TIP #1 GOOD COMMUNICATION
- Clarify your message - Be clear as a bell.
- Listen with your ears and heart. Focus your attention on the person.
- Repeat what you think you heard - “What I hear you saying is...”
- Ask for clarification and explanations.
- Be patient - Show caring, concern, and interest. Give eye contact.
- Keep it very simple - The key to effective communication is simplicity.
- Make sure your message is correct! It is a hundred times more difficult to correct wrong information than to check it’s accuracy before giving it out!
- Remove filters - Barriers prevent real communication. Remove pre-established negative ideas or habits.
- In PTA: Help all to catch the vision of your PTA goals, communicate it, make them aware of their part in it, help them see their role in the vision you have, be organized.
“Developing excellent communication skills is absolutely essential to effective leadership. The leader must be able to share knowledge and ideas to transmit a sense of urgency and enthusiasm to others. If a leader can’t get a message across clearly and motivate others to act on it, then having a message doesn’t even matter.” Gilbert Amelio, ECO National Semiconductor Corp. You Can Make a Difference ... But it Takes Commitment!
TIP #2 SPREAD THE WORKLOAD—AVOID LEADER BURN OUT
Make PTA volunteers and members feel welcome.
- Make them feel like a vital part of the PTA.
- Make them feel needed—assure them of their importance to the success of your PTA.
- Give your members a challenging responsibility.
- Match personal skills with the job to be accomplished.
- Let them know the importance of their responsibility.
- Let them know what the job entails and when it needs to be completed.
- Let them be responsible for their responsibilities.
- Give them guidelines-let them do the work.
- Give them publications relating to their responsibilities.
- Work with them. Be available for guidance.
- Share ideas, but don’t dictate.
- Let all members have their say and express their viewpoints.
- Be positive - reduce negative thinking.
- Praise them for a job well done - Give THEM the credit.
- Thank them for their efforts.
- Encourage them to move into other PTA positions and other levels of PTA.
“One of the most rewarding ways to relate to others is to give them ownership over what is going on. At home the entire family should share in keeping things up around the house. At work, people want to be a part of things and to have responsibility with accountability. And others in your life are waiting for you to take some items off your calendar so they can put them on theirs. It takes awhile to complete the delegation process. Training, explaining, and overseeing are all part of it. However, when everyone has his or her tasks and can do them with little supervision, you begin to reap the results. Hypothesize that you have some people to whom you can delegate housework, office work, and church work. Wouldn’t it be great to not have the frightening words, ‘Fire, another fire!’ reverberating in your mind? You have to decide you’re tired of fighting these blazes yourself. Trust people enough to give them important tasks. DELEGATE.”
Delegation is primarily about entrusting your authority to others. This means that they can act and initiate independently, and that they assume responsibility with you for certain tasks. If something goes wrong, you remain responsible; the trick is to delegate in such a way that things get done but do not go (badly) wrong.
Effective delegation requires that the leader:
- Have enough knowledge of his team members’ strengths and weaknesses to delegate tasks appropriately.
- Have enough patience and time to explain tasks to team members thoroughly, to help them develop special knowledge or skills needed for the task, and to monitor and evaluate their performance.
- Have enough confidence in himself and the team to allow team members to take on additional responsibilities and accountabilities (even though the leader is still accountable overall).
A good leader will ask him frequently: “What am I doing that someone else can do as well or better than I?”
TIP #3 GOAL SETTING IN THE PTA
A PTA may be busy, involved, and active, and yet reach the year’s end wondering what they have done, and if anything done was worthwhile. Goal setting helps to give us direction, and allows us to measure our accomplishments. Goal setting will let us be more efficient and effective, solve crisis, give us confidence in our role, build public esteem for the organization, lend credibility to our efforts, and make the membership proud of their participation in PTA.
What is a goal? A goal is a target toward which you are working, a desired state of affairs or conditions which you would like to see exist. Goals must be clearly stated and clearly communicated. We have goals so we can act. One can act either randomly or purposefully. Goals give us direction. It has been said, “A great deal of energy is spent on work which is completely unnecessary.”
Goals should be:
- Specific
- Performance oriented
- Involving
- Realistic and observable
- Measurable
Goals are either short term or long range. Long-range goals are those which require months or years to accomplish. Short-range goals are more immediate, obtainable in a matter of hours or weeks. Long-range goals might be the year’s plan of work. Short-range goals would include plans made from month to month, or special projects.
Your PTA board should always use a needs assessment when setting your PTA goals so the needs of the members can be considered and met through your goals. A sample needs Assessment form can be found in the Utah PTA President Handbook and the needs assessment.
Basic Elements of a Goal:
- A goal must be developed with input from the group. The group must feel “ownership” of the goal.
- A goal should be written. The written goal should contain positive statements and action verbs. As much as possible, statements of goals should be contained in one sentence and have one major point.
- A clear statement that is easily understood is the mark of a good goal. Plain, to-the-point language is preferred over high-sounding verbiage. Goals must be relevant to the association’s role. PTA goals must be in keeping with the PTA purpose and mission.
- Both goals and objectives should be listed in priority order. Priorities should be determined by the group. Prioritizing is necessary to allow better organization and efficient use of PTA resources and time.
- Every goal should include an attainable and observable action plan. Activities are those events that make it possible to meet the goals and objectives. They include any action that is to take place, assignments of tasks, an expected time line for action to take place, and reporting procedures.
- Monitoring and evaluation must be included. Periodic reviews of activities and whether they are leading the PTA closer to its goals are necessary. A system of evaluation should be built into any goal’s activity plan. Evaluations can determine whether an activity should be ongoing or has reached its conclusion.
TIP #4 BEGIN WITH THE END IN MIND
By Kris Denison
A few good leadership tips:
- First rule of leadership…. Everything is your fault. ~ A Bug’s Life
- Never forget that only dead fish swim with the stream. ~ Malcolm Muggeridge
- I suppose leadership at one time meant muscle; but today it means getting along with people. ~ Mohatma K. Gandhi
I know we all want muscle and to feel good about ourselves. How many of you in January say … “I’m going to go to the gym and work out every day” … You start setting your goals and say this is the year ...
In our Seven Habits of Highly Effective PTA’s, # 2 is Begin with the end in mind … Setting goals. We want to set “SMART” goals.
- S - Specific Which, What, Where, When, Why
- M - Measurable How much
- A - Action Describe results
- R - Realistic Realistic and Relevant
- T - Time By when
Leaders aren’t born they are made. And they are made just like anything else, through hard work. And that’s the price we’ll have to pay to achieve that goal, or any goal. ~ Vince Lombardi
One of my goals for this year is to let people know how much I really care about them. We are all so busy and we think, “That person is doing a great job,” but we never tell them. I want you to think of the last time someone told you that you were doing a great job….. and….. When did someone hand write and send you a thank you card? How did it make you feel? My challenge to you is to let people know how much you appreciate them.
One of my favorite quotes is “Don’t count the days, make the days count.”
You never know when it is someone’s last day with PTA or the end of their life….. Don’t wait to let them know how you feel!