Neuroscience for Educational Leaders Framework

In this module, we will consider what happens in brains of the followers of leaders resulting from different leadership styles. We will use this to consider the role of psychological safety in schools and how leaders create this culture of safety. We will then discuss how leadership is represented in the brains of leaders and what this means for the task(s) of leadership. 

This module will bring the latest understanding of the brain to consider how best to help motivate both self and others. This will include emotional recognition and regulation where we will consider how to avoid reacting rather than choosing how to respond emotionally. Tools and techniques for choosing emotional responses will be shared to help leaders to both manage their own emotional reactions but also to share with staff and pupils to create an emotionally stable culture across a school. We will then consider how to motivate self and others by starting with a consideration of individual differences in the focus of attention and the impact this has on both what goals we set for ourselves and others and how we motivate ourselves and others to achieve these goals.

This module will bring the latest understanding of the brain to consider how leaders create strong teams through empowering others. This will start with some consideration of the benefits of empowerment, before discussing the importance of empathy for others in creating empowerment. We will then consider how to give great feedback using two effective models. Finally, we will consider how leading through values can be of benefit when empowering a team.

This module will bring the latest understanding of the brain to the topic of how to best manage others. We will consider the development of the self and how to recognise what stage of individuals have reached and how to help them move to the next stage when necessary. In doing this, we will address how to manage team performance at an individual level, how to recognise and respond to different negotiating styles and how to balance individual rights and responsibilities – your own included – when leading.

This module will start by considering the impact of fast and slow thinking systems on our decision making before providing a model to show how to recognise which to use in different situations. We will then consider unconscious bis in education and how to mitigate this before ending with some models to help improve decision making at a group level (e.g. in senior leadership teams or for staff involvement).

This module will start by considering and differentiating a range of possible negative states. This will help leaders to recognise different types of behaviour and how to deal with each. We will then consider the evolution of the stress response and how it copes with the types of stress that are encountered in schools. This will help us to provide tools and techniques to better manage stress in schools. We will then consider over-thinking and how to prevent it, before finishing with a model of resilience that helps leaders to build greater resilience.

The final module will build on the content of module 6 (Improving Decision Making 1) and module 7 (Building resilience) to consider ways to best lead under pressure and in complex environments. This will include a consideration of some quirks in our decision making and how these are amplified when we are under pressure. We will consider how to improve decision making under pressure before considering how to improve leadership in complex (VUCA) situations.