HEAD OF DEPARTMENT LEADERSHIP
DEVELOPMENT COURSE

Today’s session
-
What is feedback? What isn’t?
Giving positive and negative feedback
Creating a climate for feedback
The skills of giving feedback: Listening and
Speaking
- Scenarios

Leadership Capability Framework
L2.4 Uses evidence- informed decision
making
L2.8 Communicates with influence
L2.14 Inspires and motivates others to high
performance

…but before we start
• You now have 10 minutes in your table groups
to discuss any issues that have cropped up in
your role that you might want to discuss, using
the expertise and experience in the room.

Session One
• What is feedback?
• What isn’t it?
Share ideas in your group and then write your
ideas in the handouts for this session

Session One
• Brainstorming conversations you need to have
using proximal circle

Conversations I need to have...

Session Two
• Conversation: From the Latin 'con', means
'with' or 'towards'; 'vertere' meaning 'to turn'.
Conversation...to turn with and towards.
• What if every difficult conversation was an
opportunity to turn with someone towards
something?

Planning
• Organise your thinking so you're clear about
what you want to communicate.
• With this person, what do you want to turn
towards in the conversation?
• Look for several things you respect about the
person. Go in positive.
• Have clear in your mind any requests about
what you want to change or be done
differently.

The environment
• Consider where you are having the
conversation:
• Are you likely to be disturbed?
• Is is quiet enough for a conversation?
• Can you be overheard?
• Is the setting appropriate?

Timing
• Generally the closer to the incident that
requires a following conversation, the more
emotion over reason will prevail: anger,
frustration, fear, stress
• It is natural to feel these things, but do you
want them to play a part in your
conversation?
• Choosing the ‘right’ time is just as important
as the place.

When inviting them to have the
conversation listen with your eyes!
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Physical space
Head position
Eye position
Mirroring
Arm position
Nervous gestures
Foot movement

Nine common errors
- Harvard Business Review
• Can you guess any of these?
• 3 minutes to write down any you can think of

Nine common errors
- Harvard Business Review
• Now you have 5 minutes to move around the
room and see if anyone shares your ideas.
• Find a partner and share one idea each. If the
other has it- tick it off.
• Try to tick off all of your ideas as you circulate
around the room.

Nine common errors
- Harvard Business Review
• 1. Falling into a combat mentality.
Never make it a ‘win/ lose’
scenario.
• 2. We try to oversimplify the
problem. There might be a lot of
issues involved- take your time...
• 3. We don't bring enough respect
to the conversation. Respond in a
way that you will be proud of.
• 4. We lash out – or shut down.
• 5. We react to provocationsaddress the behaviour, but don’t
rise to it!
• 6. We get "hooked." Know your
vulnerabilities and stay in control
if poked there!
• 7. We rehearse. Go in with
strategies, not learned phrases.
• 8. We make assumptions about
our counterpart's intentions. You
can only truly know your position.
Be open to understanding theirs.
• 9. We lose sight of the goal. Keep
your preferred outcome, how you
would like your relationship to be
and what obstacles you might
face in mind.

Top tips for a productive environment
•
•
•
•
Always have the conversation face to face
Don’t have the conversation in front of others
Present facts rather than opinion
Create opportunities to enable them to
engage and put across their point of view

BREAK
• 9:50- 10:00

Session Three
The Conversation:
• Listening
• Speaking and Language prompts

The Conversation: Listening
“We have two ears and one mouth so that we
can listen twice as much as we speak.” Epictetus

The Conversation: Listening
Think about a time when you felt that you were
not listened to…
How do you
know they were
not listening?

1. Why are they good listeners?
2. What skills did they show?

Some other tips for listening:
• Go to your handout pages 4-5 and highlight/
underline particular tips that you need to
focus on because they don’t come easily.

Let’s try it
• Pair up: Talker and Listener
What you want from a holiday…
Listener: Practice active listening.
• After 1 minute the listener
should summarise ¾ main
issues or criteria that they
have heard the talker express.
• 1 min to review how well they
demonstrated active listening
behaviours.
• Swap and repeat.

Speaking: Remember your P’s
Here are 7 P’s to feedback & difficult conversations
• What is the purpose of your conversation?
• Have you prepared your evidence for your
conversation?
• What do you plan to say?
• Try to start and end on a positive note
• Think about how are you perceived by the person you
are having a conversation with?
• Practice, practice, practice
• Remember, you have the power in this conversation.

The conversation: top tips
• Use ‘I’ statements, rather than ‘you’
statements
• Discuss action/ behaviours (related to this
instance) rather than the person and don’t
take verbal attacks personally
• Avoid ‘But’ if you can. Negative language can
change the tone of a conversation
• Regularly clarify & summarise the key points,
the action points and agree the next step.

For feedback…use the hamburger

For difficult conversations… focus on
asking rather than telling
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
What could you do?
What will you do?
What impact is that having on you?
Who will you contact?
How will you do that?
How do you feel about that?
Where do you want to take it from here?
What’s stopping you from doing that?

Difficult conversation: example
I really value you in the department as someone who makes a
positive difference and someone who has a lot to give. That’s
why I want to talk to you about an issue that has come up
because it has the potential to to affect our relationship and I
don’t want that to happen. I would really like to know what you
think about this...
In this example consider:
What would work for you?
What wouldn’t?
What contexts?
* Remember to tailor your conversation to your situation

Sharing your ideas: Opening phrases
• Discuss in your groups some opening phrases
you could use in a difficult conversation.
• Upload them onto Padlet to share.
• link http://padlet.com/wall/8c5d1lq3bw

Session Four: Scenarios
• Tripod model: two having the conversation
and an observer
• Each person will pick a conversation they
would like to practice (as the initiator)that is in
their ‘stretch’ area.
• 7 minutes each + 3 minutes feedback

Feedback
• What did you notice about how you were
responding?

Break
11:25 - 11:35

Round two… Scenarios
• Complete the same activity with your scenario
• (7 minutes conversation- 3 minutes feedback)

Overall Debrief
•
How do you know when it has gone well? How do you
know when it hasn’t?
•
Then what do you
do?

Next session
• Global trends shaping education and an
Introduction to Design Thinking
• Presenters: Simon Breakspear and Yong Zhao
• December 2nd whole day

• Reflections and evaluations