Article Link: http://exchangepress.com/article/moving-staff-through-difficult-issues/5014625/
As I travel the country, there are some common themes that come up in most of the seminars I facilitate for directors: What do you do about teachers who seem unmotivated to see themselves as professionals or take any initiative to improve aspects of their room or the program as a whole? Why is so much of my time spent with conflicts among our teachers? How can I keep my dedicated teachers from becoming so discouraged by the staff turnover we have to face every year? These are weighty issues, not likely to be solved by some one minute manager technique. I think they are fundamentally tied to the kind of leadership that exists in a program and the organizational climate that is created and maintained.I'd like to share some examples of how one program I've worked with over a number of years has worked through some of these difficult questions. The staff at Hilltop Children's Center in Seattle, Washington, would be the first to tell you there is no such thing as resolving these issues once and for all. Instead, what is needed is an understanding of the dynamics at play, the context from which these issues typically emerge, and ...