Superpowers for School Leaders!

In my opinion, self-awareness really is the best superpower a school leader can have! Apart, of course from maybe flying, invisibility, control of time etc… but those haven’t been added to my repertoire yet, so I’ll focus self-awareness today. 

One of my heroes in the self-awareness development scene is Shirzad Chamine, the author and creator of Positive Intelligence. When I discovered his work in the form of his best-selling book, it was a real lightbulb moment that still informs my own life and how I support clients to this day.  

The main premise of his work is that two sides of our brains work in conflicting ways for different reasons. On a very basic level, the left side keeps us safe from harm and is where our fight, flight and freeze response is generated, as well as ‘negative’ emotions and unhelpful internal self-talk. In contrast, the right side is where focus, creativity, purpose and positive emotions are generated. 

Based on extensive research, he demonstrates this by categorising the 10 most common ways our mind tries to ‘help us’ stay safe by passing on messages. You can read more about this in one of my previous articles. 

Once you become aware of this and which mind monsters, or Saboteurs, are getting in the way of your performance, relationships and wellbeing the next step is to take action to gain control over them and quieten their messages so they no longer control your thoughts, habits and behaviour.  

Chamine advocates developing a routine of several mini-mindful moments throughout the day to strengthen your mental muscle in order to gain control over your mind and pull it back to the present, thus quietening your unhelpful self-talk. Moving your brain activity from the left to the right helps you to access a calm, clear headspace rather than being driven by the fear generated by your limbic brain.  

He calls this calm, clear-headed part of your brain your Sage as it is the place where true wisdom can be found, but I like to think of it as the real you. The you who knows deep down what to do, how to act and how they want their life to be. It is the true you who existed before all that unhelpful, negative self-talk began to form as life presented you with different and sometimes difficult circumstances.  

Being able to access that right side of your brain, away from all the monster chatter, enables you to think calmly, feel clear-headed and plan the laser-focused action you want to take.  

Now, if that’s not a superpower, I don’t know what is!