download

Accountability
managing, indeed caring for, other people in the team. Taskoriented
management focuses on achieving objectives, without
regard to employee well-being; people-oriented behaviours
prioritise workers over task.
Leadership style may, in fact, be as significant as competence.
Some individuals are more directive than others, and individual
style will shift the balance between task and people management
within any group.
The appraisal is more complicated in so far as tasks and
targets are often short-term and easy to measure, whilst the
so-called ‘soft skills’ are hard to evaluate. As an appraiser I
need to accommodate this imbalance, and then address the
corresponding gaps or shortcomings in my own assessment
skills.
So, I ask myself:
• Can you articulate what you are trying to achieve through
your CEO?
• Are you able to identify skills or experience gaps in your
appraisee?
• What data can inform you about these gaps?
• Have you put in place development and investment actions,
consistent with your school values and aims, which target
what you are trying to achieve?
• Are their contradictions or confused messages in your school
structure or culture that inhibit good performance?
I have no ready answers, but these are my professional challenges
on which I must focus. I worry too about the availability,
accuracy and reliability of the evidence for verifying senior
performance. Writing in the Training Journal, Jean Gomes
describes the role that self-deception and prejudice play in the
judgment of rational and intelligent people. When it comes to
assessing CEO behaviours, I recognise that I need to be more
alert to flaws in my own judgment capability that act against the
best interests of the school. Gomes writes:
“Self-deception can be described as true information being
preferentially excluded from our consciousness and replaced
by false information. The impact on a leader’s performance is
considerable, covering a wide scope of issues:
• How we assess risk
• The acceptance of advice
• The ability to process facts objectively
• Giving or withholding support to others
• How we recruit or overlook talent
• How we promote people or hold them back.”
Using the example of what we tell the doctor when asked
about our alcohol intake, Gomes identifies difference between
Summer 2014 | 47