Chad Dumas, the author of, The Teacher Leader Handbook: Simple Habits to Transform Collaboration in a PLC at Work, explores the mindsets, skills and strategies that generate team collaboration. Chad describes the important mindsets of “Seeing in others what they don’t yet see in themselves,” Being humble with a posture of learning, and “Spreading the contagion of joy.” How should school leaders support teacher PLC leaders?

Find “The Teacher Leader Handbook: Simple Habits to Transform Collaboration in a PLC at Work” here.

Find the free downloadable reproducibles here.

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Podcast Transcript:

[00:00:00.290] – Steve [Intro]

Welcome to the Steve Barkley Ponders Out Loud podcast. As instructional coaches and school leaders, you are tasked with guiding continuous teacher growth to create student success. This podcast looks to support you with strategies from experienced guests, as well as my own insights that I’ve gathered over the years. I’m thrilled to have you with us. Thanks for tuning in.

[00:00:26.310] – Steve

Teacher Leaders in PLCs. I’m thrilled to have Dr. Chad Dumas back on our podcast. Previously, Chad explored his earlier book, “Let’s Put the C in PLC.” Today, we’re exploring his recently released book, “The Teacher-Team Leader Handbook: Simple Habits to Transform Collaboration in a PLC at Work.” In this book, Chad offers strategies for teacher leaders to strengthen their teams and truly transform collaboration into collective impact. Chad details 40 go-to moves, techniques, and strategies that transform team collaboration. Chad, welcome back to the podcast.

[00:01:18.220] – Dr. Chad Dumas

Thank you, sir. It truly is an incredible honor to be able to join you again. Thank you for having me.

[00:01:23.410] – Steve

Appreciate having you here. So for folks who didn’t hear our first podcast, tell them what the “C” is that’s needed in PLC’s.

[00:01:33.200] – Dr. Chad Dumas

Yeah, so the term, as you know and your listeners understand, is professional learning community. So really, that was my intent, is let’s make sure we’ve got community in our professional learning community, that it’s not just paperwork and forms and doing whatever somebody else tells you to do. That’s not what this is about. This is about creating purposeful community where the whole is greater than any of us. Although when I asked for reader reviews on it, I received reviews where folks said it also could stand for collaboration, critical thinking, communication. There was all kinds of other C’s that people came up with. But my intention was that it’s about community, building community.

[00:02:20.730] – Steve

So big for me with PLCs is a shared goal, a common goal. Does that fit for you when you’re thinking about what makes a community a community?

[00:02:33.970] – Dr. Chad Dumas

Yeah, absolutely. In the PLC at work world, we talk about interdependence. In order for there to be interdependence, true interdependence, I can’t do my job without you, and you can’t do your job without me. In order to make that happen, we have to have a goal that we’re both working on. It’s not a goal like finishing a marathon where nobody needs anybody else, but that there’s that interdependence pursuing that common goal.

[00:03:07.190] – Steve

For me, the success of the students in any teacher’s class who’s in the PLC belongs to all the members of the PLC, which is what makes us the community.

[00:03:23.850] – Dr. Chad Dumas

Exactly. As a team, it’s not my kids, it’s not your kids. It even goes beyond the team, right? To the whole school. Or if you’re a district, working to be a PLC, it’s the district. It’s all of us working together. It’s not, those are the EL kids, or those are the special Ed kids, or those are the second graders I teach, third grade – all our kids are all our kids.

[00:03:50.630] – Steve

Want to talk a little bit about the connection between your first book and the new handbook?

[00:03:57.270] – Dr. Chad Dumas

Yeah. So the first book, “Let’s Put The C in PLC,” was geared directly towards designated leaders in the school, principals, assistant principals, maybe some coaches, some deans, that type of level. But really, it’s really geared towards what does a principal need to know and be able to do to create this collaborative environment. That was that first book. And then I had a second book, “An Action Guide,” to help with translating that knowledge into action. This third book now, while it has content that is useful for anybody who works with any adult, so if you’re married, or if you have adult children, or if you have parents you engage with, or any committee you might be on, you’ll find nuggets in here that will be helpful. However, the lens is really geared towards that teacher-team leader. And those teacher-team leaders have many different titles, if you will. Sometimes they’re coaches, instructional specialists, department head, grade-level head, team leader, facilitator, liaison. They have many different titles associated with them. But really, this is geared towards those teachers, people who are in that teacher role, who are designated to lead the work of a team.

[00:05:18.950] – Steve

How do you describe that role? Because leading a team is different than leading a group.

[00:05:29.070] – Dr. Chad Dumas

Yes.

[00:05:30.220] – Steve

What are some of the ways that you define the role?

[00:05:33.910] – Dr. Chad Dumas

I start off by saying what the role of the teacher team leader is not.

[00:05:39.380] – Steve

Good place to start.

[00:05:42.060] – Dr. Chad Dumas

It’s not a mini administrator. It’s not a spy. It’s not someone who just follows orders from a superior. Those are all things that a teacher team leader is not. What the teacher team leader is then, I define it, the role of that teacher team leader is really singularly focused. It’s to ensure the effective functioning of the team in getting all students to grade-level essential standards identified by the team. So it’s fairly simple in being able to say it, but not easy in execution. I think that’s helpful. Let’s frame what this role is, because too many times we say, hey, you’re a good teacher. You should be the team leader. Now go do it and be effective. And we’d never clarify what is that role. Well, the role is, there you go, to ensure the effectiveness of the team in guaranteeing that all kids get to grade-level essential standards. Easier said than done. But if we’re clear about that, now we can move forward with the remaining actions and the mindsets and assumptions that go with it.

[00:06:55.730] – Steve

So let’s talk about mindsets first. What mindsets do I have to step into that teacher-leader role?

[00:07:02.320] – Dr. Chad Dumas

Yeah. So I identify three mindsets, and I think it’s important. That term mindset gets thrown around a lot. Carol Dweck popularized that in the lexicon, what, 18 years ago or so. And since then, people just use that term without necessarily understanding what it is. And so I define it based on some others, or I think it’s Mindset Works, is the organization, where they say a mindset is attitudes leading to action. So because of that, the three mindsets I propose all start with verbs. I wasn’t an English teacher. I don’t know if they’re infinitives or what, what kind they are, but here’s what they are. So there’s three mindsets, and that is to see in others what they don’t yet possibly see in themselves. That’s the first mindset, right? And again, it’s an attitude leading to action, to see in others what they don’t necessarily yet see in themselves. The second mindset is to be humble with a posture of learning. And then the third one is to spread the contagion of joy. Those are the three mindsets. The book unpacks those, but there is so many layers to each of those, to see in others what they don’t necessarily see in themselves, to be humble with a posture of learning, and to spread the contagion of joy.

[00:08:22.680] – Steve

Chad, I love it. I love it. I’m thinking about the mindset that administrators need who are engaged in the selection of those teacher leaders. Those certainly are terms I haven’t seen in any job description.

[00:08:41.630] – Dr. Chad Dumas

Oh, no. It’s something I have the extreme privilege, as you do, of working with amazing educators pretty much every day of the week. You get to see those who are more effective and the mindsets that they bring to a because these do lead to action. It’s not just an ephemeral thing. It’s an attitude that actually gets to… You can see this in action. You can see when people are seeing in others what they don’t see in themselves. You can see when people are humble with that posture of learning. You can see when they walk into a meeting and joy spreads. I remember Dennis Sparks, a number of years ago, was in a session with him, and he said, emotions are contagious. How true is that? Knowledge is not contagious. I can walk into a room, you can walk into a room, people don’t just pick up my knowledge. I don’t pick up their knowledge, but they pick up our emotions. And so being intentional with joy, because when we’re happy, when we’re joyful, we’re more effective. The hormones in our bloodstream are flowing. The brain is able to fire more optimally. We’re connected with each other.

[00:09:55.600] – Dr. Chad Dumas

And I want to be clear, I’m not advocating for meetings to be Comedy Central. This is not what we’re talking about. We’re talking about a pure, true, authentic joy that comes from being with each other and doing good work.

[00:10:10.790] – Steve

Well, I have to tell you what hit me as you walk through that, if as a teacher leader, I realize that I can’t achieve what I want to achieve with kids, working in isolation, no matter how great of a teacher I am. Just looking at my personal desired outcome of student success, requires that the students are served by this amazing team. I have to have a belief in my colleagues and that belief that my colleagues and I can do something that I alone can’t do in order to make that investment.

[00:11:03.750] – Dr. Chad Dumas

Yeah, exactly. That’s where it starts. The title of this book is, “Habits.”  I like that term habits because it goes beyond, while there are moves, techniques, and strategies, 40 of them, it’s beyond the actions. It starts with who we are as people. For a team leader to be effective, whether it’s a teacher team leader or a principal, anyone, this book is focused on the teacher team leader. It starts with those mindsets and who you are as a person. Otherwise, the actions don’t have life to them, or worst case scenario, become manipulative.

[00:11:44.260] – Steve

Yeah.

[00:11:45.170] – Dr. Chad Dumas

That doesn’t help anybody.

[00:11:46.820] – Steve

Absolutely. You’ve really got me digging in here because I’m actually working with a client currently that’s looking at rolling out PLCs next fall for the first time in their system. I have the great joy of actually working with them before they’ve implemented it.

[00:12:10.190] – Dr. Chad Dumas

Oh, that’s awesome.

[00:12:11.470] – Steve

Usually, you and I find the role of going in trying to patch together over the mistakes that were made over a bunch of years, particularly by people who aren’t even here anymore. This is a fresh group, and you’re really giving me some insights of things things to encourage them to look at that I don’t know that I would have thought of. So your three mindsets have really settled in for me.

[00:12:42.000] – Dr. Chad Dumas

That’s awesome. It’s an honor to be able to provide some insights for you.

[00:12:46.320] – Steve

Well, when you and I spoke earlier, we talked about the importance of psychological safety and building capacity. And now I really see those items fitting into those mindsets. So you want to  expand a little bit on psychological safety and building capacity?

[00:13:04.760] – Dr. Chad Dumas

Yeah, absolutely. I define the role of what the teacher-team leader is, and then I identify three responsibilities. Again, very rarely do you see the responsibilities of the teacher-team leader laid out in job descriptions or even informally. I just make it very explicit. The three responsibilities are, first of all, to make it psychologically safe. Second of all is to build capacity. And then third of all is to do the work. And what I find in my work is that many times people are focused on doing the work, that third responsibility. And I believe, and I think the research bears out, that that’s actually the least important of the three responsibilities. And this book does not touch on that. There’s plenty of amazing resources out there for teams and teacher team leaders to help them do the work of what it takes to be an effective professional learning community and a team in that professional argument. So what this book hones in on is the first two responsibilities: psychological safety and building capacity. So the first one of psychological safety, the research I pulled from was a lot from Charles Duhigg, who did a study that was published in the New York Times, I think, 2016, where it was called the Aristotle Project.

[00:14:25.520] – Dr. Chad Dumas

And Google, the corporation, wanted to find to find out what makes an effective team. At that time, they had, I think it was 160 or maybe 180 teams, and they wanted to find out what is it about one team that is effective and another isn’t. And of course, they went into it with some hypotheses about what might make for an effective team. Some of those hypotheses were things like experience, people who had more experience or less experience. Another hypothesis was people who have higher levels of expertise in what they’re doing. Another one was people liked each other. People got good snacks. You can imagine all of the hypotheses that were at play. And what they found is that really none of those things mattered. What made for an effective team was to two things, both related to psychological safety. One is the degree to which members exhibited social sensitivity with each other, that they read each other’s body language and their cues from their intonation and their facial expressions in their eye contact or lack thereof. So social sensitivity. And then the second thing that they found is teams that were effective had equity in turn-taking.

[00:15:42.000] – Dr. Chad Dumas

Everybody spoke, well, roughly the same amount of time. There wasn’t anybody who dominated, and there wasn’t anybody who was silent, but there was equity of turn-taking. Amy Edmondson has done a whole heck of a lot of work on this area as well, and so I pulled in some of her research as well. But those are the two big ideas. And so that idea, the responsibility of the teacher-team leader to make it safe, goes back to, how do you read the social cues of each other so you can be sensitive to that? How do you help others in the team do that? And then, how do you ensure that there is equitable turn taking? That’s where those 40 moves, techniques, and strategies come in, because those are the things that build social sensitivity for you as a teacher-team leader that you pay attention to. Things like, gesture, intonation of voice, breathing, establishing group rapport, how you paraphrase and pose questions for folks, the use of the pause, which is, by the way, the sing out of about 50 nonverbal communication patterns that we have as human beings is the single most powerful nonverbal move we have.

[00:16:54.850] – Dr. Chad Dumas

The pause influences respiration, it influences heart rate, it influences blood pressure. Mostly, it gets us breathing, which enables blood then to get to the prefrontal cortex as opposed to the amygdala where folks can tend to go. That’s where these moves, techniques, and strategies are about building that psychological safety. First responsibility. And then the second responsibility is building capacity, which is helping people understand why we’re doing it and what we’re doing, which really gets to the strategy. So the moves and techniques are about the social sensitivity, and then the strategies are really about the psychological safety. And then the strategies are really about building that capacity of each other to engage in the work.

[00:17:38.930] – Steve

Want to label one or two of those strategies for us?

[00:17:42.900] – Dr. Chad Dumas

Yeah. And this is on… So your listeners can go to the SolutionTree website or to my website, and there’s free reproducibles, and there’s a table. It’s called table 2.1 that lists them all. So people can find that as a free reproducible. Of course, they can buy the book and dig into it more, but that one table, 2.1, really lists it. And so the strategy… So I distinguish between moves and techniques, which are things that you do yourself as a teacher-team leader, and strategies are the things that we do together. And each chapter goes through that. And then I further break those down into what do you need to do to get started, like some basic things. And if you’ve got them going great, you’ll probably still get some tips here. Getting going. And then the next chapter is, okay, how do you build momentum? And what are some moves, techniques, and strategies to do that? The next chapter is overcoming obstacles. And then the final one is refining your skills. And refining your skills is all just moves and techniques. There’s no strategies in there. So in terms of strategies, things like the physical arrangement of the room.

[00:18:52.250] – Dr. Chad Dumas

That’s a getting started thing that many times people don’t think about. We just go into the room and we sit down whatever the chairs are. The physical arrangement, just like the physical arrangement of a classroom, impacts how the adults engage with each other. And so let’s make sure that we have that physical arrangement set so that we can be effective. Another strategy is establishing norms, ensuring that we have clear roles. Starting meetings with an inclusion. This is one of my favorite strategies. When I was a high school principal. I had a teacher come to me early on in my first year, and they were so kind and sweet. And at the time, I was really offended, but in hindsight, I was really grateful that they were so frank with me. They came to me and said, “Chad, nobody cares about your meetings.” [laughter]

[00:19:41.070] – Steve

[laughter] Pretty brazen.

[00:19:42.600] – Dr. Chad Dumas

I love her, and I am so grateful that she did that because it’s true, isn’t it, though? Nobody cares about anybody else. The only person that cares about the meeting is the person who’s holding the meeting. People are coming in and they’re thinking about the email they just sent or the interaction they had with the kid or the phone call they make to their spouse or the flat tire they had this morning. Nobody is thinking about your meeting. So what we have to do is start by getting people thinking about the meeting. And I’m not talking about an icebreaker. Icebreakers tick off half the people. I’m talking about meaningful ways to quickly get our mental energy focused in the room, to get everybody’s voices in the room, and to build community as we connect with each other in the content. So that’s one of my favorite strategies. But those are a few of the strategies.

[00:20:28.320] – Steve

It sounds like changing it from my from our meeting to our meeting.

[00:20:31.780] – Dr. Chad Dumas

Exactly. Yes. I love that. Thank you.

[00:20:35.810] – Steve

That’s really what you’re describing.

[00:20:38.660] – Dr. Chad Dumas

Yep, absolutely.

[00:20:40.910] – Steve

So there’s a phrase that I frequently run across whenever I’m working in the teacher leadership area, and that is the phrase middle-level leaders. Teacher leaders being described as middle-level leaders, suggesting that they have this role to play between the administration and the other members of the staff. You see that applying here? You see ways that you’re looking to address that?

[00:21:14.790] – Dr. Chad Dumas

Yeah, absolutely. So one of the premises of this book is really that you cannot control other people. You can only control you. That’s one of the assumptions that I raise. I raise five assumptions that I propose are helpful. And one of those assumptions, you can only control you. And you can influence others, which is where the moves and techniques come into play. Through my breathing, through my use of a third point in a frozen gesture, through my developing group rapport, through our use of laughter and humor, through celebrations. These are all moves, techniques, and strategies that I can use to influence other people. And what I found is that they do influence other people, but sometimes there’s some folks that require a little bit extra assistance. So the last chapter of the book is maybe it’s my favorite chapter, because what I did for a period of time as I was stewing about what would be in this book and how to approach it, I would ask teacher team leaders, what are the challenges that you have? And they would share them with me. And so that last chapter is a compilation of all those challenges that those teacher team leaders share with me and some potential approaches of how to approach those, not because you can’t control them, but you can influence them.

[00:22:35.510] – Dr. Chad Dumas

And of course, it pulls in the learning throughout the book. So it references, hey, this in this chapter, this in this chapter. And the last challenge is what if I’ve done all this and it’s still not working? In that case, don’t feel bad, first of all. It happens. But second of all, your job, let’s go back to the responsibilities. Your job is not to be a mini administrator. Your job is not to be a supervisor and a snitch. At some point, if you’re not able to influence others because you can only control you, but you can influence others, at some point, you may have to get an administrator involved. And I provide some suggestions for how to do that. So let’s not confuse, though, that you’re not an administrator. But let’s also make sure that you are building your own skills of influence as you help to move the team forward in ensuring that all kids get to grade level essential standard.

[00:23:34.210] – Steve

So let’s talk about that for a minute or two. What are things that administrators and instructional coaches should be doing to support team leaders in PLCs?

[00:23:50.050] – Dr. Chad Dumas

In terms of supporting teacher team leaders, I think the first thing is to be really clear about what their role is because we haven’t been in the past, I don’t think. But first of all, let’s be clear that the role is not to be administrator. The role is to ensure the effective functioning of the team and guarantee all kids get to grade-level team identified essential standards. And your responsibility in doing that is to make it safe, to build capacity, and then to do the work. So I think that’s the place to start, is being really clear about that. And then I think anything that principals can do to help support those teacher team leaders in developing these skills. Many of these skills, most of them, come from nonverbal communication science, communication intelligence from the work of Michael Grinder and Kendall Zahler. And so while many of them can come naturally, they don’t necessarily do. So providing opportunities for your teacher team leaders to engage with each other, to practice these, to last with each other in these clumsy mistakes, because it will be clumsy. Practicing using, for example, approachable voice versus a credible voice can feel awkward.

[00:25:07.120] – Dr. Chad Dumas

Practicing using a third point where eyes follow eyes feels incredibly awkward. That needs practice. With those who are supporting teacher team leaders, providing structured and systematic opportunities to really engage in this book and the contents of the book so that they can practice it. Because just reading about credible and approachable voice, very interesting. Actually doing it and actually doing it in the heat of the moment is very different from having read it and understand it at a conceptual level.

[00:25:41.680] – Steve

I’m hearing coaching.

[00:25:43.540] – Dr. Chad Dumas

Yes, sir.

[00:25:44.720] – Steve

Coaching the team leaders on their team leader role.

[00:25:50.500] – Dr. Chad Dumas

Yes.

[00:25:51.760] – Steve

Peers coaching each other. Whether it’s in role plays or whether it’s… Actually, I got a colleague sitting on my team meeting today to provide me with that feedback.

[00:26:06.090] – Dr. Chad Dumas

Exactly. I think having fun with it is really important. In the book, I provide quite a few different scripts of how something might go. So let’s practice it and let’s try it out. Let’s video record it and then laugh at each other in doing it. Let’s just enjoy learning. Let’s try it out with our spouses and our children and our aunts and uncles and any other loved ones, people at the grocery store. I’ve known people who are like, you know what? I wanted to try this out. So when I was in the grocery store, I really… I tried using the approachable incredible voice just to… At extremes, just to see what would happen. Let’s have fun with this. Because communications, we know, of course, there’s Merabian’s research has been misapplied on people now say, oh, 93% of nonverbal communication or communication is nonverbal. Well, that’s this applying his research. And there is something, too – a good deal, if not the majority, of meaning is taken from the nonverbals. So let’s make sure that we’re communicating what we intend to communicate through those nonverbals.

[00:27:12.540] – Steve

Yeah. So I have Two thoughts here. I want to get from you the easiest way for people to contact you to follow up and find the book. But before we jump to it, I’m wondering if you’ve started on the next book yet because-

[00:27:29.390] – Dr. Chad Dumas

I actually have.

[00:27:31.160] – Steve

Go ahead. What’s it going to be?

[00:27:34.250] – Dr. Chad Dumas

It’s been proposed. That whole process takes a little while, but in the meantime, still working on it. But a colleague of mine, Kim Nichols and I, what we found is guiding coalitions, the leadership teams who are leading the PLC process in their schools, if they exist, and Bill Hall has an amazing book on powerful guiding coalitions that helps to figure out who should be on these some general parameters of what the work of that team is. What we found, what Kim and I have found in others, is that, okay, so now we have this team, now what? And so this book that we’re working on is really a handbook for guiding coalitions and building principles. So now that we have this team, now what do we do? What does an actual meeting look like? We meet for 30 minutes every couple of weeks. What do we do during that time? And so, again, clarifying what is the role and responsibilities of a guiding coalition, and then what are some practical tools, protocols, if you will, to actually do the work with timelines and that thing spelled out for folks.

[00:28:41.660] – Steve

Well, as I’ve listened to you today, I have a thought for another book.

[00:28:46.450] – Dr. Chad Dumas

Okay. Let me jot it down.

[00:28:50.130] – Steve

I think it’s being a member of a PLC. As I listen to you, the way you’ve laid out the role role of the administrator in setting up the PLC process within a system, now that you’ve done the role of the teacher leader in the system, I think there’s another whole role that there’s not a whole lot of PD out there on how to be an effective member of a PLC. I don’t think it’s happening in anybody’s undergraduate education, but even worse, probably in their graduate teacher education, about what it means to be an effective working member of a team. I got to believe that that’s where the profession is headed. If you can’t function effectively as a team member, you can’t meet the requirements of the profession.

[00:29:58.070] – Dr. Chad Dumas

Yeah. Well, and that reminds me that as good as a team leader is in facilitation, and there’s a great quote, I don’t remember who the person is, but, “great leaders use facilitation as a superpower.” So facilitation is the key thing as a team leader. You can have the most amazing facilitator, but if all of the group members are dysfunctional, like you were leading to, I can try to influence, but if ultimately there could become a time when the administrator has to step in. And the other way around. If you have high-performing members, but the facilitator is junk, they’re going to get further. So you’re exactly right. The most impactful person is highly-skilled group members.

[00:30:46.820] – Steve

And I think building administrators need to have an understanding of what are the behaviors of being an effective member of a PLC. At some point, it’s actually part of the teacher evaluation system. That evaluation in your classroom as certain set of behaviors we expect you to have. When it comes to being a member of a PLC, there’s another set of behaviors. I’ve seen a teacher say a word during a PLC meeting and think as long as they checked in on time and stayed for the whole time, with their administrator, they’re covered.

[00:31:32.910] – Dr. Chad Dumas

Right.

[00:31:35.050] – Steve

When you started with what are the expectations of the role of being a PLC leader, I think the next step is what are the expectations of the role of being a member of a PLC?

[00:31:49.040] – Dr. Chad Dumas

Yeah, absolutely.

[00:31:52.010] – Steve

Well, I love the work you’re doing, Chad.

[00:31:55.900] – Dr. Chad Dumas

Oh, thank you. Thank you. That means a lot.

[00:31:58.960] – Steve

Tell folks best way they can follow up, stay in touch with you, find your book.

[00:32:04.770] – Dr. Chad Dumas

Yeah. So this book is published by SolutionTree. So solutiontree.com/teamleaderhandbook is the URL that takes you directly there. You can access free reproducibles from there as well. And then I also have on my website all of those same reproducibles, and actually a couple of extra ones that after publication, I was like, oh, you know what? I should put this out there, too. There’s about 50 reproducibles on my website, which also then gets you in contact with me. I have a tiny URL for that. It’s tinyurl.com/ttlhchad.

[00:32:52.100] – Steve

Alright. We’ll stick the links to both those in the lead-in to the podcast.

[00:32:58.290] – Dr. Chad Dumas

Perfect. Thank you.

[00:32:59.770] – Steve

Thank you.

[00:33:02.590] – Steve [Outro]

Thanks for listening, folks. I’d love to hear what you’re pondering. You can find me on Twitter or LinkedIn at Steve Barkley, or send me your questions and find my videos and blogs at barkleypd.com.