I’m currently working with a school that is building their professionalism, connection and improvement culture. Led by a Ferocious Warmth leader, this school has a lovely feel to it, and a great sense of its place in the community. The reasonably new leader has built strong connections with all the educators in the school and they are embarking on a strategy to create the type of professional culture they know will help with school improvement in all ways.

There are many things this leader is doing that show her skill in leading from a blend of the head and the heart, for results AND relationships, compassion AND accountability.

She is thinking from both strategic intelligence and emotional intelligence – head and heart. Here are some things the Ferocious Warmth leader has observed and is targetting:

• The culture is strong in camaraderie, but lacking in stretch
• Improvement in teaching practice is left to chance
• People are not yet skilled at having conversations about growth and improvement in their practice
• When pushed, the behaviours can pull their sense of friendliness into laissez-faire, less than professional behaviours, which affects others’ psychological safety for voice and contribution
• Increasing their understanding of the elements of a high performance culture and committing to building their capacity to co-create it
• Developing the willingness to reflect on practice as a collective

For this leader, the buy in to self-reflection, peer feedback and growth is the next stage to their culture’s evolution.

From a Ferocious Warmth view – this leader knows they need to balance out the warmth with a ferocious focus on stretch. High challenge, high support. Strong connection, strong growth.

In another school, a leader has been working with his team to build human connection. The environment was cold and unwelcoming. They are a high-performing school in terms of usual outcome measures, but the leader he knows that improvement is not looked at with a collective lens. There is a high level of protectionism, and a strong sense of ‘I’. This created a closed view of practice that didn’t allow for sharing and learning from each other. In fact, judgment of each other is more prevalent than support. For this leader, the lens is building the warmth. He knew that moving into more innovative and creative spaces required deeper connection and collegiate curiosity. They are learning to connect more as human beings, and feeling safe to do so.

From a ferocious Warmth view – he is strategically planning to balance out the ferocious focus on ‘my class’ ‘my subject’ ‘my results’ with a more warm approach of the ‘we’, support, connection, vulnerability.

( One of his first focus areas: model and encourage people to say hi to each other in the morning! Seems simple, but even this basic human interaction was not happening. Culture is created in the small moments.)

Currently, when I talk with school leaders about where their schools are sitting, there are many different focus areas people have spoken about in terms of where they are strategically focusing for improvement. For some it is mandated changes, for others it is internally assessed areas for development. Most have a small number of key initiatives and goals to aim for.

For all of these leaders, creating a culture where this improvement is embraced and strategically approached is a vital component of the work. Yet often it is overlooked. Changes are brought in, change management is spoken about, but the balance of the strategic and emotional is often not handled well.

We can tilt too much to the head or too much to the heart. Our Ferocious Warmth skills of contextual balance have eluded us and we end up with the unintended outcomes of only focussing on one side – either too ferocious or too warm.

When creating a culture, only planning from a purely cognitive viewpoint, with strategic actions and the end goal in mind causes headaches that can take years to heal. At the other extreme, only planning with connection and maintaining harmony causes inertia and comfort which can keep you spinning in the same place for years.

And what about wellbeing? Great cultures have well-being built into the way they work. It’s found in the quality of the interactions, the conversations, the quality of leadership, and the structures. It’s never a bucket by itself. It’s an integral part of, and outcome, of a Ferocious Warmth culture.

Outcomes when culture is out of balance – either too Results Driven, or too Relationship Driven

The concept of Ferocious Warmth cultures is simple – we need to balance both the emotional and strategic approaches, the results and the relationships.

Let me know where you are focussing your school’s growth. Does the quality of your culture match the results and relationships you are after?