This transcript has been lightly edited for readability. It may still contain transcription errors.
James: Hi there and welcome. My name is James and welcome to Graduate Theory. My guest today is a former high school principal she’s since become the CEO at the South Australian tertiary admissions center. Now, today she is involved with many academic institutions. She’s on executive boards across South Australia.
Her main thing is What’s the Stuff? What’s the Stuff, Wendy Teasdale Smith. Please welcome yourself to the show. It’s great to have you on
Wendy: Thankyou, great to be on. I’m really looking forward to it.
James: Excellent. One thing I do want to delve in you’ve had such a fantastic career you’ve gone, through really the whole chain from right at the bottom to right at the top.
So I want to ask you first, how did you end up in your current executive coaching, public speaking coaching role? How did that come about
Wendy: Okay. No worries. That’s actually something that I did later in my career. So in some senses, I consider myself almost post-career cause I’m semi retired. So the actual public speaking coaching is something I
chose to do after I, technically at least finished full-time work and it was really a hobby or an interest. So I’m in a position now where I’m not looking, I don’t need to own a really big salary and all those sort of things. And I don’t want to work quite as hard as I used to or to be under as much pressure as I was when I was executive roles.
So that’s really how I got to do that. Someone at the time was talking to me about consultancy in general and not to be education. People go into consultancy. And that really means they’re not doing much at all. Anyway, this person said to me, Wendy, I think you could be a public speaking coach. And I thought, oh yeah, I reckon I’d enjoy that.
So it’s one of the things I’m in what I call a portfolio career now. So I’m actually doing several different things. So I do public speaking coaching. I’m involved in women on boards and I lecture international students in an MBA course. So lots of different things now, rather than one big gig, like I used to have.
James: Sure. One thing I wanted to ask you about too, is public speaking is one of the ways that I’ve connected with you and something that you’re definitely. Very good at you’ve received multiple awards for, different public speaking things that you’ve done. Is that something that you’ve tried, that you’ve improved at really through your whole career?
Is that something that, really in, maybe recently that you’ve really paid close attention to that it’s
Wendy: Actually followed me throughout my career, to be honest with you. I remember being able to do things like two bites really well at high school. And that was just. Back confidence, I think.
And being able to ask your point. So I used to get A’s in those, but I didn’t think about it much until I started more when I started just out of my first permanent job and I’ve got put, send to Port Augusta as the teacher, my then principals and new and really up and coming person. And he was all over the media, which was unusual in those days, because it was way before social media, as we know it now.
But he spoke really well. I remember that he used to just, and he was really good at speaking to staff and engaging and getting the message across. And I remember from really early in my career thinking that’s something to get good at and really practicing and looking at how different people speak and then looking for different ways in which to improve that.
And what made someone come across as credible and what made another person. Not come across as not credible. So really started looking at that sort of thing very early. I was basically my first full-time job as a teacher. So quite early on,
James: Yeah. Official and talk to me about your early days. When you started teaching and things like that, is that something that you.
Really had a passion for when you were going through sort of high school university, things like that, or is that something that you just ended up in and your kind of your passion grew over time as you got more involved?
Wendy: For, I think of part of my story, part of my narrative is actually about the fact that I was born in Elizabeth for the people are not familiar with that.
So very working class past. South Australia, Jimmy bands grew up there and that’s from the, where the song working class man comes from. But for poor background, fair housing trust house, and not a lot of aspirations or not a lot of leaders around in the community that we knew. My dad was a refrigeration mechanic and my mum went to the cafeteria.
That was then Harris Scarfe seminar, where you call great paid jobs. So the idea of leadership wasn’t actually part of the game at all. What was a strong emphasis of my father’s was university. He’d always, obviously himself wanted to get a degree, was never in a financial position to do so he really pushed me and my sister.
To go on and do get a university degree and teaching was the thing, because in those days in Port Augusta in particular or working class prices as a woman. You had two options. Career-wise one was nursing and the other one was teaching and the, I didn’t like blood.
So it was teaching. So really that was how the decision was made. I had wondered after I’d gone in, become a qualified teacher and started teaching. And then as you get promoted in teaching, it’s one of those things where you get moved outside of the classroom. So the more you get promoted for what you’re good at.
The more you do less of it. And I look back for many years and wondered whether it really was for me, or is it just something that worked at K or was it something that I had a passion for? And I really wasn’t certain until I started lecturing at captain business school, which is with international students.
And then I realized just how much of a passionate was, and hadn’t actually went how great it felt to be back in the classroom again. But it could, but it wasn’t a tool then to, I really appreciate it. That yeah. Teaching was something that was meant for me. And then I was in the right job. I think it comes into that broader category of being an altruistic kind of person.
So I get a really strong sense of satisfaction from when my students. And so I drug them up to satisfaction and making a profit. I get lots of satisfaction about those sort of things. And so that’s the type of person that’s going to be good at teaching the same as people that in any type of service industry, it’s about giving and getting.
From other people. That’s the sort of thing that wakes me up in the morning and makes me feel enthusiastic. So it turns out to be the right career. But though a few times I’ve thought perhaps not,
James: No, I think that’s really cool. And certainly great story that you like, you almost locked into something that you really ended up being so passionate about.
Wendy: I don’t quite know how that happened or whatever, but throughout career, in some ways it was what we didn’t expect me to do more. remember my dad saying look, take typing at school at you 10, just in case you don’t become a teacher, then you can become a secretary. So the idea that I would do anything well, it wasn’t anything else to do.
It was far outside, that kind of view their worldview wasn’t there. There were a whole lot of opportunities out there did not occur to them. And so they didn’t share that with me at the time.
James: Yeah that’s it that’s really cool. Another thing too. So you’re starting work as a teacher and then you’re going along this thing where you’re like you’re getting promoted within the school.
You’re going up and up. Getting almost like what you were saying, the further you going up, you getting more like outside of the classroom. One thing that really interests me is, people that kind of can continue this progression and then there’s other people that kind of struggle at certain points.
Or maybe they just, some people just aren’t interested in going out, which is totally fine, there’s certain people like yourself that managed. Continue going up and up. And then, some people maybe they get stuck at a certain level or some, some, maybe they want to go up, but there’s kind of something in their way.
Have you seen examples of that in your situation? Was there anything that you did in particular to get past those.
Wendy: I mean for me, I had to have a career. I didn’t really realize that even when I was younger, I didn’t realize that.
And I wouldn’t have been happy unless I had, but it isn’t for everyone. And you don’t want or need a world where everyone wants to, climb a career ladder. You want some people who want to do their job really well. And that’s actually the really important thing. So when I was a principal, there were times where I approach it and we had some sort of leadership position, maybe an acting job or something like that.
And I’d talk to one or two of my really good teachers. and say look have you thought about going for this coordinator role. Have you thought about doing this and they’d sort of go and then they’d say look Wendy I really love teaching. And I said, great you stay in the classroom and you do that Cause that’s where I need people. Like you, people who really love teaching and want to stay there and want to make a difference. I think it’s really important that it’s not for everyone and that’s not a measure of your success or. Oh, what contribution you make to the world? it’s not just about whether or not are a career kind of person.
There are times I’ve wished in a way I was less driven than I am, there’s a couple of times when I though it’d be nice to have a bit of a break, but it isn’t. I actually, it’s interesting because yes, I think there are a real qualities that make you a leader and make you the sort of person that’s bound to.
Do well in life in terms of what we call traditional success. Things
like get a career and move forward and earn more money. And so on those types of things. Yeah. And I see some of those traits in other people younger people now, and I’ll comment and say, look, you’ll be fine. I know you’re frustrated at the moment, but you will be fine because you’ve got the drive.
You really do have to be somewhat driven. It took me a while to get used to those ideas. Yeah. I would want to share at the moment it’s something about being, being a feminist, being a woman is something that is different in terms of how you look at this. So words like driven and not good women words.
They’re words that we talked about. They’re words that I always say that you never hear the word ambitious and woman in the same sentence, and it’s meant as a compliment. So often you’ll see the stereotypes on television, about women who are successful and then nearly are always unhappy or not likes them.
So that itself is not a lot of really positive things. They, it is an object that view or the way that’s portrayed, but it’s still there. It’s still around, even though that the devil wears Prada is a great example, a hugely successful woman, and yet she’s betrayed in a really atrocious way.
A particular movie and that’s actually commonly the way it is. So I think that you don’t always get rewarded for those things, but the sort of qualities that do make people successful are certain driven types of qualities and they are the sort of things, like the people that will continually look at ways to make themselves better.
So those who will think of different things and who will put extra things in and do extra ahead of time. So I’ve had circumstances where people have wanted to be a leader. So same as school scenario. Cause it’s easiest for me to talk about somebody suddenly one day they will say to me, teacher oh I want to go for this coordinator’s job and they would have done nothing.
extra except teach. And like I said before, there’s nothing wrong with that, but they were not on a one extra committee. They didn’t help out on P when we had sports events and they didn’t do, they never a minute longer, they drive into the carpark Last minute so that they won’t be late for class start and they leave as soon as they can, then all of a sudden they’re going oh, I’ll want to be a leader and I think really. So the people who are successful are those who have already done a heap extra of those kinds of. things Way ahead of time. They’re not the ones that just sit around and wait for things to come so that when you go for a leadership position you’ve already done a whole lot of things that you can talk about when they say, how do you inspire people?
How do you motivate. You can talk about when, you were running this event or you’re running a fake, I’m going to use education examples, because in my mind, you run the fate for the school or you won some sort of sports day or something like that. And how you got these people on side.
If you haven’t done those How are you going to talk about how you do those? And the sort of people that show those qualities who become successful nearly always have that type of personality. But I did one of the I don’t you if you’re familiar with Myers Briggs, it’s one of those personality tests you can do to sort some cities, areas of rag.
Website’s not terribly valid, but I do any one of those kinds of tests.
And I remember really doing one of those points and said, look, it doesn’t matter what background you’ve got. You won’t be happy in this to your leaders. So just get on with it. And so that’s true for me. And it’s interesting because as we know each other from Toastmasters and this year I’ve picked up the president’s rocks and I’ve chosen to never do before and cause I’m loving it because it’s a lead role.
So I was actually attracted to that kind of thing. And the people who become leaders are the ones. That go out of the way. Like I had a client recently and, because she hasn’t been minute of time and she’s in one of the big, the big four companies in those types of professional services companies and she’s working her way up that actually get paid a lot in the early phases.
She was meeting me on a weekend to get coaching in public speaking. And, she obviously scraping together a bit of money in order to do that. That’s the sort of person that is going to achieve Not the one that waits for their their, their organization to pay for them or to recommend someone she wanted to, she wouldn’t sort that out herself got that happening.
Those people that show that sort of initiative are the ones that become successful and leaders and all those other things.
people say it’s luck sometimes, but it’s not really, it’s usually have work and being ready to take chances and put yourself out there and seek things. Like you’re doing this broadcast sing, you’re probably not making lots of money out of that is my guess.
So you’re choosing to do extra things and that’s a risk. That’s what people choose to do.
James: Yeah, that was a really amazing answer that it’s so many things to dive into. Yeah. I definitely agree with what you’re saying about when you’re going for a role at, so you almost want to get put on and then become the thing once you’ve been given the opportunity, rather than like being ready for the opportunity first and then going into it like afterwards.
So it’s no, this idea with, one example the way I think about it is like a soccer team or any sort of sports team. Like you get into the team once you good enough to be in the team. Get put into the team when you’re not ready. And then they
Wendy: Expect you to, there was, it might make you captain of a team like that and not necessarily the same ones that would get you into the team.
So the sort of things that get you onto the team up, technical, the technical skill associated with playing sport. But what will make it get you into the captain’s role will be leadership skills and it’s time for it. I think it’s a piece of advice that I would give that I think is important.
Particularly the higher you go. The things that you make you good at the first job at, or that will get you a job at a certain level. They are what will get you promoted? Cause if you think about it, the next level skills are different things. So you need opportunities to learn those and take chances and make mistakes in that so that you can talk about that.
James: It’s like that whole thing about, there’s the hard skills can you do an Excel spreadsheet to me program this thing, but then like to chain the whole other stuff, it’s like the soft skills. Can you get the team to finish this project on time and make it a good project?
That’s sort of soft skills, so important. And one thing I, one thing I wanted to ask you about as well, you were talking about like leadership and drive and things like that. Is that something that you’ve always had through your career or is that something that you’ve potentially leadership as well?
Is that something that you’ve grown your abilities and your interests in that area as your career has gone on? But look,
Wendy: I think I did have it, but I didn’t realize. Early on. So I was actually a contract teacher, first of all, and I wanted to get permanency. In order to get permanency, had to do again, a lot more than just be your average teacher.
So also my teachers teaching backgrounds, home economics. So it’s not the most powerful subject in the school. It’s not considered naturally like that. Most people go to a school in Australia or whatever, the home economics here at step out with tech standards is that the back of the school, the front of the school, this is all about power.
If you look at the classrooms that are closest to the front office area, that’s where maths is taught. So you know how far out you go in the school is the same with any office set up, by the way, physically close to you there. We’ll say something about you the further, the way is how powerful you aren’t.
So I’m X way out there and everyone forgets it doesn’t mean it’s terribly important. So I had to go immediately go out and about, and make myself known to the principal and be seen to be contributing, seem to be doing things. And in a way, if I look back on it, when we were going through they’re teaching us about how much teaching. They actually talked about a lot of these things. And when I look back now, I realized that was actually leadership teachings because they would talk to us and we’d have to write papers and things like that on. Okay. So you get called in the principal’s office and he’s going to, say that no student beyond Euro has to do home economics.
How are you going to change his mind, how you’re going to influence them to think something different. So that was part of what we were taught, but anyway, Circumstance when I first became a permanent teacher. So they’re always busy as it, as a casual teacher, our contract teacher proving my worth all the time and all those and being visible.
And I’ve thought it was just about there. I thought I was doing that because I had to do that to get a permanent job. When I became permanent, those sent to Port Augusta, that was part of the duty to become permanent. The then principal said to me, so he took me off probation and I remember the day he was sounding off to say extra couldn’t have teacher to become permanent because frankly, when should that.
Can never, almost never be sacked. So it’s a big deal to become a permanent teacher in the education department, in any of the departments in Australia. Anyway, he said to me, so when are you going, basically, when you’re going to go for promotion that missed the long short of it is what he was asking me because I was up and I said well, Motion and either do you mean, he said you’re ambitious.
Of course. Like of course, and, but I’ve never been so offended in my life. I was just oh, I haven’t even hit enough. I am not,
It’s not compliment, ambitious is not a compliment. It’s not a good woman word, and he just laughed hard enough to be just so young and naive, and he said actually you are. And when you get your head around that, come back and talk. A flare and stuff.
I still thought, but obviously going back to people that, that he said to me, Yeah, fucking pick something up. So it wasn’t a tooth. I came to terms with the around that and realized that I was a sort of person that once I’ve mastered something or I need to do more, I’ve got to do more.
I’ve got to get more involved. I’m interested. I’m motivated. I’m gung ho around that top of thing. So I w did have those qualities for really early on. Going for jobs from really early on. And I did think, and I’ve thought about things like tic going at some of the education department. So even when I did leave the education department, that was quite shocked, lots of people around the place, because most people don’t, they stay in the education department forever and I’ve thought I want to go and try something else.
And it was very brave and courageous, to go into a different kind of employment where you are. You’re not a permanent person anymore and you can get the sack and all those types of things. It was definitely always there for me but I didn’t really think for one, I was going up the ladder.
So my sort of career was a traditional ladder career. And by that, was teacher, then I was a coordinator. Then I was an assistant principal and then I was a deputy principal. And then I was a principal say, straight up. Top of idea. When I was in deputy principal, I did originally think now I think I want to be a printer.
The day, the principal’s role is very highly organizational go to the timetable, things like that. And I was very good at that sort of thing. And I thought, I don’t think I want to. And it wasn’t, it was quite of circumstance, but my then boss got another job at background at Thomas Dunn thinking, what am I giving that transit was step for trial.
So she went off for another job and I got an acting role and actually went once I was in there and got comfortable in the role, then I thought, yeah, this is unload for this job. And it was about the comfortable bit is about how high up you go. So when I met up, when I was going up to deputy role, I’m still teaching like about 85% of the time.
So I’m actually still in the classroom a lot. And I’m doing other things like I’m doing a time and I’ve got your lungs to organize, and I’ve got this leadership role in the organization, but the next step up to principles, like going into a CEO role, you do, you actually go out of the doing and you start the thinking.
You start this stuff about where’s the organization going to be in five years? How am I going to position my score so that it can beat their school up the road so it’s hard at first because. When you’re doing things like a tank, top timetable or whatever, those tasky jobs that are part of work, whether it’s, finishing financial report or whatever it’s done, and you’ve presented it and you’d go tick.
I’ve done that when you’d doing vision and driving a school to organization and trying to or an organization and bringing people on board. It’s not quite so obvious when you’ve achieved something. So that takes a bit of a challenge to think differently. So there are these jumps, so they’re not all even jumps.
It’s the point I’m trying to make in a career ladder. So if you think about the organizations you’ve, you’re reading, when you do the first step up in the role, it’s usually like a team lead. So you usually person that you do know the expertise of the people in that they do the job, you’ve done it. And your supervisor, people who, when they’re doing or not doing their job, because it’s a job you’ve done, then you go up a couple levels and then you get distracted.
You start supervising people who you’d not done that. And if they were way you couldn’t step in and do it, and that’s his biggest step up, and there was a step up to the stage where you really don’t understand people’s roles and it is tricky. So I’ve been in circumstances where for example, when I was at Sci-Tech, I would be supervising people that were serious software developers.
And we would, we were doing bespoke software development at the time. Like I’m a home-ec teacher by trade. I don’t even know here I am overseeing the software development project. That was huge. And it was spur spoke. We weren’t even implementing that one off the shelf. We would, we were making our own.
There’s depths of leaps there that are much more significant than just a little lit, first of all, the student steps out. So. But sometimes it is where you are until way different world dealers sat in the neighborhood.
James: One thing I want to ask about that is, how do you go from, like, how do you go about learning those things when you’re going into these roles where, like that’s a great example of where you’re going to the CEO role.
You’re running this software project. Where you yea you know don’t have the background at all. What are the steps you’re taking in those times
Wendy: So I think depending on the lip, cause we know your tone graduates itself as your major market. So they beat them much earlier in their career than people not mother could sell early on. You can actually usually see that we have to have a position description or anything like that.
Someone else’s job in those levels. So one of the important things to do is just have a look at that job in person specification or whatever you call it, their organization, position, description of that next level, and maybe the next level up and have a look at what it says in there in terms of the sort of jobs you have to do.
But also the sort of words that, that they will use to describe those. Cause I will move from very tasky to higher level. So they’ll do things like first of all they might talk about supervise, oversee, manage something. The higher you go up what they’ll do is that we start using terms like drives Take full accountability for assume responsibility. And that is the step. So they’re not just about skews, the higher you are. The more the buck stops with you and those types of things about taking accountability means that you have got responsibility for that. Even though I can say I got a software background.
If it falls over how much no, the bottom line is it’s my job. And I just had to take responsibility and accountability for that. One of the things I did though, that I think is important. To raise now is that I worked out because this sort of happened during the time I was at Sci-Tech this change. So it wasn’t very much an ITC or kind of role, but it became that during my time there, I was there for five years and I picked up that change was happening when, because you were moving this way.
We suddenly got this amount of money to manage this project. And I’ve never managed anything like that. And there was actually one of my staff members who had just finished his masters in project management, and he was one of the key team members. And I said to him, do you think I need to go and get a qualification in project management?
And I’d already at that stage in my masters. And he said, yeah, I think it’s time. You actually do so when you sit and he said, actually, when they want to talk to you about a mortgage, you’re not the only one that needs it now. So we ended up doing a small group of staff, a graduate diploma in project management, and I organized it through the workplace.
So it’s important to know when you’ve got to up-skill as well. I think that’s really important to pick up. So there’s a variety of ways to learn that. What’s the person do at the next level up. And can you do that or not is really quite important to do if you, in bigger organizations, they usually a lot better at having really well a developed person specifications and things like that.
And for example, when I used to run SATAC, my staff were actually hired by the university of Adelaide. And if someone wanted to get reclassified from a certain position, they said, but my job’s bigger than that. Now to another level, there was all of this background information you could look at and say at this level, this is what you’ve been doing at a level four.
These were your responsibilities at a level five. You will need to do these things, can you do those things? So it was really very clear. And I’d usually go through those with staff and say, see the different words here. These are about different levels of responsibility. The other thing that I wanted to highlight, and it even it’s once again, something about women and mentorship and the women that will listen to this, but not totally only the women.
And that is not to get women for our core women’s ghetto jobs. If you’re a career person by that I mean real leadership roles have two really critical things in there. They have staff you’re responsible for staff and you’re responsible for money. So any job that doesn’t have that in there is questionable, whether it’s a real leadership role So you can sit and used to have a variety of those. For example, when I was around in education system here in south Australia, I could have gone from my principal level job where I had a hundred staff a really big budget. And I was responsible for the curriculum and outcomes of students, but I was responsible for the facilities for it.
I was responsible to a board, all these high-level responsibility. And I could have gone off to another job within the education department where I got the same money, or maybe a little bit more, and I’d be doing my own typing and I’d have no staff and no money. They are what I would call a women’s get our jobs.
So we wouldn’t often get moved into those. No one sits around necessarily. And does it with some evil intent, but you can find yourself easily moved into those. And they’re not real leadership roles because the tough, the hard stuff is people and the next hard stuff is the money. And that’s really where real leadership rolls out.
And if you haven’t got those, I question whether it is a leadership role or not.
James: Sure. I think that’s a great advice. Yeah. Cause you at some level as well, I feel you have to be a little bit strategic about, what roles you were saying, what roles you go for and what roles you get into.
So you can prepare yourself to keep that community going down. I don’t
Wendy: Want it to be. Be a home economics coordinator. This is back obviously when I was a teacher and I kept saying, I wasn’t going to do that job. And I did end up doing it for a variety of reasons, but not for long, but that didn’t matter because actually I kept wanting to go into another coordinator’s job that didn’t have supervision of staff.
And it was a really tough time. I was having this. We have group of staff to work with and all sorts of issues in that school, but I learned a lot. And I’m glad I did it. Cause then I realized I had just had damn hard staff worship to lead which I was a bit naive about before that I thought I’d been asked to them and they’ll be nice to me.
think I was young and naive, then it doesn’t always work that way. So I learned that by doing and you’re right in terms of strategic things. And I think you need to think about. What you’re good at, because if you do what you’re good at, you won’t feel like work. And so that’s really important if you ended up in a job that you really hate and when you stop and think about it and you think, actually I hate this job it’s often because it’s so sing set.
You don’t like it. So for example, I’ve never not doing finance. I make myself do it, but I really don’t like it much. And for variety of reasons, I ended up in this job that turned to in a different kind of job. So I was actually doing finances about 80% of the time. And when my husband said you’d never would have chosen that job.
And I thought you’re right behind it because it’s something that really turned off. And that’s when it feels like a lot, lots of really hard work. I think
James: I agree with that. And even around that strategy and stuff was. Did you ever set goals and have mentors and things like that along the way.
And how do you think those sorts of things impact. Your direction and your ability to go places that you wanted to go.
Wendy: I’m definitely a goal setting kind of person. It’s just the nature of who I am. I’ve always set my goals and I’ve always worked, cause I’m really like that tonight.
I’m also, I tenacious. So I don’t necessarily get things happen really quickly, but I’m not the person that can work towards something and middle steps for a long period of time. So goal setting goals for me really worked quite well. So I’ve nearly always, but I always set goals every year and review those.
I often do a review around the financial change of view cause it’s an important thing to do. So I’ve always done that. And I have looked at. What do I need? What sort of things do I need to do? Or could I do that would give me those extra skills for the next job. Disinteresting now because I’m in a different position, even where I’m in terms of being an academic and actively saying, I don’t want to leadership role.
And it’d be easy for me to end up in those. I still try, I still choose to do different things that I would have one stage. To put on my CV, but now it is because I’m interested in the engage, a different part of my brain around that. I certainly had a variety of different mentors for an informal in my career, and I’ve learned an awful lot from it for a variety of people.
I’ve also, I’ve had a picked a company. Coach’s where I’ve actually gone and paid people to coach me around different types of things. So one of those, for example, when I was thinking of leaving decks, which was a big decision, the department of education, I’ve got a coach to help me with that transition.
And part of the job was to help me work on. What are actually wanting to trans transition to. So that was a really clear role, but really clear job. Now what she needed to help me do. If you go and pay for someone, I think that’s really important because you need to the best of that she was an operating coach versus a mentor role, but they’re quite similar, but then it’s really focused about what you want to achieve.
And not the circumstance when always working. I, part of the principals association here in Australia and it was a tough group of men and also men when I started. And it was all real ma. It didn’t necessarily want to woman at the time. And I’ve found them very hard to get along with and influence.
And I remember going to a male, another male principal colleague of mine who had been involved in the past. And I asked him to mentor me in order to have. How I was managing myself at that table because I said, whatever it is, sometimes it’s not working very well. And I just want to get him to help me with that.
And that worked quite well as well. So sometimes those trying to put yourself outside the comfort zone around that top thing, I think is really important as well. Certainly the form one, they’re more they’re informal in terms of having someone that’s amended. I’m always just also noticings.
If you know what I mean, it’s always been the person that I’ll be watching. When I was a deputy noticing a principal from another school or something like That’s not what we have some work variable when they do that, or actually that managed that really well. Look how they do that.
That’s really good. I’ve always been observant of people around that type of thing in life as well. So that’s definitely, you also learn, you learn what not to do. But by having mentors as well, but they also of course make mistakes and make, you can look at things, I’m not gonna do that cause they weren’t that you can work through that.
And I’ve also had this circumstance, which other people would have had to where you outgrow your mentor, but that aren’t really wanting to let go of you, and it’s partly they still. You be telling you what to do. So we’ve and even after I became a principal sat one of the principles that no one, since when I was early days, even then he was telling me what to do and stuff.
And I remember saying to him, you’re not my boss. And cause you should say, why haven’t you done it yet? Excuse me, Excuse me. I know, I see my boss, I try not to you. I thought it was good about Tamara reflecting what you said and her son, and I didn’t want him doing that. He was honest.
And so you came into those circumstances that. Good to get out of that kind of scenario or to call it like I did, which is, you’re not my boss anymore. That’s not how this game’s plight. Because sometimes you can certainly get to those circumstances as well.
James: Yeah, I think that’s very cool. And I think that’s great, like great point about outgrowing your mentors, if always be aware of who you’re getting advice from and how relevant is that to your situation.
Like you don’t want to be getting advice from. Like my mom’s not going to give you advice on technical things I’m doing at work in the same way. Like someone, the person, people, you take advice from have to be, people. Yeah, the advice, something right in that area, you just
Wendy: Said something that we’d like to follow up then too.
I think it’s important to mention, because I chose a career that I went from a specialist to a generalist, that sort of thing. But there is another career, which is really much more like a, a small field or a type field and knowing that really well and knowing that really deeply. And so that you often get that within the team.
Fields. So certainly that’s another career path that works for other people. Where they become the top state, top financial person in an organization and that’s but this year, and I still very much know their world in detailed knowledge and understanding that intuitive side, different career than someone like me who moved into a general, more of a generalist, taught a lot to have lots of things, under my responsibility.
Rather than a specialist
James: Yeah, I think that’s definitely interesting the way that, I’ve heard it described like the T shaped a person, so you can have the depth, which is the specialization. And then there’s also like the top of the T, which is the more general.
And I feel like definitely as you go into a role where, you’re the CEO or you’re a senior, you definitely have to be very general in terms of. You know that you have to be looking after all these different areas. It’s, I guess naturally it’s just not a specialist at all. Yeah, it makes it difficult if you’re like really into this one tiny area when you’re trying to, when you also want to take over the whole organization and lead the
Wendy: Way and you can lack.
It can be really tricky to move from a role, for example, like a chief information officer into a CEO role, because you’re moving from such or such an expertise area into what is reported role and not everyone might say transition very well.
James: No, definitely. One thing I wanted to ask you about the mentors and things we were just speaking about is when, like when is too early to get a mentor or when is the right time to start getting one?
Is there. I know you, you yourself are nice on some level of Korea coach mentor, how early would you say is too early or when is there a right
Wendy: Time? There’s never really a, to a cause really in, and I don’t know, but they’ll always, would’ve considered the mentors. That’s probably another, that depends on me to call them that, but.
A lot of things from people I started teaching with really early and some of them were senior people and have a managed, really difficult classes, which we certainly had important gusta. Those types of things were really I learned a lot from other people watching their teaching practice or hearing them talk about it and the things they did really well now that wouldn’t have been called Ben tours, but, essentially they were It’s also tied up with whether or not you formerly have a mentor, so different organizations sometimes have that process where you have a mentor or you seek someone out that you might want to learn from.
If you’re seeking a mentor, it’s usually because you are. Looking for a promotion of some sort at some stage. So you really are declaring that, I think by seeking out a mentor around that type of thing.
And there’s nothing wrong with that. It just, I think you need to be clear that is what you’re doing usually around that condom role. So don’t really know of this too early. I think that it’s yeah, I don’t think there’s too much. In terms of that kind of thing, that just think it’s, it is naturally happens.
James: Sure. That’s good.