing learning culture, and because the trust and the rapport builds and that respect, then you're going to be able to give people feedback, and you can't learn without feedback. The best error detection is feedback. So you want teachers to get them to the point where they say to their line manager, give me feedback, have a look at this, give me feedback on my practice, warts and all. So be as hard as you can. And then after that they debrief. And that again, that takes time. So the schools got to be set up, where that can happen easily without stressing out the teacher. And they can mentor have a mentoring and coaching conversation. And what I mean by that is, you know, you might meet after, after that lesson observation and say to the teacher, if you're the coach, how did that go for you? What would you do differently next time? What went well for you. So everybody's growing and learning off each other. That doesn't happen when you haven't got the trust and rapport, and everyone's feeling negative, and stressed and overloaded. And I'm finding that I find too, that we need to be mindful that just because someone looks resistant, it's not always the case, just sometimes means that overloaded, and they're stressed, they're just surviving. So it's about refreshing sometimes, and refreshing and igniting the fire back back in to that teacher, you know, it might mean a new year level or a new interest, or sometimes it's an acting position, tapping them on the shoulder to say, you would be great at acting deputy, would you like to do that for a week? Next week? So it's complex, isn't it? Yeah,
yes, if he's think, and I think a lot of people, especially those who are in those acting positions, sometimes feel very conscious of their capacity to accidentally and inadvertently trigger a negative response in people even when they're trying to do the right thing.
Yeah. And that's why it's really important that leaders shouldn't take it personally, if I if I understand how the brain works, they need to they can be a little bit more resilient around that, because all leaders are watched and judged. It doesn't matter what leadership position you're in.
But to pick up on the idea, you mentioned earlier, that leadership is not about positional authority, but anybody can be in a position of influence. I suppose for anybody working in a school, whether it's classroom teacher, middle management, principalship, what would be your advice for how to approach conduct in the workplace to be either leading or at least contributing towards that positive culture of collaboration and positive rapport?
Yeah, having a go, getting on board with the improvement agenda in the school, doing what you can, and you know, with what you've got to work with, that a teacher can lead the pedagogy. A teacher can lead the mindset of the students, they can teach growth mindset. A teacher can be a role model, as a leader. So role model that behaviors that they want to see in their students. Be positive, be passionate. If a teacher is not passionate, and positive about the subject they're teaching, and about learning in general. If you haven't got it, you can't give it. So teach. Students need to see that. Deputy principals and principals can be a leadership role model. And that's probably a little bit more obvious. But yes, Teaching Aides can leave their area I have seen some amazing leaders as teaching aides, teaching reading to children, for example. And the you know, when I say leading the reading, they take it upon themselves to make sure that they're trained up, that they're taking a role in the values of the school, and that they're showing that in their own behavior. I think today With the way we define leadership, everybody has to be a leader. Or at least that's what you want. Because it creates this high performing learning culture. And if everybody's a leader around you, then change is going to move faster. And improvement and making a difference is going to be easier. I think it all boils down to that feeling that I talked about, at the very beginning of our interview, that the way we feel about someone or something will determine our willingness to perform at our best and engage fully. And that's for a student or a teacher. So we, we need to actually be able to check out and regulate our own feeling. And that collective feeling will create the workplace culture that will either speed up or slow down the change you want to create.
Well, Judy, this interview was facilitated by ACL, the Australian Council for Education Leaders. And I understand that coming up late July and early August, you are presenting some work with them that people might be interested in.
So very soon, I will be conducting hosting for a sell to webinars, one on the 24th of July that will be about the fundamental framework of social applied neuroscience. To give us a a feel of how euroscience is very relevant and meaningful for teachers and schools. And that we'll be talking about how what happens in the brain around a social interaction between teacher and student, leader and team member. And on the seventh of August, we're going to be looking at the science of learning. So how does the brain learn best? And we'll be looking at powerful memory techniques, the importance of focus and attention and a whole plethora of practical activities that teachers they can use the very next day in the classroom.
Excellent. Well, I'll make sure there is a link to the website for those webinars in the show notes for this episode. But in addition to those webinars, Judy, if people are interested in reading more about this topic in their own time, is there any way you would recommend they get started?
Yes, go to my website on Dr. Judy newman.com. And there is a little button on my website. And it actually is called readings. So if you'd like to start there, that's a that's a great way to start. I've also given a People ask me all the time for recommended reading professional papers and textbooks. I've listed about 30 of them as well.
Excellent. Well, again, I'll make sure the link is in the show notes. For anybody who wants to find that website. Jenny, thank you very much for the conversation. It's a fascinating topic and delving deeper into what actually makes our brains tick both as learners teachers and leaders in a school as a workplace. So thank you very much for your time and best of luck for the webinars. Thank you camera and a joy to talk to you
