Simple Habits to Transform Your School’s Teamwork and Collaboration (Part One)

The best approaches and actions for teamwork and collaboration

While there is no single answer to the question of how to improve schools, the most promising strategy for improving teaching and learning is the implementation of professional learning community (PLC) principles and processes (DuFour et al., 2021). Central to this concept is the development of teacher teams who are focused on improving their own practice and results for students. Teacher teams are, without a doubt, the engine of this collaborative process.

At the same time, the need for someone in a designated position of leadership within any given team has been confirmed time and time again (Greer, 2019). While a strict hierarchy of individuals with a certain level of power is not necessary (Greer, de Jong, Schouten, et al., 2018), individuals who are charged with moving the team forward are most definitely needed.

The role of the team leader in PLC collaboration

Enter the team leader, someone who is supposed to be empowered to maximize team effectiveness in ensuring that students attain team-identified essential outcomes. Teacher team leaders are typically a quality teacher and/or respected and liked by the staff. And with this criteria at play, those teachers are metaphorically thrown into teams and told, “go be an effective team leader!” Unfortunately, this does not work all of the time. 

The work of a teacher team leader comes down to two major aspects: 1) your approach, and 2) your actions. Another way to think about it is that leadership depends on 1) who you are and 2) what you do. Both are essential to the effective execution of the task before you: ensuring that every student attains grade-level essential outcomes.

My book, The Teacher Team Leader Handbook: Simple Habits to Transform Collaboration in a PLC at Work®, is focused on the teacher team leader role and necessarily delves deeply into both aspects of a leader’s work. This post and a follow-up blog focused on your actions are brief primers to whet your appetite and help you on your journey. So let’s start by focusing on who you are as a person and leader and review the role and responsibilities of the teacher team leader in fostering teamwork and collaboration, as well as helpful mindsets and assumptions in accomplishing that role and those responsibilities.

3 important responsibilities of a teacher team leader

A teacher team leader is not an administrator in teacher’s clothes. You are not a manager, a spy, or a snitch. You are not invested with power over your colleagues but instead come into the role having power with your colleagues.

What you are is a member of a team of teachers trying to improve their effectiveness with a laser-like focus on improving student learning (Learning Forward, 2023). You will likely be asked to facilitate the team, to bring new learning to your colleagues, and to share struggles and identify solutions with other leaders in the school. In short, the role of the teacher team leader is to ensure the effective functioning of the team in improving student learning, in guaranteeing that students learn essential outcomes.

In order to accomplish this task, you have three responsibilities:

1. Make it safe
2. Build capacity
3. Do the work
   

While these sound simple enough, they each have profound implications for the work that you do. 

While the team meeting space is no doubt physically safe, psychological safety isn’t guaranteed. You have to create this, and it means two things (Duhigg, 2016): 1) Increasing social sensitivity, and 2) Ensuring equity of turn-taking. Regarding social sensitivity, as a team leader you have to pay attention to those nonverbal signals that colleagues make and then respond accordingly. It means that you take proactive measures to elicit social safety.

And it means that you will no doubt also take reactive steps to further that psychological safety. And regarding turn-taking, this will require protocols to make sure that no one person dominates conversations, and no other person sits passively throughout team meetings.

Building team strength and collaboration

Your second responsibility that forms the foundation of your role is that of building capacity (Dumas, 2020). There are five broad categories for building capacity, but suffice it to say that a few key actions involve rotating roles, using a language of learning, being open to mistakes, having clarity of next-step actions for the team to take, and making decisions by consensus.

And, of course, the third and final responsibility when promoting teamwork and collaboration is that of doing the work. You’re likely very familiar with what this entails, as it revolves around the four critical questions of a PLC. 

5 assumptions powerful team leaders should keep in mind

In addition to clarity about your role and responsibilities, there are a handful of assumptions and mindsets that can be quite helpful in fulfilling that role and those responsibilities. The assumptions and mindsets get to who you are as a person and as a leader and are the foundation of the effective use of the moves and strategies shared in the next post. For without clarity on these foundational elements, the actions you take could be perceived (or even be) manipulative and therefore counterproductive to transforming collaboration.

Regarding assumptions, these are things that we hold to be true (Sparks, 2007).

I propose five assumptions of effective teacher team leaders:

1. People do the best that they can.
2. You can only control you.
3. Behavior communicates.
4. People want to get stuff done.
5. Conflict is good.

Whether or not these assumptions ARE actually true is not what matters. What matters is that you as a team leader, when assuming that these are true, will be more effective when holding these assumptions. In most cases these assumptions WILL actually be true, and in a few rare cases you may have to hallucinate them. In any case, approaching teamwork and collaboration with colleagues with these at play will increase your effectiveness as a person and as a team.

Positive mindsets: Great attitudes that lead to action

Mindsets are slightly different from assumptions, because they are attitudes that lead to action, and effective teacher team leaders engage their colleagues in ways that bring these mindsets to life. Because of the emphasis on action, each mindset begins with an action verb:

1. To see what others don’t (yet) see in themselves
2. To be humble with a posture of learning
3. To spread the contagion of joy

In order for a team to transform, they must necessarily become more than what they currently are. By seeing and drawing out the best in others, including yourself, you will draw on the inherent excellence of each person as they strive for greater levels of excellence. And the hope that others will feel emanating from you because you believe in them will be contagious.To be in the learning profession means that we, as educators, must also engage in learning (Learning Forward, 2023).

And learning requires the humility to say, “I don’t know” or “Let’s explore X . . .” In all things, a humble posture of learning is a critical aspect of not just being a teacher team leader, but a human being. Finally, when we are happy, everything is just easier. Time goes by faster, and difficult tasks are more pleasurable when we are joyful. This isn’t to say that there won’t be times of tension and conflict. However, overall, the team will experience joy because you will have the mindset of spreading the contagion of joy. And the combination of these three mindsets will assist you, as a team leader, in taking actions that will maximize teamwork and collaboration. 

Reflective questions

• What about the proposed role and responsibilities of a teacher team leader resonate with you? Why?
• Which of the assumptions might have the biggest impact for you in your work with adults? How might you go about emphasizing this in your thinking?
• Which of the mindsets might you act on to become more effective in your work? How might you go about doing this?

About the educator

Chad M.V. Dumas, EdD, focuses primarily on collaborating to develop capacity for continuous improvement. An international educational presenter and award-winning researcher, he has led nationally recognized improvements for both students and staff.