Blog Post

School Leadership & The Paradox of Spiritual Intelligence.

John Kane, Kanevolve Consulting • April 16, 2019

06:30, October 2018, Annapurna mountain range, Pokhara, Nepal. I am sitting alone watching the sun rise at the top of the Earth. I am surrounded by jaw-dropping beauty and the kind of stillness only the mountains can offer. I am happily married, have a rewarding and successful career, a loving family and wonderful friends. At the age of 51, right here, right now, I should be the happiest and most relaxed I have ever been in my life. But I’m not. Shockingly, I feel quite the opposite.

I never truly believed in the Romantic notion of epiphanies on mountain tops; nor did I understand the need for people to “find themselves” in the sub-continent. But it happened. I left London a Director of a Multi-Academy Trust that I loved and respected; unexpectedly, I was returning home determined to change my career and life forever.

Five months later, I am a performance coach and consultant. But, it’s taken me until now to appreciate what happened and gradually recognise any insights I might be able to pass on to other leaders. No coincidence that this is my first blog as Kaneolve Consulting.

Months later, after launching my consultancy business, via periods of self-doubt and utter darkness, I found myself building a shed in my garden. Build something, anything. Just be useful! It was the day after Ben Wishaw received his Golden Globe for his role in 'A Very English Scandal,' and whilst struggling to make sense of roof panels, clout nails and trusses, I found myself reminiscing about the years I taught Ben Drama and Theatre Studies. The golden years of my teaching career! A time when I believed in who I was, made young people believe in themselves, and relished every single minute of every single day. The pillars of creativity, imagination, innovation and heresy drove our performing arts department to be “one of the best in the country” (as judged by a chief examiner at the time).

When did I stop being that person? Why did leadership lead me away from the very things that made young people excited about learning? How had I become that person on the mountain top? The one I no longer recognised.

So, I went “back to school” and began to unpack the last 20 years of my career. For the first time in my professional life, I had time to read (really read!): to pause, reflect, and act. The mere act in itself made me ponder about how much time we furnish our leaders with the liberating act of reflection! (Maybe another blog)! Crehan, Robinson, Whitmore, Coleman, Leighton, and Godin (to name but a few) became my coaches. I was reminded of past lessons and discovered new ideas. For the purpose of this blog, I want to focus on one simple narrative: the importance of spiritual intelligence and the subsequent paradox of educational leadership .

Spiritual Intelligence.


I don’t mean spiritual in a religious sense. I mean Mitroff and Denton’s spirituality, ‘the basic desire to find ultimate meaning and purpose in one’s life and to live an integrated life.’ Often called SQ, it’s about transcending self and being worthy, to believe that you can provide solutions to small and big problems. There are great leaders in our schools who believe in their meaning and purpose; we hear the words vision, mission and values being bandied around all the time (I know I certainly did). But, in most cases, at best, these are words in a strategic model, at worst, they launch a training day once or twice a year and then people carry on as they always have.

Thanks to my work with the amazing Undiscovered Country (and Roy Leighton), I was introduced to Dan Pink’s RSA Animation, “ Drive.” It’s a must watch and considers the drives that motivate us. The ‘transcendent purpose motive’ (spiritual leadership) is becoming the key driver, particularly for those more complex actions that require cognitive skill. The ‘profit motive’ remains important, but only if securely and deeply connected to purpose.

In a school system that has been driven almost entirely by examination outcomes, or ‘profit motive’, and by the right-wing political dogmas such as market forces, we have become disconnected from the very thing that made us become teachers in the first place. I have always accepted the importance of weighing the pig; John Whitmore agrees, ‘If you don’t measure something, how can you change it?’ However, Whitmore also argues that SQ is the driver for Maslow’s level of ‘self-actualisation and the mindset of interdependence.’ But measuring something in itself won’t improve it. So, the more “inspectorial” we become, the more preoccupied with a judgement culture we are, the less freedom we give leaders and teachers to truly collaborate and create.



Change from What to What?



As I climbed the leadership ladder, my responsibilities widened, but the cultural landscape upon which I worked narrowed. Yes, it’s changing and, as we start to distance ourselves from results-driven evaluations of school effectiveness, there is a great deal of reason to hope.

But, there is much to do if we are to build a system-wide coaching culture that moves us away from fear and accountability and towards the conditions necessary for high performance.

As a leader, I recognised the old paradigm of hierarchy, external motivations, and pressure all too well. As Whitmore suggests, we need to rediscover the spiritual driver that ironically we all start out with; we need to co-create a new paradigm similar to those that exist in high performing school systems in other parts of the world. A paradigm that I believe MATs are well-positioned to deliver.

At the recent Educating Northamptonshire conference, Sir David Carter talked about the future of the MAT movement. He pointed out that only a third of “Outstanding” schools inspected since September 2018 have ‘kept their outstanding badge.’ What does this suggest about the nature of school effectiveness? What does it suggest about the importance of leadership culture? A key focus in his piece was how MATs can create the conditions for sustainable high performance. Essentially, we must return to culture; to the beliefs and values within an organisation. But how do you do that? Carter reiterated that we must focus on the relationships within a school or MAT. All the relationships.

This brings us back to spiritual leadership approaches; develop the human capital to create collective responsibility that will lead to sustainable performance and growth.

So, why paradox?


Well, in all my years in education, I only met one teacher who got out of bed in the morning not wanting to make a difference. Teachers are, by their very nature, “spiritually intelligent”. The very act of teaching requires self-actualisation; great teachers go beyond self in order to do something truly worthy, in spite of external (and internal?) interferences. In schools across the world, teachers already have those skills and qualities that the most successful CEOs in business are searching for. Yet, it seems to me that, as we grapple with volatility in policy and global upheaval, the profession is less agile than it needs to be. The most powerful way to achieve spiritual leadership, one that has purpose and meaning as the driver of change, is through coaching. The best organisations understand that ‘Coaching is the leadership style of a transformed culture’ (Whitmore, 2017).

Increasingly, in a world that faces its greatest challenges, the Gen-Y workforce places purpose and meaning, spiritual intelligence, front and centre in terms of what drives them. And businesses are responding to that. Large global companies are paying attention to the SQ factor, adapting their cultures, and reaping the benefits. There is a strong sense, it seems, that future Governments will not hold the answers to technological innovation, demographic changes, populist movements, and environmental challenges. The solutions will lie with business and education, with the next generation who will need to be resilient and innovative, who will need to “buy in” to a purpose and meaning that is greater than the individual. If that is to happen, then leadership (as a verb not a noun) must embrace change that is both necessary and inevitable.

Part one:   Creating “Human Moments”

By john-kane • May 5, 2023
In a recent paper the MIT referred to this period as ‘the greatest migration in employment history; from the workplace to the home.’ That’s a bold statement, but it’s probably true! Time will tell us how fixed this migration will be. One thing is for sure, the world we inherit from the crisis will have shifted on its axis and we will need to do some shifting too. We are executive coaches who are working with a range of clients from different sectors. This is Part One of a series of four blogs that provide a coach’s perspective on the current and future challenges and opportunities that we all face. Each blog will focus on one aspect of leadership during these extraordinary times. They build on what we are sensing from our clients and finish with a series of powerful questions that we know our clients have benefited from. Whilst coaching executives and leaders, what we are sensing is two distinct phases during this crisis; learning to function and learning to evolve. In a recent TED Connect, Jonathan Sacks described two types of leader; one that gets us through, and one that rebuilds. There has been a time when we had to bury ourselves in the present, crisis manage, get things done, focus in on urgent tasks, and survive. Future oriented leaders are now taking the long view; positioning their discussions around what might be and what could be. Individuals, teams, and organisations will be at different positions along that functioning/evolving curve; that will depend on a complex interplay of internal and external drivers. But the drive that we are interested in here is the “People Drive”. The abundant research over decades is clear about the value of human capital. If you are a leader that places human capital at the top of your priorities, and powerful voices suggest the most successful leaders do, then of course it is feeling pretty challenging right now. In 2007, the Harvard Business Review published an article about the “human moment” – the moment when we empathise, reach out and connect with our colleagues, give voice to others, and listen. As coaches that’s one of the things we do; we create positive human moments that give others a safe space to think out loud. It’s worth stressing at this stage that we are referring to those positive human moments. Leaders often talk about that “drain” in the meeting; that person who sucks the energy out of the room and starts every question or statement with “But”. The power of the “Drains” versus the “Radiators” will depend on the organisation’s culture. That culture, how we feel and what we value, will be driven by the way we behave towards each other. People are talking about feeling disconnected. It’s difficult to take the temperature, to keep their finger on the pulse of the moment. And what about those spontaneous interactions in corridors, over the coffee machine, in doorways (or behind them), and in car parks? We might see those interactions as a kind of human polyfilla; the glue that connects our emotional intelligence and so makes those positive human moments possible. In all organisations, the myriad of spontaneous human moments happens every day. They happen in those temporal and physical spaces that are just there. But organisations who see these human moments as being critical to creating the right culture, are cleverly re-creating those spaces. In the remote and virtual workplace, those spaces have altered. At worst, those human moments have gone; at best, they are forced into virtual boxes on a screen. So, what do we replace them with? What can we do to build human connection? The danger is that the new and digital paradigms may direct us towards ourselves rather than towards others. When we perceive danger or threat, we can often focus on the urgent rather than the important, and in so doing we ruin the risk of turning off those human moments. Added to how we respond to threats and challenges, for many people there’s something intrinsically “inward” about the digital space. We are essentially being asked to redesign the way we live and work. The good news is that re-design can be small. We can create those human moments without risk, with minimum effort, and know that they can have resonating impact long in to the future. Last year I was asked to project manage and lead a team of people. I started every meeting in the way that I always do; “checking-in” with each other. In our first meeting, I started by asking each person to briefly share how they were feeling and what professional or personal successes they wanted to share with the group. I explained that this could be anything at all. Rule one, talk about something you are pleased with or excited about. Rule two, everyone listens and gives the speaker their undivided positive attention. This was met with silence and a perceptible awkwardness, so I decided to go first. Months later those meetings had a new dynamic; all-bar-none not only shared their positive stories with the team, they spent time preparing their input, eager to share their positive news. The impact it had on the relational health of the team was profound leading to high levels of authenticity, honesty, and trust. The outcomes of the project were set up as best practice across the organisation and its partners. Good leaders know their people. If you ask them to list those staff who may be most vulnerable right now, then they will be able to tell you. Once you know your staff, and have those honest conversations, it’s a simple matter of knowing how to reach out. Working with her team, one executive decided to discuss their reports against a “Dependent / Interdependent scale”. Once done, a differentiated and personal approach to managing individuals could be agreed and put in place. This has one objective: To make everyone feel valued, cared for, and listened to. There are those who are frightened of the present challenges and the uncertain future and feel unable to express those fears and anxieties; “We don’t do that here. That wouldn’t be good for me.” What does that tell us about the culture and relational health of their workplace? What does it suggest about the levels of trust? If those positive human moments were ever commonplace in these organisations, it might be that they have now been lost in the virtual spaces that are crammed with task-driven urgency.
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