The media loves a hero – a leader who is charismatic, visionary, and highly visible. But we have all seen the impact of a group of people coming together around an issue they believe in. So maybe there’s a role for both Big ‘L’ leader and little ‘l’ leadership. In this Leaders Connect we will explore how collective leadership is essential for all organizations and communities to thrive and how this requires Big L leaders to quietly and intentionally grow leadership throughout our organisations rather than just at the top. 

Bios

Stephen McConnachie

Stephen is passionate about supporting leaders to effect meaningful change in their own context, with their own people. As Director of e-Learning at a large Year 1-13 school, Stephen was responsible for introducing and driving e-learning adoption. He further extended this passion for supporting transformational change in 2019 with a Kāhui Ako Across Schools Lead role, where he supported other schools’ implementation of the new Digital Technologies/Hangarau Matihiko (DTHM). Stephen is particularly passionate about supporting leaders to lead their own change processes. He works with leaders to build their leadership capacity and to bring their people with them as they engage with complex change. Stephen regularly presents keynotes and professional development workshops at schools and conferences around New Zealand. His work has also taken him to Bangladesh to assist with the Bangladesh Education Services and Training (BEST) e-learning project.

Dr Chris Jansen 

Chris is a director and senior consultant with Leadership Lab and his background includes being a secondary Health and PE HOD in Mangere College, Auckland, Deputy Principal at Linwood College, Christchurch, and lecturer of strategic leadership at the University of Canterbury. Chris’s current work with Leadership Lab involves “developing collective approaches to complex issues” which happens through a wide range of projects in the education, health and social services sectors.  https://leadershiplab.co.nz/projects/. Chris loves working alongside leaders as they grow to trust each other and then collaborate in ways that make a real difference to the communities that they are involved with.  https://leadershiplab.co.nz/team/chris-jansen/. Chris and his colleague Dr Cheryl Doig have recently published the 4th in a series in the Latitude magazine The COVID experience… will it change schooling forever?

About the Leaders’ Connect online series

Leaders’ Connect is an interactive, relational, online space for education leaders. These one-hour online hui occur fortnightly and the aim is to:  

• Provide a safe place of connection for education leaders within NZ
• Support leaders’ wellbeing 
• Gain fresh leadership knowledge and capacity 
• Create professional connection via an online platform
• Provide a space for learning and sharing innovative practices and ideas 

In the spirit of Leaders’ Connect, as well as a Q&A time, there will be time for engaging in small group discussions for support and idea-sharing.