Leading with Kindness and Agility with Hayatti Miller

Jenny Cole: 1:02

Hello and welcome to Positively Leading the Podcast. I'm your host, Jenny Cole, and it's a pleasure to be with you again this week. Today I am thrilled to have Hayatti Miller on the show with me. She is an Associate Principal at a relatively new secondary college south of Perth in a high growth area. She is a passionate advocate for student voice and data-driven decision-making in education. She's a leader in promoting student-centred approaches to teaching and learning and we are going to dive into her experiences and insights on leadership, student engagement, school improvement. Welcome, Hayatti, nice to see you.

Hayatti Miller: 1:44

Thanks, Jen, lovely to be here.

Jenny Cole: 1:46

Now. That was the boring introduction because I harassed Hayatti into coming on this podcast and she said no a couple of hundred times. But I really wanted her here because she is proof positive that you can be gentle, kind, relational, thoughtful and still be an awesome school leader. So now I've embarrassed you, do you want to give people a bit of an intro into your leadership journey, how you got to where you are?

Hayatti Miller: 2:16

Yeah, it's a great question because I've spent a lot of time thinking about leadership over the last month, particularly as we're doing a bit of a leadership course as a college and I actually think my leadership journey started as a child, with a bit of a leadership course as a college, and I actually think my leadership journey started as a child with a bit of a dysfunctional home and a mum who had a lot of mental health issues and physical ailment, and I don't think I realised how much I learnt about resilience, curiosity and the need for people. That I learnt back as a child and needing to make sure that we were okay. I've had a couple of incredible teachers that stored something in me really early and, when my attendance was dropping off, really gave me a hard conversation, not a gentle conversation, but that's what I needed to say education's your ticket out of poverty and you need to be here and get an education or you can go down the same path and wherever that takes you you need to be okay with. But this is your defining moment and that stuck with me forever because that's exactly what education is your ticket to wherever you want to go. So I knew from about 15, I was going to be a teacher. There was no second thought there that these two people had really changed my course and if I could do that for one student in my life then my purpose was done. So I started HASS teaching, which is probably my first passion at a school that I stayed with for 11 years and really grew up there.

Hayatti Miller: 3:33

HASS teacher for many years, became a year coordinator, which I just loved that particular care element of working with kids and getting to know them and their families really well.

Hayatti Miller: 3:42

Then a new staff member came to the school and she saw something in me again and probably a couple of million times asked me to step into leadership, to step out of my comfort zone and try something different. So I became an academic specialist coordinator, which I loved and taught me a whole different set of skills. And then she continued to mentor me and I became a head of student services so looked after year sevens and eights for a good couple of years, but there's only so much TikTok and follow-up that one can do so. Then an opportunity arised to go into an acting deputy role for six months at the school that I love and then an opportunity came up to apply for foundation deputy at a brand new college and I went into my stretch lane and thought I'm going to give it a go and was successful, thankfully, which was probably one of the best decisions I made and a real privilege to have that opportunity, because I have grown and learnt so much over the last 6 years.

Jenny Cole: 4:36

There's so much in there. I love education as your ticket out of poverty, and so that really hit a chord for you, obviously, and it's become a bit of a moral purpose. I'm sure as you go forward, but also all the way through there, there were people who saw something in you and pushed you a little bit. Do you find you do that for kids? Is that what you're looking for when you're walking through the playground or on the campus?

Jenny Cole: 4:59

is looking for a kid to give a bit of a nudge in the right direction too, yeah, absolutely.

Hayatti Miller: 5:03

I think that's definitely my heart and those challenging kids in particular, or the kids that get lost in amongst. If you're not the loudest voice or sometimes the most academic, you can get missed when you just need someone to say something in you and push you into something that you wouldn't normally do. So there's real passion in working with kids and I think that remains my core focus, that I'm in leadership for student outcomes, and sometimes that can be tricky with making school decisions and needing to bring people on, but always going back to we're here for students and student outcomes and what's going to be the best way to get there.

Jenny Cole: 5:38

We're going to have a little look at change and how to walk people through change. But I just I'm super curious. You said it was a stretch for you to apply for a foundation associate principal role. Yeah, it would be a stretch for anyone to go from a school that they know and that they love, and who supported you, into a completely different promotional position that, my guess is, you knew very little about. Yeah, yeah, what made you do that? That's a big leap.

Hayatti Miller: 6:13

Yeah, I remember spending six months walking around the dog park literally when I knew that position was going to come up at this school and that it was open to everyone.

Hayatti Miller: 6:16

But I loved the leader. But I also loved the leader at the school that I was in and having that opportunity to do some acting deputy under another mentor, who made you feel like you could do anything. But the leader that had started the school I just really rate and has been a pivotal part of my life and my journey and growth. So I wanted to be a part of something that I knew she was going to create and that it was going to be something different and special and there would be an opportunity to grow and trial different things and you could make mistakes and be comfortable in that space. But who also wouldn't let me back down, who wouldn't let me stay comfortable and shy away from putting myself out there or doing things that I wouldn't like? So when I really thought about it, I thought I'm just gonna throw my hat in the ring and see what happens and thankfully it worked out because the growth over the last six years has been exponential. So I'm grateful for that Not always in the moment, but definitely in reflection.

Jenny Cole: 7:10

It hurts, doesn't it? Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And, I think, a huge shout out to your principal, jo Willesey. She is quite phenomenal in many ways, so let's give her a voice and say well done, jo. I'd actually written it down there on my notes to give her a bit of a shout out. But when you joined your school it was brand new and a tiny team. The leadership team, but also the teaching team, was tiny. Talk about some of the challenges and successes of setting up a new school, and then we might move on to what are some of the problems now that it's bigger, and how to sustain what you set out to.

Hayatti Miller: 7:47

But in the beginning, what are some of the successes, challenges we had a team of 14 in total in that first year, so it was a really nice way to get to know everybody. You only had one cohort, so you knew the kids really, really well. It's not a bit like a ghost town at times because it was such a giant campus but only about 170 students and then 14 staff in total, including teachers, executive and leadership and EA and office staff, so it was a really nice way to start a new school. What I learned quickly is that you never get to stay in the year that you're in. So although you're getting to know your new team and you're setting up some of those processes, you're already thinking about that next year and the next year.

Hayatti Miller: 8:29

Then COVID hit. So we haven't really learned to our community and we haven't really made all of our students to a deep level, I guess, at that point. And then all of a sudden everybody was in masks, which made it so much harder. All kids for that one week period were not coming and we're trying to look at online teaching and learning and what that looks like, plus just trying to establish your processes. So that first year and a half was crazy, adding COVID, tracking and all of the things that you were trying to do on top of it was just mental.

Hayatti Miller: 8:59

So it was a really interesting time. But also you couldn't protect the students or the families that needed it because you didn't know them well enough, whereas at established schools, if you knew that the COVID period was going to be tough anyway, you knew who you were working with and who you needed to reach out to and check in with. But our community was so new that we hadn't built that foundation. So it was tricky, but and I tell you what being able to recruit staff, being know what you stand for, what you're looking for, to not have to start, I guess, trying to get change in establishment but you're actually building it from the beginning and you're saying this is who we are, this is where we want to go. Do you want to be a part of it? Was pretty awesome.

Jenny Cole: 9:41

Yeah no-transcript. And I know you and your principal have been very deliberate at bringing on particular kinds of people who believed in the vision, and you know what have you. What else were you looking for when you were recruiting new staff? As each year group was added?

Hayatti Miller: 10:06

Agility, I guess in the starting point, because you are really building everything, you think you've got your policies created and somebody comes to you and says, well, what do we do in this situation? And you're like, well, that's a great question, let's work it out. Or even being small, you couldn't necessarily just teach in your subject area. We needed you to go into your minors or, in some cases, teaching completely different, which is not easy. And staff that come obviously have got, if they've had experience, subject areas that they're comfortable in and that's where they want to stay. And also you get a lot of early career teachers and new graduates, which is awesome because you get to mentor and grow and support their career, because teaching is far from easy. But at the same time, you need to make sure you've got the supports in place to mentor and grow and support them. And being a small team means that you are constantly battling competing priorities, but you also have the time to reflect each year and go right. This is a gap. We need to prioritize a position here to support and then the following year you're doing something different. So you've got a bit of flexibility in being able to reflect and what you're trying to put together. But, yeah, agility was a big trait. You needed someone to come on who would be willing to get on board, but also know that we joke a lot about using the previous DG statement building the plane whilst you're flying it, because that is exactly what you're doing all the way through.

Hayatti Miller: 11:27

So, yeah, agility definitely, and just that teamwork, that you can't do anything in silo, that we need collaboration and your voice is actually really important and I think that's a tough barrier to break down, because so often in education you feel like you have a voice or you're co-creating. You're not necessarily, you're just going through the process. So it was interesting to watch some of our staff go oh, this is actually really co-created and our voice matters. But it was probably a little bit trickier for the DISC profiles, the Ds or the warriors in the leadership wheel, because they just want to get on with it and they just want to smash it out and go. This is what we need. So we're getting there. So then trying to get that buy-in and go. Actually, we've got to do it together. So it was interesting learning how everyone worked and the importance of understanding their styles to then be able to grow.

Jenny Cole: 12:14

Yeah, and there's that head and heart, the process versus people. It's difficult in all schools, but you're recruiting for people who in a small school, who are flexible and go-getters, and then you also want them to slow down and collaborate and make sure that everyone's on board. It's quite a tension.

Hayatti Miller: 12:31

Yeah, yes, it's never dull.

Jenny Cole: 12:34

No, but this is where I was going to shout out to Jo. She has always made sure that the middle leadership team, or the leadership team more broadly over the years, has had access to lots of high quality professional learning and from everything from the nuts and bolts to some pretty high level sort of strategic blue sky thinking. What benefits do you see of investing that deeply in your leadership team and do you think it's paying off?

Hayatti Miller: 13:04

Yeah, I think a huge investment because I think it has given us the language of leadership collectively. I think the middle leader role is one of the hardest in a school. I think, particularly in your heads of instruction or your heads of learning area, you are supporting your team, you're supporting the exec team, so you're trying to share the college vision, but you also are frontline with the people and that's not an easy space to be in. So I think, being able to learn together and Jo's always been so big on making sure that any professional learning that's occurring the leadership team is there with the staff learning together, because we are all in it together and we want to be sharing the vision and the journey about what we're learning and then following it up. So I think it's been great to give us the language of leadership. I think those pivotal skills in terms of probably one of the biggest pressure points of leadership, which we all know is those challenging conversations, or important conversations as we're terming them at the college, because the culture you walk past is the culture you allow, and then, if you don't lead into those conversations quickly, things escalate and therefore we're in a far bigger situation than if we could actually just have the conversation early and real-align to the values.

Hayatti Miller: 14:15

So the professional learning has been really powerful and I'm grateful and I think I can speak on behalf of the leadership team that they're grateful that they've been able to have the PL and that we can revisit it and, you know, they can bring it to us and say, hey, we had this PL a few years ago in our first year about how you do performance management. Can we have that PL again? Because our team's grown and, as an executive saying that's exactly what you want, yeah, brilliant, let's do it again. You're right, we've got four new people in the leadership team. Let's go back and making sure that we are on board and understand how we're running these processes and what the language is, I think also knowing how your team works.

Hayatti Miller: 14:53

So I think the DISC profile has probably been one of the biggest learnings for myself and the leadership wheel that we're doing with another course and just seeing what the people need from us because we are different, and then capturing our behaviours when we're under pressure and giving each other permission to pause and go. You know what I need to park this now, but could we revisit it and that just becoming a way of being, which has been great, because you don't always get that, or you think you've got to ramble, but rumbling is good, but that you've got to keep going if you're at a block, but it's actually okay to pause and come back, or yeah, and to say I need a break.

Jenny Cole: 15:29

I'm not clear on my thinking, or I don't feel like we're. I think we're at loggerheads, but I don't actually think we're disagreeing, or whatever it is.

Hayatti Miller: 15:36

Yeah, yeah, absolutely yeah yeah, and the power of pause isn't it? I think it's such a word that we use quite easily, but there's such power in actually pausing and not rushing or revisiting, so that everybody is able to come at that as their best self and not heated in the moment and giving each other permission to go. Hey, I don't think I'm at my best today or at your best, so, and that's okay, it's been a big week or there's emotions attached to this. Let's revisit.

Jenny Cole: 16:04

So, yeah, I think the professional has been really powerful in giving us a language and aligning to our values and keeping us moving forward yeah, and again, I've loved the fact that you've revisited some things that have been important, because you want to get everybody on board when there was 14 of you and now there's 28 of you, or however many, you need to bring everybody else along. You talked about holding people accountable. Yeah, I know your disc style is an S and so you are probably a little bit conflict averse. How have you learnt over the years to have those important conversations?

Hayatti Miller: 16:39

Yes, that has probably been one of my biggest learnings. I think about how you have them and I think, if I'm truthful, not to give you a shout out because I know it's your podcast, but the Rising Leaders course in 2020 was life-changing for me in many ways, and I sincerely mean it when I say your work is life-changing, because I think I avoided difficult conversations because I had this imposter syndrome like do I actually know this stuff? Am I good enough to be here? Probably a little bit of that fear of failure from being a kid and working hard to try and achieve. But the language around catching the story that I'm telling myself and then asking is the story actually true? Like, what's the narrative, is it true? And then just building a better story, I think was the first step in me going.

Hayatti Miller: 17:26

When I would panic about having a conversation or be worried about how it might go, being able to work through that in the first instance is just a great script and then just leaning into it because really the conversation's about supporting the person to be the best version of themselves and I know that can sound corny, but that's actually what it is.

Hayatti Miller: 17:44

I just want to empower and support the people that I work with and if things are not going right, I'm actually doing a disservice by not having the conversation. And they don't have to be a big deal, they can actually just be as simple as hey, I noticed you weren't quite yourself last week in this situation. This is what I saw how can I support you and going back to being the best that you are or you want to be, or something around that tone. So it's not actually judgment or turning off or chaos. It's actually about supporting them and empowering them, and if there's something going on, then I need to know that so that I can journey with them. And the sooner you do it, the better it is. Yep, so don't. Good advice, yeah, and it's okay to be vulnerable and it's okay to fumble through them, because people know you care and people know that you're willing to actually try and have the conversation rather than shy away from it. But that took me many years to learn and master.

Jenny Cole: 18:34

But yeah, some great insights there, and they're about mindset. So lots of people on this podcast have talked about know thyself Well, knowing the stories, knowing the narrative, knowing what's going on in your head. And, as you say, it comes from childhood, my guess is your stories were around. I'm not good enough, I'm just a poor kid. How did?

Jenny Cole: 18:55

I end up here, yeah and that just gets in the way of you being the best version of yourself. Yeah, do you have that little voice on your shoulder? Often that's going you're not supposed to be here, you shouldn't be doing this. Does that still exist? So?

Hayatti Miller: 19:09

much less than it previously did, and I think it goes back to the learning. So when you go to PL, that is powerful and you learn those practical strategies. I think it's so important to go back to it. And I think it also is important to go back to Avid, brene Brownfair and the Square Squad to have that group of people that you are so safe and comfortable with to or to be honest and vulnerable with and know that it's their opinion that matters or their advice that matters. I think that has really helped me over the last three years Gua Shet as well.

Hayatti Miller: 19:43

So thinking imposter syndrome is far less these days which is very refreshing than it was previously. But it takes work, doesn't it? You have to sit with those thoughts and you have to be open and honest about where they've come from, which is going back sometimes where you don't want to. But I think if you don't do that as a leader, then you can't be your best selves and then you can't empower others. You don't have the skills to actually support them in their journey. So, yeah, crucial learning, not easy but Well, well, congratulations.

Jenny Cole: 20:12

and the more you have those important conversations, the easier they get. They're never easy, but they get easier as you practice them. And it stops being about you, as you say, and making them. It's just course correcting. I want you to be successful. The way you said that wasn't.

Hayatti Miller: 20:28

Yeah, you know it's getting them back on track.

Jenny Cole: 20:29

Yeah, absolutely lovely insights. So I suppose that the learning there I suppose for middle you know it's getting them back on track. Yeah, absolutely Lovely insight. So I suppose the learning there I suppose for middle, for aspiring leaders is that you don't have to put on the armour and tally-ho into leadership. You can actually be vulnerable and open and honest. Yeah, and it still works.

Hayatti Miller: 20:49

Yeah, and vulnerability, I reckon, is crucial because it used to be such a taboo word or you would associate it with emotions and being reactive. But I think people respond well to knowing that you can be who you are and you can share or you can own your mistakes. Making a mistake isn't a bad thing. So if you lean into a difficult conversation and it is fumble but you still get to an outcome, that's okay, that's the learning, and sharing the learning and being willing to own okay, I made a mistake here or I didn't handle that as well as I wanted to and then sharing how you're going to course change or course correct I think is part of that relationship building.

Hayatti Miller: 21:25

Then when you think about leaders, you think about that. As you said, stoic, kind of direct. So when you're not that because probably a very big empath and kindness is definitely an important value to me you worry sometimes that you're not going to be as efficient or as direct. But that's where understanding the DISC profile had such an impact there, because these are my strengths, these are my shadow behaviors and these are how I work with others, so that also helps you.

Jenny Cole: 21:51

I was reflecting as you were talking, then. I know your wider leadership team. I always love it when I'm doing PL with them because they come in, it's the most exciting thing and it's often four o'clock in the afternoon and they're tired, yeah, but they're always so happy to be there. But I was thinking about how that must impact on students. So if students are seeing leadership teams and I'm guessing teachers as well who aren't angry and frazzled and punitive particularly in your kind of community, where I'm guessing that that's not necessarily the case always in families it must rub off on kids. Do you find that it does?

Hayatti Miller: 22:30

Yeah, and I think we're so incredibly lucky to have such role models. So to work with a leadership team who are passionate and committed and invested will challenge when they need to challenge and support when they need to support From an exec team. There's power in that. And, regarding the setting of the high expectations of the colleague and the preconditions, we wouldn't be able to do it without a team so invested and passionate about kids and the school that we're building and their futures and how all of that works. So I think that's great and they're willing to always look at. These are some things that we're noticing. What can we do here? To course correct or to focus or blitz, whatever it might be, and then celebrating the successes. So capturing the student voices, bringing them into when we're making decisions or getting their feedback and going above and beyond. So running afternoon sessions for our first cohort of ATAR students. So we've never had them before. They don't have any role models to look up to around what ATAR students look like. So some of our staff going above and beyond and running those afternoon sessions I think builds that community and they're willing to share. If kids they notice a change in disposition or bring that information up. They'll always put their hand up to support in student services if a team is down or we're short. So I think you definitely notice it. I think our kids notice it.

Hayatti Miller: 23:49

It's a tough season out there. I think behavior is unlike it. It's a tough season out there. I think behaviour is unlike anything we've experienced before and I think those of us who've been very good at behaviour management have had to readapt and relearn.

Hayatti Miller: 24:00

How you actually work with the new generation. That's interesting. Tell me more about that. Yeah, it's definitely a sense of entitlement and I think kids are more confident in knowing their rights and knowing what they want and staying true to that. So it's been some real learning about how do we work with the kids to set those preconditions up and make sure that the classroom is a learning environment.

Hayatti Miller: 24:23

I think it's been tricky with our parent community.

Hayatti Miller: 24:26

I think we've got incredible parents but at the same time sometimes we need to give consequences to behaviour which is just not okay, and there is probably more of a defense sometimes in the consequences than previously. But that's not just our college, that's education statewide. So it's definitely been some refining around how you set those high expectations and how you work with a generation who think that they can leave school and do anything that they want and have a huge paycheck and that's just the way it's going to be, and truly believe that, which has, yeah, been really interesting watching the generations change over the years and how that works, but then having a group of staff that are committed to refining and working through and looking at our processes and going right what do we need to do differently and supporting what that looks like. So it's been a really interesting journey. And then speaking to colleagues at different schools, all experiencing the same thing. So, yeah, I'm keen to see what behavior looks like in 10 years because I think it's going to be different again and I think again.

Jenny Cole: 25:23

I think your school community is lucky because your wider leadership team aren't going to take those kids head on. They're going to try and understand what's going on for them and do something different. But there are plenty of schools where are like no, this is not how we run things and this is not how you behave, and it gets a bit confrontational. They're just different. They're not better or worse, these kids, they're just different.

Hayatti Miller: 25:45

Correct. Yeah, it's a different generation and you know, in some breath I think, Good on them for knowing their rights and being confident about who they are and what they're expecting. And again, it just keeps us agile, doesn't it About? What does that look like and what do we need to do to be able to all move towards the same goals? So interesting times. But I tell you what being a teacher I think is the hardest job Our full credit to the frontline, every day, trying to work with a whole range of different students, ways of learning, behaviours, family, background. That is hard court and that's very front and centre of our leadership team about how can we support our staff, because we know it's tough out there, and how can we set that culture of them feeling connected and safe as well.

Jenny Cole: 26:26

And one of the things that I know that you've been doing and it doesn't feel like support, but I think when you get it right, it is supportive and that's that agreed instructional framework, the coaching and observational model. In some schools it would feel like another thing that's been done to us. Talk to us about how you've been implementing instructional framework and the coaching and observation model.

Hayatti Miller: 26:49

Yeah. So when we opened the school, we were explicit instruction, for teaching of new content was one of the main parts of it, but not just purely an AI school. We know that the continuum is right down to inquiry. You need kids to be able to investigate it and problem solve, but to do that they need some of those key concepts. So we started with explicit instruction and when we recruited in that first year, it was this is what we're working towards. There will be support in. In this space.

Hayatti Miller: 27:15

I think partnerships have been key. So we connected with an organization called shaping minds and they've been instrumental in training up our champion and then our champions training up other champions. So our leadership team in the first year went through that course and they've been absolutely instrumental in getting it growing in their learning areas. We've got little leaders who are demonstrating it during coaching as part of our school and as part of their work with Shaping Minds as well. So it's growing your champions, it's giving them the professional learning. It's growing your champions to then grow other champions.

Hayatti Miller: 27:50

We're just moving into a coaching model this year and we've done it small, so we didn't want to go big and it not work or you face the universal issues of time and money and resources, particularly as a new school.

Hayatti Miller: 28:03

So this year two of us so much self and a colleague have gone and learned the program that we want to use and then we've just expanded it to two others and they've been learning it for a term and now I'm expanding it further in term four in readiness for coaching to occur larger scaling in 2025 and beyond.

Hayatti Miller: 28:21

But it's giving your teachers the instructional knowledge that definitely has an impact, particularly early career teachers, because it's a hard gig, as we've talked about, and to know that you've got a coach or you've got somebody supporting you is so significant.

Hayatti Miller: 28:36

And then just building that culture of an open door classroom, the low variabilities if our classrooms are quite similar in our entry routines, our expectations and the way that we're delivering content, then that helps the kids as well, because they know what they're expecting and how things work. But it's not mandated. So you're going to use explicit instruction as a new content when you're delivering new content, but that might be one lesson for the week, it might be a couple of lessons. You've got flexibility there. But our heads of instruction have been crucial in helping us develop and expand that and just some champion teachers in running areas that are really good at their craft and have gone off and done further training in that space and are so willing to have their classrooms open that they're letting people come in and have a look all the time and sharing that with other staff. They're having those incidental conversations which is quite revolutionary.

Jenny Cole: 29:26

I think in a secondary school I know it happens and we see the occasional sort of unicorn, but for it just to be. You started with the idea that we were going to have low variance instruction and that we were going to try and do that, and now we're going to support you through coaching so that it's reducing the cognitive load of both teachers and students. I think in a secondary school that's it's talked about a lot, but you're actually putting it into practice, which I think is sensational. Thank you, it's been a big journey.

Hayatti Miller: 29:56

There's still so much to do and to grow and it is combating. The tough thing to a new school is the small budget, and if you could have some full-time instructional coaches I would have it in a heartbeat. But I think going slow has been key and I think sometimes people want it to be bigger and faster, but you want it to be sustainable. I've been at schools where we've done things quickly and then it hasn't worked and then it falls to the wayside or you've got to change it, and that you just lose people and buy in there if you're doing it too quick and at the same point we've had competing priorities, so really trying to focus here, but then you had to get senior school built in. So it's been a slow journey, but I think that's the way to do it. You don't want to rush it because you want to do it well.

Jenny Cole: 30:38

Speaking of advice, what's the best advice or the worst advice as a leader that you've been given?

Hayatti Miller: 30:45

Yeah, good question. Oh, I think the best advice that I've been given kind of molds between always choosing courage over comfort, doing a podcast and clear is kind. So again, credit to Jo there. She gave me a hearing a couple of years ago with clear is kind on it and that has really helped that journey around those challenging conversations and how you have them. But I think the biggest learning as a leader and something I'm still mastering is leaning into your stretch zone, because when you do something you're not comfortable with or that makes you a little bit scared, leaning into that courage and actually doing it is where the most growth and learning occurs and great for your confidence because once you've done it you realize actually that wasn't too bad like doing a podcast and, yeah, continue to grow. So don't shy away from things that you're scared of, because courage over comfort always.

Jenny Cole: 31:38

Yeah, I truly believe if we're too comfortable, we're not learning. If we're sitting there feeling, oh, this is great, I know all of this, then we're either stuck, we're not learning anything or we're a bit delusional. One of the three and neither are good.

Hayatti Miller: 31:50

Yeah, that's exactly right. And what's the worst that can happen?

Jenny Cole: 31:57

right, you fumble, oh well that's part of learning and growing as well, isn't it Absolutely correct? What advice do you give new or aspiring leaders?

Hayatti Miller: 32:03

Know your values, because sometimes in this world that things can challenge or you can work with people who maybe don't share those values. So I think it's really important to know yourself what motivates you, what your values are and staying true to them. And get a mentor, because I think mentors are life-changing because they see things in you, they build your confidence. I think they're a great sounding board and they do it expecting very little. It's not about I'll give you this, you give me that, but it's just someone who can be there and that you can develop a relationship with.

Hayatti Miller: 32:35

And I think I've been really gifted with having some incredible people around me as I've grown and developed, starting with my householder and then obviously different people along the way, which I wouldn't be where I am today. I probably would have stayed in the classroom, which is great. I think that's a really important role, but I don't think I would have stepped out in faith due to a bit of fear. So get a mentor and really invest in that relationship and I guess, if I can also say sorry if I'm waffling invest in the mentor. So it's not their responsibility to reach out to you or to prioritize you, but making sure that you're investing in that relationship as well.

Jenny Cole: 33:14

Yeah, yeah, lovely, lovely, lovely advice, because a mentor is doing it with no expectation of return. So the least you can do is you do the reaching out, you do the organising. Can we catch up for coffee? Are you available on the holidays, so that they don't? It's not their job to follow you up. They're interested, but that's your role. Yeah, we've covered a lot of ground here, h&c. Look, you've managed to almost survive your first podcast. Is there anything that we've not talked about, that you'd be interested in having a chat about or that could be useful to the people listening?

Hayatti Miller: 33:46

No, I think it's been a lovely chat, which I was expecting.

Jenny Cole: 33:50

I've got one final question I'm either going to. You can ask two questions. You can answer either, or both of them. So what is next for you? Do you have ambitions or desires, or what's keeping you stretched besides this podcast? So it can be either. You don't have to tell us what's next for you specifically, but what's stretching you?

Hayatti Miller: 34:09

Yeah, I think I have been in a different role this year, so I had the opportunity to go into the associate principal, which brought different portfolios. So lots of growing again this year and looking at our college performance, growth and coaching and OSH, which is a whole world, and psycho yes, psychological safety and psychosocial hazards and so much learning from a different perspective. So it's the first year I've not been frontline with students and such, but had more of that strategic role, which has been awesome and great stretch. And then the future, who knows? I think if I've learnt anything, it's just continue to say yes to opportunities and then see where they take you and what that looks like. But I'm not in a rush, so I just want to continue to grow and learn and now hopefully be a mentor to others on their journey and help them grow and empower them to see that they can do and be anything they want.

Jenny Cole: 35:00

So I don't know who knows, who knows, and it's not like you've had six years of the same year when you're building a new school every year has been different.

Jenny Cole: 35:09

Your roles have been different, your, your expectations have been different. So, yeah, maybe now the being content or how to hold it all together kind of stuff will challenge you, because I know it's easier when there's a small group to all agree as the group of staff gets bigger. Remembering where you've come from and remembering why you did stuff, yeah, and keeping your finger on that. And keeping your finger on that, and keeping your finger on the policies.

Hayatti Miller: 35:34

The team gets bigger, people have different priorities, competing priorities, so, and just trying to stay present I think that's one of the hardest things in leadership is getting done what you need to get done, but staying present so that you are aware of your culture and people know you and comfortable to have those conversations. So it's definitely been more challenging in that space compared to having everyone in one office, where it was so much easier. You've physically got to make sure that you're putting it in, but I think that's just scheduling your diary, so not something I've mastered, but what's important needs to go in there and you need to protect it as much as you can, which, yeah, is not easy, but I think is it because if you're just in your office, yeah, you're not across it and then, therefore, you can't be impacting at all levels.

Jenny Cole: 36:18

Hayatti, it's been an absolute pleasure, as it always is, to see your beautiful face and to talk to you. I will make sure that in the show notes, if people want to join with you on LinkedIn and see what you're up to in your fabulous school, they can do that, and thank you so much for being brave. I really appreciate it.

Hayatti Miller: 36:36

Thank you for being so good to talk to.

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