Listening

I am a problem-solver. As a school leader, one of the hardest things I had to learn to do was to stop solving problems. I thought that was my job. People come to me with issues, I listen, analyse the situation and determine a solution, then propose it and help them carry it out. That’s what I bring to the table, that’s why they pay me, right?

But the feedback I got was that people felt I wasn’t listening. Seriously? I spent all my time listening. I could barely get out of my office for all the listening I was doing, and then when I was wandering around, I was listening to people. Students, staff, parents – everyone bringing their problems to me. I listened, worked out solutions, resolved things. Sometimes the issues were deep, and the problems took longer to solve, but I put policies in place, changed practices, and moved on to the next conversation.

I was most definitely listening, I was sure of it. But the feedback kept coming that I wasn’t listening. They liked my leadership, they felt respected, but felt I wasn’t listening.

Eventually, I think I worked it out. It turns out that my job is not actually to be a problem-solver. Sort of. I did a Cognitive Coaching course in the summer of 2019, and I think that’s where I had an epiphany, where I started to understand.

What I really like about Cognitive Coaching (I guess coaching in general, but this is the only one I know anything about) is that at its core there is a deep, profound conviction that the coachee is capable. There is such a deep sense of respect for the person you are working with that it almost blows my mind, like an idea too big to really hold in my head. When you are coaching someone, your job is not to solve their problems for them, but to help them find their own solutions.

This matters, hugely, and aligns so strongly with the ideas of learning through inquiry and our oft-repeated mantra that it is the journey that matters, not the destination. If I truly believe this, then I must recognise that my solutions are not always the only/best solutions, and I must allow people to solve their own problems in their own way.

This epiphany led me to understand what I had been doing wrong. I came back from that course determined to put what I had learned into practice, and although I rarely managed to set up a formal coaching conversation, I used the approaches of listening with intent, paraphrasing and pausing, asking open-ended questions which assumed agency in the person I was speaking to (e.g. what thoughts have you been having about this issue?), and holding back from giving advice.

The response was so exciting. The reflections at the end of discussions from the people I was speaking to were so strong, demonstrating their ownership of the issue and their commitment to their proposed actions. I hadn’t given one single piece of advice, I hadn’t told them what to do, all I had done was ask questions, yet they went away happier than when they came in and feeling energised and supported. It was extraordinary, and in the feedback I received people started to highlight my strengths as a listener, as opposed to criticising me in this regard.

What I have learned is that although I am a problem-solver and much of what my roles entail involves problem-solving, my role is not to solve the problems but to help others develop personal/individual solutions or to be a part of a process of developing shared/collaborative solutions. My role is to listen, but not so that I can provide answers but to ask the questions that enable the thinking to move forward.