What Matters Most

Tēnā koutou katoa

So much has changed in our day to day experience since the last Leading Lights edition a few months ago. We have been living through our nation’s lockdown and now enter the promise of emerging from within our ‘bubbles’. We don’t have previous experience of living within these unprecedented circumstances. As such we are being called upon to draw on the well of our personal capabilities as well as different strategies in our bank of leadership skills.

Adaptive Leadership has been foremost amongst leadership capabilities. This has demanded the awareness of and abilities in leading through the complexities and changes in turbulent times; being the ‘ambassador’ for the whole school community; allowing self, colleagues and students to fail fast and keep going.

Our own and others’ well-being has been and continues to be uppermost at this time. This anecdotally has been heard and seen in the values and awareness that colleagues bring to leadership as they support each other, students and whanau.

I have made myself readily available to staff via phone calls or conference calls to support them through listening and understanding as they meet the challenges of setting up online learning programmes as well meeting challenges that the lockdown brings in our home-settings.

(Communication with Principal, March 2020.)

Finally, to close in recognition and celebration of the Fellows of NZEALS Award recently given to Juliette Hayes and Anne Malcolm as detailed in this edition of Leading Lights. Juliette and Anne have shown and continue to show outstanding commitment to NZEALS and to educational leadership in Aotearoa, New Zealand. Warm congratulations Juliette and Anne on behalf of all NZEALS members.

Through your leadership you have consistently upheld values-based leadership focused on:

He aha te mea nui o te ao, he tangata he tangata he tangata.

What is the most important thing in the world, it is the people, the people, the people.

We hold this front and foremost in our hearts and minds at this current time.

Ngā mihi mahana
Maggie Ogram
National President