School leaders often stand on very tricky ground. Their role requires them to advocate for students, for parental rights and expectations, for teachers and support staff, for the Ministry and its interests, as well as for the curriculum, highly effective teaching and learning across their school, school governance and legislative expectations; and they act as gatekeepers, protecting and advocating for their school’s vision and values.

There are many times in a school leader’s life, when all or a number of these competing advocacy roles come into conflict with each other over a particular issue and the school leader then has to tease out the strands, identify the various tensions and make decisions about which views and perspectives to privilege at this particular point in time in their response. This is, perhaps, the most difficult aspect of a school leader’s work because the leader knows they are never going to keep everyone happy; in fact, it is quite possible that in the end no-one will get what they want and they may all go away unhappy.

So how might I, as a school leader, deal with these kinds of tension-ridden and charged situations and try to make the best of them? There is no easy 5 step process for complex situations, but there are some skills, actions and ways of thinking that might be useful.

1.     Bracketing: Bracket* all the tensions and potential risks associated with the situation having identified them. While I should be mindful of potential outcomes and risks, these should not drive decision-making. I must identify any defensiveness that I am feeling (by looking inside myself and working to understand why I am feeling what I am feeling) and then bracket that defensiveness – put it to one side for the moment.

2.     Consider what might be “without question” in the situation. For example, there might be a legislative requirement or a human right that is incontrovertible and stands without question, such as an individual’s right to privacy, for example. These need to be acknowledged and form the first part of the outcome. These are easy to deal with because there is no real conflict and identifying them early thins down the number of conflicts that now demand attention.

3.     Intent: Try to find out from the various stakeholders what it is that they are really hoping to achieve. Often we make assumptions about what is driving the behaviour of others and when we do, we risk making decisions based on our assumptions of their motivation, and that can lead us astray. Ask directly what they hope to achieve. In many cases, I have discovered it is simply wanting to feel that they have been listened to and their concern seriously considered, more than the actual outcome we assume they want. We can waste a lot of emotional energy assuming others’ motivations when we could simply ask. And, always assume good intent. Even if deep down we don’t really believe it, if we act as though we do, it will change how we approach the situation.

4.     Sense-thinking: In complex situations, the right course of action may still be unclear, now we have to move into sense-thinking – intellectual and analytical thinking is no longer likely to help us at this point. Sense thinking is when we stop “thinking of or about” something and start thinking from “within” something. For example, thinking “from within care”. According to Kaulingfreks (2017), thinking from sense is thinking from within the object and is led by sympathy. In this case, because we have become sympatico with all those involved in the issue, we can be confident that whatever decisions we make, will be sympathetic to each person, whether they recognise it or not. We will be acting out of everyone’s best interests and our heart will be for each person, even though we may need to say no, or politely disagree.

I have often tried to solve complex problems using analytical and conceptual thinking. It is generally my go to response, having bracketed an initial emotional/defensive reaction. But I have learned that when I go into a difficult meeting with analytical thinking alone, it never goes well. My intellectual arguments are meaningless in the face of another’s pain, anguish and concern. It always goes better when I take the time to do sense-thinking before hand - to get my heart right in relation to the other person or situation, to be sympatico with them. When I lead with sympathy and care, assume good intent, and am interested in what is best for the other as well as what is best for the school, then what might have seemed like an unassailable problem, suddenly reduces in size and the good will generated enables us to work towards a solution. And if it doesn’t, then at the very least, I leave the meeting knowing that I acted within and from care.

*Bracketing – an incredibly important skill that all school leaders would benefit from having. It requires self-control and is the ability to suspend or hold in abeyance presuppositions, biases, assumptions, previous experiences and emotional reactions (such as fear).

Kaulingfreks, R. (2017). Let’s dance: on humanising and organisations. In M. van de Klundert and R. van Boeschoten (Eds.), Organisations and humanisation, Oxon, UK: Routledge.