Reflecting on the Leadership Wisdom of Ashley Mottershead

Jenny Cole: 1:02

Hello and welcome to Positively Leading the Podcast. I'm your host, Jenny Cole, and it is fabulous, as always, to have you with us. Even more fabulous because we had decided that we were going to take a little break from podcast recording until after the school holidays here in Western Australia. And then I thought no, I think I'd really like to put out some holiday episodes that people can listen to, but I really wasn't keen on teaching you something, so sitting here behind this mic telling you how to do this or how to do that. We've come to the end of my interviews and we've got a whole lot lined up and ready to go for after the school break. So I thought what are we going to do for the next couple of episodes? And I had plenty of ideas, because if you know me, you know that I am never short of ideas. But nothing felt quite right and, to be honest, it's been so busy here at Positively Beaming Headquarters that I thought that anything that I was going to do was going to be rushed or shoddy or a bit ad hoc and that maybe I should take Jess my assistant's advice and not actually put one out. So let's go back a few steps.

Jenny Cole: 2:32

Over Friday and Saturday on the weekend, I ran Launching Into Leadership, which is my signature or flagship program, predominantly for women in education who are aspiring to leadership, and it was our face-to-face program and I always love it. I literally put my heart and soul into that program and we do it very differently to a traditional professional learning program. It's very inward-looking, it's very experiential. It is not about the tools that you need to be a leader, but the sort of mindsets and the ways of being, and, of course, one of the things that I introduce my participants to is Hamilton's attributes for school leaders. Peter Hamilton wrote the white paper for the Department of Education way back in 2018. And it's around the personal attributes that leaders need in order to lead successfully. So there's plenty of research out there about types of leaderships or styles of leadership, but if leadership is a way of being, how are we supposed to be as leaders? And so Hamilton says that leaders have the following attributes openness and capacity for learning, and he talks about specifically being able to unlearn things that no longer serve us.

Jenny Cole: 4:12

And good leaders are trustworthy and have the ability to build and maintain trust across teams, across organizations, with communities and so forth across teams, across organisations, with communities and so forth. Good leaders are resilient, and so they understand what energises them and what drains their wellbeing, and how to bounce back in the face of adversity. He says that good leaders have interpersonal acumen, and you might know this as emotional intelligence. It's slightly more complex than that, but they have the ability to read the moods, emotions and motives of the people that they're working with, being able to empathize, being able to understand the feelings of what's happening to the person or the people that they're attempting to build relationships with or to share information with or to have a critical conversation with. Importantly, leaders have really good self-awareness, and so you can't have interpersonal acumen or emotional intelligence unless you're aware of the things that trigger you, the things that upset you, what your values are. So Maslow might call this self-actualizing, but good leaders really know who they are, what they're here to do, what their purpose is, what drives them and so forth. And so the last one is a drive to excel. So it's not only about being a really nice person, but you need to have this innate drive to do things better. So, while kindness and gratitude and love of learning, they're all fabulous, but unless we can harness them and get the job of education done, then we're not good leaders. So there we go, Hamilton's personal attributes and that was not my job today to teach you how to use them, but they are openness and capacity for learning, trustworthy resilience, interpersonal acumen, self-awareness and drive to excel self more often, to be able to show up as a leader and be really happy with you being your favourite version of yourself, both at work and at home. And, as I said, that might be being really clear on your values, being really clear about what you stand for, being really clear about what your personal brand is, being really clear about how you build and maintain relationships, and so on and so on.

Jenny Cole: 7:11

But as I was looking at these beautiful, young-ish and super keen aspirants, for some reason one of the people that I think was the wisest, most amazing leader kept popping into my mind, and her name was Ashley Mottershead. Ashley, sadly, is no longer with us. She passed away at the end of last year at school in her role as principal of a very large, complex school in the south metro area of Western Australia, and I don't want this to be Ash's eulogy necessarily. I just want to take some of the lessons that Ash taught me as a leader and help you understand how she wove those interpersonal acumen into everything that she did every day. I also don't want you to think that Ash is perfect. She would not want you to think that either. She would want you to think that she was just a country girl doing the best she could in really difficult situations and, like all country girls, she was honest as the day is long, she always had time for a cuppa to sit down and chew the fat and find out what was happening for you, and she was always about community.

Jenny Cole: 8:41

I came to know Ash when I debriefed her Lifestyles Inventory 360-degree feedback tool, lsi. Some of you might know it, as it's a really robust tool that is very well-normed. That gets us to think about how we are as leaders, and then the second part is how other people perceive us in our leadership roles, and the idea is how to be more of a constructive leader, how to lead achievement. So there's that drive to excel, how to self-actualize, know more about yourself. To self-actualize, know more about yourself and how to work with people to get the job done. So, to be completely honest, I don't remember what Ash's scores were. I probably have them deep in my files somewhere, but I also know that as part of the leadership program she was undertaking at the time, we also did a DISC assessment and Ashley was very high D. D for dominance.

Jenny Cole: 9:53

And what does this mean? What it meant was she had very good strategic big picture thinking ability. She could blue sky, think she could plan things miles ahead. No, not plan them, necessarily, see them. She could see the vision a million miles ahead. And this proved to be really useful when, not that long after we first met, she became the foundation principal for Woodland Grove Primary School and it started as a very small community school and, like a lot of those schools in new suburbs, new subdivisions, it exploded to be a very large school where she had three and a bit deputies and sub schools and hundreds and hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of kids. I'm making a guess at probably 1200 primary school children by the time that, uh, by the time she passed away, that would be the number of kids.

Jenny Cole: 11:05

So d for dominance what did ash have? She had very high level strategic ability to be able to see into the future and see all the component parts, how everything fitted together. Like all these she, she, um, I was going to say she worked quickly. If you knew Ashley, she didn't work quickly. She thought quickly she was able to capture things and ideas really, really quickly and so, like all days, action, results and challenge she liked to be told that she couldn't do something and to go hmm, let me work that out. Results if you worked for Ash, you knew she had high standards and relenting expectations on you and that that was a good thing. So D's can get a bit of a bad name in DISC and it's not unusual for me to debrief DISC in a team and for the person who is D for dominance to say I don't want to be that. That just feels a bit hard and a bit harsh and a bit like a bully and a bit like my way and the highway, and that is certainly something that might happen to a D if we're not very careful. So here I was.

Jenny Cole: 12:28

Back in the beginning I had debriefed Ashley's Lifestyles inventory and we had worked on where there was a difference between people's perception and her perception of how she was leading. At this time she was working predominantly in district high schools and she had worked across the Midwest in Western Australia in a variety of schools and, having come from a farming background, she was very at home in those sorts of schools and they have a different set of challenges. However, she was getting some feedback about her leadership. Then she did DISC and got some feedback to say that she was quite a high D with a bit of eye, which meant that she wasn't totally task focused. She did have an eye on the people.

Jenny Cole: 13:22

So here we are, in our first interaction with each other, and I was talking her through something to do with her assessment, or we may have actually been talking through something she was trying to do in her school. We had lots of coaching conversations in the beginning and I was working through something with her. I remember clearly we were both looking at the same piece of paper and Ashley was saying yep, yep, yep, yep, yes, yes, yes, right, right, yep, yep, yep. And eventually I stopped her and I said can I give you some feedback? She said sure, and I said I, I give you some feedback. She said sure and I said I also think pretty quickly.

Jenny Cole: 14:10

I'm also a pretty big picture thinker and so I make the assumption that when you're going yep, yep, yep, yep, yep, you mean yes, got it, yes, got it, yes, got it. Yes, I understand, yes, but I'm wondering what other members of your team might be hearing, perhaps those who are a little bit more methodical, a little bit more careful, a little bit less big picture. What might they be hearing? And she said I have no idea. And I said well, my guess is some of those people who want to please you when you're saying yep, yep, yep, yep, yep, yep. So when a teacher comes into your office and says I finished the scope and sequence for maths, I'm wondering if you'd like to have a look at it. And you say yep, yep, yep, yep, yep, yep. You know you mean absolutely. Yes, got it. No worries, I'll stick it on my agenda, it'll get done. But what they're hearing is yes, go away. Yep, you're bothering me. Yep, they're seeing your short, sharp, efficient responses as you don't care.

Jenny Cole: 15:27

And I remember she sat there and she sort of stopped and I could hear her thinking. If you've ever had a conversation with Ashley, you can hear her thinking. And she said I had no idea. I thought what I was saying was thank you for giving me that fabulous information. I really love it and that's great. And I've got it on board and I've taken it in and I just think that's sensational. Keep going, keep telling me about it, because I just think that's wonderful. And I said, yes, that is your intention. But what people are hearing is yep, hurry up, get out of here. Yep, hurry up, get out of here.

Jenny Cole: 16:10

So that was my very first series of coaching conversations with Ashley and I think, yes, she was training to be an accredited coach with Growth Coaching International, that's right. So I did have six sessions with her and we would meet as part of that process and I would continue to give her some feedback about how her natural style is not normally a coaching approach to leadership. Her natural style is yep, here's the job, you do that, I'll do that, you do that and we'll just get on with it. Anyway, what I loved was that she took on the feedback as a way of making a difference, as just course correction. She wasn't needing to change her entire leadership style. Instead, she was just modifying it ever so slightly.

Jenny Cole: 17:08

Fast forward about 18 months and I had arranged to see another principal colleague, a friend of mine, for lunch during the school holidays. You know how you do that, when you catch up with all the people that you haven't seen during the term. And there in my friend's lounge room was also Ashley Mottershead, and I didn't really realise the two knew each other. They could not be more different One soft, gentle, caring, kind. And it's not that Ashley wasn't all of those things, but they were just really different personalities. So I have one of those rare privileges that you have in your career when clients become friends. So over the next probably five years or so, I was very fortunate to be in Ashley's presence, both as a friend.

Jenny Cole: 18:07

But the way that she was able to drop out of busyness and into calm and I always attributed this to her farming background she understood the importance of a conversation. As I said earlier, she was always up for a cup of tea and I'm sure if you worked with her in her very busy school, she didn't necessarily sit down and have a cup of tea with you, but when she did, you got her undivided attention and she cared about you, you as a person, and how you could contribute to whatever it is that you were trying to contribute to. And she was really curious. So she would be curious about people and what made people tick. So that was the ability to build trust really quickly with people by finding common ground. But just by taking the time, her resilience was quite amazing. Not only did she have a background in farming, but also was the victim of the horrible things that happen to farmers not enough water, not enough money and really bad times that I don't think our city slickers can truly understand. So that understanding that we just have to work harder and just do the best we can with what we've got came out of Ashley every single paw, and that, strangely enough, doesn't mean you should have to work yourself to the ground. But that resilience to just keep going.

Jenny Cole: 20:19

She lived a long way from her school. She lived in the country and her school was in the city and would drive many, many miles every single day, and she used that time to listen to podcasts about things that were important to her and would send me copies of podcasts, and so she put me onto podcasts like the Imperfects. So she would be listening to understand people. She would be listening to understand the mental health challenges of the people in her community, but also the mental health challenges of her staff. During those long car rides. She would also ring people if she was able to long car rides. She would also ring people if she was able to.

Jenny Cole: 21:05

However, there was a patch where there was no telephone communication. So it wouldn't be unusual to have a 10 minute conversation with Ash, for her to fade out for 40 minutes and then to start again 40 minutes later. 40 minutes later and this is what I didn't quite understand until I literally went to her funeral and that was that she had networks and connections with a whole variety of people that started with her school's. Old girls went into the communities where she lived and worked. She had craft groups, she had collegiate groups, she had friendship groups, and people would get phone calls from Ash about different things at different times. She very obviously had a,

Jenny Cole: 22:01

Although she had wide networks, she had a very close group of confidants that she relied on to help her process and to give her advice. And I suppose this is where I'm coming around to is. If you've listened to any of the other 18 episodes, you would have heard everyone, if not everyone, almost everyone talk about the value of networks and the value of having people on your team. So Ash was on my team and I hope that I was on hers. No, I know that I was on hers, but she had a wide variety of people that she would turn to for help and advice, and I so admire that as a new and young leader. The thing that broke me is that I just thought I should have my shit together and I didn't ask for help.

Jenny Cole: 23:02

So here was this amazing woman, this amazing leader, who was very skilled, who had very clear idea about where her school was going and was doing the utmost to get there and building leaders in her leadership team and in her teacher team. And then she was mentoring others below her but also getting advice from her network groups. So I had a coaching relationship with Ashley which turned into a friendship. But she would buy coaching for her school and allow others to access it, and she would also buy a bundle of coaching sessions because she knew that she didn't necessarily want to check in with me every three weeks or a month. She didn't need to, she wasn't at that point of her career, but there were times when she was going to need to run some things past me, and over the years she ran quite a lot of things past me to get my perspective. And she said to me once Jen, you're the people whisperer, so you remember she's D for dominance. It's all about action and results and challenge. She knew how to get systems working and even though she was very personable and loved a yarn, the reason why I was on her network was to help her understand what was going on for other people. And when you've got quite a large leadership team, it feels great, except as the senior leader. Now you're holding everybody's secrets.

Jenny Cole: 24:47

So not only did the members of your leadership team come to you about teachers and other staff, they come to you about each other and she will quite often ring me and say Jen, help me understand what is going on here. Here's my situation. This person said this person to that and what do I do? How do I approach that issue? They weren't always hard conversations. They were often just those little gripes where this person didn't get along with that person. She would often ask me how do I get that person to be more resilient, how do I get that person to be more people-focused? And these conversations would come from Ash. I'd get a text six o'clock in the morning and she'll say I'll ring you when I get some bandwidth, is that okay? And I'd say yep, of course. And an hour later I'd get a phone call and we'd talk about the scenario, I would ask her what she'd already done. I'd ask her what's the outcome she was seeking. Sometimes it would be I just want you to listen to me and help me process this, and sometimes she would say I need you to help me script this conversation. I need you to help me script this conversation, or I need you to help me understand this person's motivation and where they're coming from.

Jenny Cole: 26:10

It can be a pretty lonely place being the senior leader in a very large organisation with so much responsibility. So, even if you are an amazing lady, you cannot do it all on your own. You need to have networks, you need to have collegiate groups. Importantly, you need to have people that you trust unconditionally to have your best interests at heart. People who will give you feedback, people who will give you hugs, people who will tell you you're unreasonable or to calm down. People who will remind you to have a break. People who will bring you a cup of tea. People who you can leave your school and share. Share not only the stresses of being a leader, but share ideas and new ways of doing things that are going to get you unstuck. It's so easy when you're in your own environment, where you're just turning up every day to do the right thing, that you get stuck, and the people who are on your board of directors, the people who are on your team, those who you surround yourself with they're the ones that are going to lift you up. Sure, there is absolutely nothing wrong with grabbing a girlfriend and a glass of wine and having a bit of a bitch and a grizzle, but that's not going to get you unstuck. What you need is a group of people around you who can help you at different times for different things in your day-to-day work life.

Jenny Cole: 27:50

It was an honour to have Ashley as my coaching client, but spending time in her school, I learnt so much about what makes a good school good. Did she have a particularly beautiful staff room? No, that was never going to be Ashley's style. Was everything pretty and Instagram worthy? No, absolutely not. She loved it when kids took their shoes off and, in fact, encouraged them to take their shoes off in the playground. She encouraged kids from kindy to play with the kids in year six, because she was a country kid who knows the benefit of play and a bit of rough and tumble. But she was also the principal that set up a little room in the tiny space between her office and the storeroom so that students who had difficulty self-regulating could come and hang out with her or

Jenny Cole: 28:55

with a staff member. So to Mark and Ash's three beautiful girls. So to Mark and Ash's three beautiful girls, I hope you get a chance to listen to this, because your mum was quite extraordinary and I was very, very privileged to have her in my life. But the message for new and aspiring leaders is that being your best, authentic self does not mean being perfect. Ash was just a tangle of imperfections tied up with good intentions. She always looked beautiful in her lovely linen dresses, but also a little bit haphazard sometimes as well. But she was curious. She grew others. She knew that her job was to J make other people shine. Did she always get that right? Absolutely not. But she invested a lot of time in her leaders and she invested in herself through really strong collegiate networks and with a coach.

Jenny Cole: 30:04

Thank you for listening today. I want you to take action. Who can I touch base with over this school holidays, if that's when you're listening to this? Who can I touch base with who's in my network but I've lost touch with them? And that could be a coffee, it could be a quick lunch. It could be a text message, it could be a hello or a tag on LinkedIn. I want you to remember you do not have to be face-to-face these days to have networks with people. In fact, some of the networks that we grow on social media are just as useful. My fabulous friend and colleague, Jocelyn Seamer. Our network was built and grew through social media and it has also become a friendship. So go out there and warm up your networks, ladies, because remember, it's not what you know, it's who you know. Have a great day.