Host Leadership Works,
We’ll Do More of It!
In the afternoon of the first day of our Host Leadership Gathering, June 2024, I ran a workshop exploring the multiplicity of ways that teachers connect with the ideas and practices of Host Leadership. Here follow two accounts from the workshop: (1) a video, in Bulgarian, featuring a short excerpt from the workshop, and (2) the 17 slides, (in English) which I used to guide our conversations in the course of 60 mins.
We started with a brief overview of how the exploration started and what I wanted to find out. We then engaged in passing the teachers’ stories through the sieve of Host Leadership roles and positions. And finally, we all tried to see whether our own educational experiences and those of the teachers I have gathered stories from could possibly lead to defining a new role, perhaps? Enrich the Host Leadership model of two steps, four positions, ,and six roles?
Prior to the workshop I had been gathering the stories of teachers frim BulgariaI had gathered the
Leah Davcheva
That is how the principal of a small school on the outskirts of Sofia (the capital city of Bulgaria) closed the workshop whereby the teachers’ team had their first encounter with the metaphor and frameworks of Host Leadership.
As the facilitator of this three-hour session I could see that the 20 or so teachers were quickly connecting with the idea. They seemed truly hopeful about the possibilities the metaphor opened for them and their pupils. I was intrigued. Would it be useful, I thought, if I helped them make the next step, bring their own teaching experience into the metaphor, and grow their own new meanings into the two steps, four positions and six roles.
I decided to gather and study the stories of the teachers who were willing to talk with me and see how they were hosting and leading their classes, their teams, and their own ‘selfs’ for that matter.
My session presents the outcomes of that collaborative exploration. People in education will certainly benefit from participating in it, and I believe those working in business organisations, community building, and the media, will put it to good use.