Know Yourself, Lead Better | A Conversation with Alicia Drummond

Nobody can be blamed for not having awareness, but I do think that without awareness, we lose choice, control, and confidence. And as a leader, you really want to have that choice of how you manage situations. Hey, everyone, I'm Shane Leaning. Welcome to Education Leaders, the chart-topping leadership podcast for school leaders just like you.

As an organizational coach, I have helped thousands of leaders worldwide lead with greater confidence, make better decisions, and create winning teams. And on this show, we explore the strategies that help you achieve your goals and transform your leadership practice. So before we jump in today, this episode is supported by the International Curriculum Association. Stay tuned to learn more.

My guest today is Alicia Drummond. Alicia is a therapist, parent expert, sought-after speaker. She's worked with many schools across the UK for more than a decade. And in 2020, she created the Wellbeing Hub, which is an award-winning platform that gives a whole-school proactive approach to mental health and wellbeing.

And I love this conversation because it instantly got practical. We get into attachment styles, personal biases. Something called the OK Corral is really going to change how you see yourself as a leader. So let's jump right in.

So I think the focus for today is, and the question that we kind of wanted to address was, why, as a new school leader particularly, but any school leader, should be the relationship that you focus on first, when you arrive in your new school, be the one that you have with yourself? And there's lots of different answers to that, but I think it's really because we know from research, there was research done at Yale, which was published there as the International Journal of Leadership and Education. And it's all talking about how the internal kind of state of a leader impacts the external culture of a school. So it really is important because it impacts everything really from our ability to communicate well with others, to create the right psychological climate for staff, for parents, for pupils, even working with governors.

And when we have that, then we have improved teacher motivation, collaboration, retention. Students have the right environment to kind of focus and work in. So it is really, really important, I think. Am I understanding in kind of what you're saying that maybe many leaders are actually not doing that?

Like, do many leaders, I guess I'm thinking like as a servant leader, are you sometimes just trying to focus so much on the relationships you've got with others that you forget about yourself? Is that where you're coming from? I don't think it's necessarily as obvious as that. I think this is much more around how well do you know yourself?

Some people are more interested and up for self-reflection than for others. So I don't think it's a conscious decision not to do it, but perhaps not realizing the importance of that self-reflection. Because self-reflection builds self-awareness, which ties in with emotional intelligence, our ability to use our emotions to inform our thinking and our thinking to manage our emotions. So, well, there's lots of different ways we can go from here, Shane.

But if we don't understand our attachment style, if we don't understand where our self-esteem is, if we don't understand what pushes our buttons, and if we haven't developed that awareness, which leads ultimately to some kind of more confidence in our ability to react in ways that are gonna improve things around us or not. And so that's what I really mean about self-awareness and why it's important. And also being a head teacher, I think it can be quite lonely because although you have multiple very complex relationships, actually, you know, the governor's recruited you, Ergo, you can also unmute you, shall we put it? You've got the staff, you've got to be friendly, but actually you're their boss, so you can't be too friendly.

You've got the parents, you know, again, you need to be friendly, but you can't be too friendly. So I think it can be, if you're not careful at a lonely place. And you've got to really know whether that's gonna work for you or it isn't going to work for you, but also how you're gonna manage yourself within that with the stresses that are gonna come inevitably, because nobody's gonna benefit from having a head teacher who is exhausted and burnt out. For sure.

I'd love to dig into some of those areas that you were just hinting at then that would be useful to deal with, you know, with reflecting on yourself. But I wonder, for you as a leader in your field, have you had to go through this as a process of reflecting? Like, I'm just genuinely curious. No, no, a hundred percent.

I mean, I trained as a therapist, so when you're doing that, and it's basically five years from the start to finish, you have to be in therapy the whole way through. And I remember sitting there thinking, oh my God, what am I gonna talk about every week for five years? I'm really not that interesting. And it's fascinating because we are like these sort of onions.

There's always another layer. There's always something to learn about yourself. And I'm still learning all the time. So this week we were doing people's reviews at work.

And one of them suddenly said to me, I didn't feel I could come and talk to you about that. Now, if you don't have any awareness, you might be sitting there thinking, well, that's ridiculous. I'm thinking I'm pretty approachable. But then it's kind of like, okay, so what was my part in that?

What was going on that didn't mean that they could come and talk to me? And it's easy sometimes I think, particularly if it's a situation where our buttons getting pushed. So for example, if you're somebody who really struggles with conflict, when somebody comes at you and you're having one of those really difficult conversations that happen everywhere, but particularly perhaps in schools when you've got an awful lot of emotion invested by parents, staff, pupils, everybody, they can be very challenging. And if your default in that moment because you haven't kind of worked out why does this trigger me, is either you're going to go into fight or flight.

So you're either going to come out attacking or you withdraw and we try and avoid having those difficult conversations or we pass them off to somebody else to deal with because we just don't want to do it. And so I think that understanding yourself is really important. So I know, for example, I absolutely know that the thing that is going to push my buttons fast and anything else is being late. And if I'm running late, I can feel the panic building.

I start driving like a maniac. I'm probably shouting and swearing at everybody who has anywhere near me. I'll be ringing up making up some weird and wonderful excuses to why I'm late. And you have to get to the bottom that where did that come from?

That came from being six, going into school and we had a headmistress. And if you were late coming into school, she would have a ruler and you'd get whacked when you came through the door. So for me, I go back and I can literally feel myself becoming six all over again. So we rubber band back to those original events.

So now I understand that when I'm running late, which never happens, by the way. So we can learn to manage what triggers us as well better. Yes. Now, if I'm running late, I'm like, Alicia, you're not six.

You're 56. You're running late because there's a really good reason and everybody is late sometimes. You don't need to panic because apart from anything else, Mrs. Harvey is dead.

So you can start to use your thinking to manage your feelings. But if you don't understand what your triggers are and where that sends you, then you don't have that choice of reaction. You don't have confidence that you're gonna deal with those situations particularly well. And so a lot of it comes back.

We have to understand our upbringing, our personality as well. Some people are naturally, and I imagine school leaders tend to be more of the kind of, you know, you've got to have a personality, haven't you? Yeah, there's a presence, right? Yeah.

And so is that presence one that allows others to be in that space with you? In other words, are you able to create a culture of psychological safety for the people around you? Because if you can't, you're gonna miss out on loads and loads of ideas. Yeah, I'm really excited by what you're saying because so often in leadership scenarios, something challenges you as a leader or as a team even.

And the immediate response is to go, what external things should we be fixing straight away? It's like, what's happening around us rather than what's happening here? Like, how am I responding? But the way you describe it sounds like, well, yeah, obvious we should think about ourselves.

But it sounds like it's actually a bit of a muscle you have to practice. It's not something that is maybe just gonna happen, right? No, it isn't. And nobody can be blamed for not having awareness.

But I do think that without awareness, we lose choice, control and confidence. And as a leader, you really want to have that choice of how you manage situations. And I think it comes back to that idea of, and I've done various talks around building emotional regulation for whole school wellbeing. And that has to come from the top.

So if you're not prepared to look and think about how regulated am I? If I'm not regulated, unable to self-regulate, am I going to make considered decisions and listen to the right people? I think we've become kind of really disconnected. We're like these kind of brains wandering around.

And we don't pay attention to the sensory feedback that our bodies are giving us. So I don't know what your one is, Jane, but for me, if I'm starting to feel triggered, the first thing that will happen is I'll get butterflies in my tummy. And the second that happens, I know there's something I need to kind of think about and just take a step backwards and not just react. Yes.

For me, I know what mine is. And it's funny, like I've been lucky enough to do some reflection on myself and it's definitely situations conflict, even minor conflict. Like I am such a natural conflict avoider and I get that little sick feeling in my stomach as soon as there's even a hint of that coming. And I know that that comes from childhood.

I know we were so avoidant of conflict. It was like the bad thing, like we never discussed anything. And that's just sat with me. And it does take a lot of reflection.

And you know, one thing I've literally just got back to, this is very timely conversation for me is that I used to kind of help myself meditate regularly. And I stopped for a while since I kind of started my own business and things. I just stopped too busy. I'm 15 days straight now with meditating just a little bit a day.

And it is amazing how just sitting and just reflecting on what your brain is doing at that time and how it's reacting to the world can just help you when those moments come up to go, okay, I can see my thoughts here. I can see what's happening like you. You know, that teacher's not around anymore. You know, she's not got the ruler.

I can see what's happening here. That's liberating. And then you can then serve your team much better as a leader with that in mind. There's a really great website, which I came across and you've probably known about it forever called headteacherchat.com.

And on it, there was an article by Jonathan Coy who I've never met, but he had a brilliant one. It's 50 pieces of advice for new head teachers. And it's got great staff building, great relationships, staying humble, listening actively, being curious, evolution, not revolution, taking your time with the big decisions. And I think that's often where that button pushing, if your buttons get pushed, we rush the decisions perhaps, putting people first, lots and lots more.

So I really recommend if you're about to step into the role, go and have a look at it, because it is great. But I think what became clear really, really quickly for me was that most of those things start with the relationship that we have with ourselves. So I mentioned attachment styles earlier. I don't know how not to know about attachment, but attachment is how we learn whether people are trustworthy or not.

And we learn it very, very early on in life. And we learn it predominantly if we're lucky around our parents. And there are four different attachment styles. So you've got a secure attachment style, that's the one we want.

Surprise, surprise. We've got avoidant, we've got ambivalent and we've got disorganized. So children who have avoidant attachment styles have grown up with parents who just not really emotionally available. So they avoid making demands of other people.

If you've got an ambivalent attachment style, you've got parents who are sometimes there, sometimes not. They're kind of in the game, they're out the game. So again, you don't quite know whether they're there or whether they're not. And if you have a disorganized attachment style, then you've probably had parents who were actively abusive or actively neglectful.

And I think now it is perhaps part of the PGC, because attachment and trauma are becoming much more part of the training. But I was in a school earlier this week where the headmaster had never heard of attachment. It gasted my flabber. You know, it's just, it's like, how can you, if you don't understand attachment, you therefore don't necessarily understand that idea of being a secure base for children and other people.

So therefore you can create that psychological safety. Yes. But also if you don't understand what your attachment style is, you get much less awareness about how you're likely to respond in moments of conflict or challenge. And so even just if you think about, so we've got the secure attachment and then the other three are all insecure attachment styles.

And your attachment style kind of determines really whether or not you trust people. So are you fundamentally trustworthy or not? And you can see it in how people play out their personal relationships. But if you think about a school, if we can't trust that people are, for example, capable, schools, multicademy trusts, they are all hierarchical organizations.

And that structure is generally pretty effective for the day-to-day running of the school. You know, that can also be collaborative. That's brilliant. That's what we want.

But if as a leader, you impose a hierarchical structure because you don't trust that other people are experts, are you going to delegate appropriately? So for example, will you recognize that perhaps the best person to design your star CPD training course might not be you or a member of your SLT? So our attachment style impacts enormously in lots of different ways. Our personal biases, I mean, I think we all like to think we don't have personal biases, which are, of course we do. Of course we do.

And there's a really simple exercise that you can do to become aware of what your personal biases are. Okay. All you need to do is you need to take a piece of paper and down the left-hand side, you put the initials of six to 10 people who you trust. Not family, but some people you trust.

So people you go to, if you were just wanting to chat about something or you're feeling a bit wobbly about something. And then across the top, you have different categories. So you might have gender, nationality, language, level of education, age, background, religion, interests, try and think of as many different categories that you can put across. And then you literally go down the list and you tick all the ones where they're the same as you.

Same age, roughly, give or take five years. Same gender and nationality, et cetera, et cetera. And you go through and what you'll often find is that once you've done it, you then look for how many empty boxes are there. And very often our in-group, which is what this is known as, our in-group shows very, very little diversity.

And that matters because it's called affinity bias. So it matters because we tend to show greater positive regard for people who would fit in our in-group. We tend to go the extra mile for them. We tend to be more forgiving when they make mistakes.

So looking around your staff room, looking around your parent cohort, if you've done that exercise, you can pretty much just look at them and think, well, actually they probably wouldn't sit in my in-group. They would sit in my out-group. And we know that actually, we don't just not go the extra mile for them, but we're more likely to withhold praise as well. We're less likely to include them in teams.

This episode is supported by the International Curriculum Association. Now I've been working with the ICA for quite a few years, but they've been around for 30 years and they've been around championing quality, unlocking potential and improving learning in international schools right around the world. I really, really love that at their core is a model for improving learning. And this model is focused on the learning experience and they have tons of great curriculum materials, PD resources and even an accreditation pathway for schools just like yours.

So if you're interested and I really do recommend you check them out, head over to internationalcurriculum.com. Is it found that once you've done this kind of exercise, and I love this exercise, I wanna do this after this call today, I think it's great. Once you've done that, is there research that shows that it can actually start to change the way you approach things or is it quite difficult thing to shift?

I think it's always going back to that with awareness comes choice, control and confidence. If you are aware, then you can start to challenge your personal biases. So for example, I was in a school again earlier this week and this is what we're talking about because they're about to go co-ed. So we were looking at, you signed up to teach boys and many of you will have been working here long before the idea of introducing girls was even a thing.

And therefore you might have chosen not to work with girls. So what are your personal biases? Who's your in group? Who's your out group?

Where do different students fit within that? And it was interesting because I looked around this amazing group of staff who were all really excited by the way, about going co-ed. And I was thinking about our personal biases. And as I look around the room and you see it in all kinds of places, don't you?

The leader who surrounds himself with in group people. And I looked around this room and there was obviously I don't know how many differences there were in terms of interests or family situation or whatever it was. But there was no diversity of color at all. None, absolutely none.

There was actually very little diversity even in age apart from the gap students. And so you think if I'm aware that maybe one of my personal biases is X, Y or Z then I can actively challenge myself when with somebody who doesn't fit that in group profile. So I think it does really matter cause it means that you get bosses who employ mini-mes, you get sports coaches who maybe ignore the talents of somebody because they don't fit into their in group profile or their profile for success. You get teachers who see themselves in a young person.

And so they then really go the extra mile and that perhaps, I mean, usually it's a really great thing for that one child but who's not getting it because of that? And more actively, who might be getting an adverse response from you because of that? This is great. So reflecting on our biases, reflecting on our attachment styles, these can give you, what were those three words you said?

Give you choice, I loved this, what was that? Choice, control, confidence. Right, so it doesn't solve it. Doesn't solve it.

Yeah. But it gives you choice. Choice, control, confidence, right? Oh, this is brilliant conversation as yet.

So you've still got work to do but the awareness has to be the starting point. And how on earth are you gonna as well, if you're not aware of your own attachment styles, how are you gonna be able to then have empathy for what's happening for your students or what's happening on your team as well? So of those two things, attachment bias, are there other kind of key areas that you think are useful to reflect on? This is brilliant.

So if you wanna understand your attachment style, there's something called the adult attachment interview which you can do. It's called the AAI, you can find it online. I mean, you're better off generally doing it with them but there's also something called the ECR scale which is the experiences in close relationships. So you can just start to get an idea.

So we just start to build our awareness. And then I think the importance of that, exactly like I say is, it doesn't necessarily change how you feel in the heat of the moment but it allows us to be more considered. And when we become more considered, we become curious. And when we are curious, curiosity leads to empathy.

What did I just say? Why did that land with that person like that? Oh, maybe their attachment style is X. And this leads to something else.

You asked for something else. And I think this is really important. Our attachment style impacts how we are with others. It impacts the internal dialogue that we have with ourselves.

And that internal dialogue is very closely linked to our self-esteem. And I think sometimes people conflate self-esteem in self-confidence. So self-esteem is that core sense of having value of knowing I am okay. Whereas self-confidence is more about our confidence in our competence.

One is about being and the other is more about doing. Okay, makes sense. Yeah, self-efficacy is about doing. Those are about the doing stuff.

This is about the being stuff. So I can have a high sense, and you can see it in students, I have a high sense of self-confidence on a stage or on a football pitch or in a science lab, but I can still have an underlying poor sense of self-esteem. And our self-esteem again, impacts everything from our relationships, our ability to succeed and thrive and you name it. And so again, how do we build our awareness as leaders around our sense of self-esteem?

And there's a wonderful thing called the okay corral. And the okay corral is basically four different boxes. The top one is I'm okay, you're okay. The next one is I'm not okay, you are okay.

The next one is I'm not okay, you're not okay. And the last one is I'm okay, you're not okay. So just going around the box. So if I'm in the I'm okay, you're okay position, then I believe that I have value, I believe that you have equal value.

So I can treat other people with respect, I expect them to treat me with the same way. I can be authoritative, i.e firm, but supportive. I will have pretty clear boundaries, personal boundaries, which protect our wellbeing, but also protect the wellbeing of others around us.

And I can hear constructive feedback because I'm okay, you're okay, I can hear what you're saying, I can therefore adopt a collaborative approach, I can engage in problem solving, I can, as I say, be assertive without being aggressive. And I will prioritize self-care because I believe I'm worth it. So that's I'm okay, you're okay, and you'll probably work out quite quickly that that's the one we really want to be in. I'm not okay, you are okay, means I put myself in a one down position.

So I need validation from other people. And you will notice people around you constantly seem to need validation. They need to be recognized. If you're in this position as a leader, you're gonna need lots of nice feedback and pats on the back.

And you probably find that your governing body think you're a little bit needy, but depending on the level, it's fine. But we often overshare, we can be very impulsive in decision making because we don't get it out there. And so we then have fairly poor boundaries in relationships. And it's less common in a leadership because we tend to be slightly yes people, people pleasing a little bit because we lack confidence in our core sense of being.

I'm not okay, you're not okay. Box number three, you are not going to find a leader in this box because if I don't think I'm okay, and I don't think you're okay, then fundamentally what's the point? I'm not gonna engage in problem solving, not gonna be interested. But you need to be mindful of that for children and young people, that is also where people who are about to consider or considering ending their own lives generally fit.

Because if I don't believe I'm okay, you're not okay, and nothing's gonna change, what's the point? And the last one, and I think this is perhaps the most interesting one from a leader's perspective is I'm okay, you're not okay. Because the I'm okay, you're not okay position is one where we are very authoritarian, we're very strict and demanding, but with very little room for negotiating. And it's because actually I'm okay, you're okay, comes from a feeling of not feeling okay.

The only way I can feel okay is to put myself in a one-up position to you. Yeah. And so they tend to lack empathy, they don't listen because they don't really think other people's views are worth listening to. It can be quite sometimes passive aggressive, maybe doing a bit of that belittling and humiliating.

And it can be very, very subtle, but it's a kind of putting down of others. So you see it with siblings, the one which always taking the mickey, giving somebody a hard time, blah, blah, blah, blah. And they get into trouble because their behavior is horrible, but actually it comes from a place of not feeling okay. And I think as a leader, you need to know where you sit.

And we can be in different places with different people. I was wondering that, because I'm almost, as you're talking going, well, obviously I'd like to be at that top right, that top box, that first box. Hopefully I am in some of my relationships, but I can see myself potentially, falling into some of those other boxes, like depending on who the person I'm talking to. And this is very useful.

I've literally got someone in my mind, or I think, gosh, where am I sitting in that relationship? And why am I doing that? What's causing me to be there? And therefore I might showing up in the way that I want to show up.

All of this allows you to show up as your authentic self. And we hear a lot about authenticity and your authentic self and a lot of bits, whatever. But I genuinely think kind of really knowing yourself and also knowing because you'll get a, when you feel yourself not doing it. Yeah.

One of the exercises you can do is think about who your hero is. Any time in history, they can come from any point in history, who your hero might be and who your kind of anti-hero might be. And I'll give you mine. It doesn't reflect very well on me.

So mine was Florence Nightingale, okay? My hero, Florence Nightingale, she went against everything that she was brought up to expect to do and did it anyway. And I just love that courage and that. Have a go.

In my upbringing, therapy, are you insane? My anti-hero, this is a really weird one, but my sister who's lived in Zimbabwe, so probably he's here, was Robert McGarvey because he was a bully. And okay, so you're thinking about, okay, why do those people inspire or trigger me? And I think it's because one is my light side and we all have a light side and a shadow side.

So my light side is that I think I am courageous in doing things that push me out of my comfort zone. My shadow side is that having been bullied as a child by adults, I could do that. I never have done it, but I could do it. And I can recognize that as I start to think, oh, for God's sake, pull yourself together, I'm going into that, I'm okay, you're not okay.

In other words, that shadow side is peeking out and it informs you and I get the feeling like, oh, I'm gonna see you stop, stop talking now, walk away. And I can now say, you know what, I recognize, for some reason, I'm not sure what's going on here, but I think I probably just need to take a few minutes away. Wow, this conversation, it really got me thinking on how we often rush to fix those external problems around us when actually the real work starts internally. Alicia's point about awareness, you know, bringing choice, control, confidence, that really stuck with me.

It doesn't solve everything, but it does give you options. I really like that bias exercise that Alicia mentioned, you know, list six to 10 people you trust, map out how similar they are to you across different categories and those results might surprise you. And I really liked when we talked about the physical responses to stress, you know, butterflies in your stomach, sick feeling with conflict, I certainly get it, but that's your early warning system. And finally, I really want to sit with the idea of the OK Corral, where different people fit in my life.

I think it'd be useful for you two to reflect on, are you showing up as your authentic self? You can find Alicia the Wellbeing Hub using the links in the show notes. I'd really recommend checking out her work if you want to dive deeper into any of today's topics. Education Leaders is hosted by me, Shane Leaning.

Thanks so much to the show editor, Pete McGill, and for the original music by Guillerme Silva. And thank you so, so much for tuning in today. It's been a pleasure, and if we don't speak before, I'll see you here next week. If you want to learn more about the brilliant work from the International Curriculum Association, head to internationalcurriculum.com.