Teacher Evaluation Criteria

Toxic management behaviors can destroy all good initiatives. Avoid these seven and replace them by seven Healthy Management Habits. You’ve probably experienced it—or done it, and often more than once: toxic management behavior. It destroys all good initiatives, kills motivation and engagement, and can lead organizations to the edge of the cliff… or beyond. To recognize toxic management behavior, this list of seven types by Jakob Bovin is a useful tool. It describes seven of the most toxic management behaviors we may witness in our organizations. And, what is more, he also offers seven alternatives by flipping the behaviors 180 degrees. Let’s call them the Seven Healthy Management Habits. They are: EMPOWER EMPLOYEES: Encourage autonomy and trust employees to take initiative, fostering innovation and job satisfaction through ownership of their work. SHARE INFORMATION TRANSPARENTLY: Keep lines of communication open, sharing necessary information to ensure everyone is aligned and can contribute effectively to the team's goals. VALUE EMPLOYEES HOLISTICALLY: Recognize employees as individuals with unique contributions, promoting a culture that values personal well-being alongside professional achievements. SERVE AS A GUIDE: Understand leadership as a behaviour focused on guiding and inspiring others, not just holding a position of authority. TREAT EVERYONE EQUALLY: Ensure all employees feel valued by offering equal opportunities for recognition and advancement based on merit, fostering a fair and inclusive work environment. UNITE AND STRENGTHEN THE TEAM: Foster a collaborative environment that encourages teamwork, strengthening trust and cooperation among team members. BE ACCESSIBLE AND SUPPORTIVE: be available for guidance and feedback, supporting employees' growth and addressing issues promptly to enhance job satisfaction and team cohesion. The lesson is simple 1. Avoid the toxic management behaviors 2. Replace them by the healthy management habits #managementdevelopment #peoplemanagement #organizationaldevelopment

Most L&D professionals learned the Kirkpatrick Model early on. Fewer have seen it applied beyond Level 1. Here's what each level can actually look like when you put it into practice, not just the textbook definition. ✨ Level 1: Reaction 🔹 Textbook version: Did learners find the training engaging and worth their time? ✅ In practice: Instead of "Did you enjoy this session?", ask "Was this relevant to the work you do?" and "Could you apply this right away?" ✅ Metric to track: Relevance and applicability ratings, not just satisfaction scores. ✨ Level 2: Learning 🔹 Textbook version: Did learners gain the intended knowledge or skills? ✅ In practice: Replace recall-based quizzes with scenario-based checks. Can the learner apply the concept to a situation they'd actually face? ✅ Metric to track: Pre/post assessment scores on scenario-based questions, not just "did you pass the quiz." ✨ Level 3: Behavior 🔹 Textbook version: Are learners applying what they learned on the job? ✅ In practice: 30/60/90-day check-ins, manager observations, or peer feedback on whether the new behavior is showing up in real work. ✅ Metric to track: % of participants demonstrating the target behavior, based on manager or peer input, not self-reported confidence. ✨ Level 4: Results 🔹 Textbook version: Did the training impact business outcomes? ✅ In practice: Pick one business metric the program was meant to influence, before you build it, not after, and track the change. ✅ Metric to track: Movement in that specific KPI (error rates, time-to-productivity, conversion rates, retention) compared to a baseline. Most programs are measured thoroughly at Level 1 and barely at all beyond it. But Levels 3 and 4 are where the "did this actually matter" conversation happens, and they are also where L&D earns a seat at the table. Which level does your organisation measure consistently, and which one do you wish you could measure better? #LearningAndDevelopment #LnD #KirkpatrickModel #TrainingEvaluation #InstructionalDesign #LearningMeasurement #TrainingAndDevelopment #LnDStrategy

Teaching is one of the most important jobs in the world, and it’s good to see that most teachers find fulfilment in it.   Our new edition of the Teaching and Learning International Survey, released today, finds that nine in ten teachers are satisfied with their jobs, and almost 95% say they often feel happy while teaching.   This is the world’s largest international survey on teachers and school leaders, sampling around 280 000 teachers across more than 50 education systems around the world. It highlights their experiences in the classroom, their working conditions, and explores themes such as AI in education and increasingly diverse student populations. Some key findings include: ➡️ While nearly three in four teachers would choose teaching again if given the choice, one in five report a lot of stress.    ➡️ A third of teachers now use AI for their work. Of those, one in four use it to assess or mark student work.   ➡️ The share of class time spent on discipline has increased in almost all OECD systems, from 13% in 2018 to 16% in 2024 on average.    Read the full results here: https://bit.ly/46UFRCS   #TALIS

🚨 "Years of teaching experience do not correlate with better knowledge" I was drawn to this by a post by Carl Hendrick, and it demonstrates how little understanding there still is around the science of learning. “Predictors of Teachers’ Knowledge of Educational Neuroscience: A Role for Formal Training” by Yasin Arslan, Rebecca Gordon, and Andrew Tolmie, published in Mind, Brain, and Education (2025) 🧠 Purpose of the Study The study investigates: Teachers’ knowledge of educational neuroscience. Factors influencing this knowledge, especially the role of formal training versus Continuing Professional Development or informal exposure. 📊 Methodology Developed a new tool: Educational Neuroscience Knowledge Test (ENKT). ENKT measures understanding of: 💠 General Cognitive Functions (GCF). 💠 Special Educational Needs (SEN). 💠 Ability to endorse neuro-facts and reject neuromyths. 💠 Sample: 366 qualified UK teachers. 💠 Data collected via online questionnaire. 🔍 Key Findings Formal training in educational neuroscience significantly improves teachers’ knowledge. CPD and informal exposure offer some benefit but are less effective than formal training. Years of teaching experience do not correlate with better knowledge, suggesting that experience alone doesn’t reduce belief in neuromyths. Teachers with formal training scored highest on ENKT, showing better ability to distinguish between valid neuroscience and misconceptions. ⚠️ Neuromyths Common misconceptions include: ❌ “Humans only use 10% of their brain.” ❌ “Learning styles (visual, auditory, kinesthetic) affect school performance.” ❌ “Brain Gym exercises support learning.” These myths persist even among experienced educators and can hinder evidence-based teaching. 📚 Implications Initial Teacher Training programs should integrate educational neuroscience content. Structured CPD should reinforce this knowledge throughout teachers’ careers. Training should focus on both scientific facts and critical thinking to combat neuromyths. Better neuroscience literacy can improve teaching for all students, especially those with SEN.

The latest Department for Education Working Lives of Teachers and Leaders Wave 4 report offers an interesting snapshot from the profession. I've summarised a few of the key findings below: 1. Unsurprisingly, workload remains an issue. Working hours have fallen slightly, but full-time teachers still average around an unsustainable 50 hours per week, with leaders significantly higher. 2. Wellbeing shows modest improvement… but from a low base. Measures of life satisfaction and happiness have improved, and anxiety has reduced. However, levels still lag behind the wider population. 3. Stress remains endemic. A staggering 86% of teachers and leaders report experiencing work-related stress and many still feel the job doesn’t allow sufficient personal time. 4. Retention continues to be a major risk. Nearly a third of the workforce is considering leaving within the next year, with workload and wellbeing the dominant drivers. 5. Pay satisfaction is improving, but still fragile. Satisfaction has increased compared to previous years, yet around half of staff remain dissatisfied, despite these gains. 6. Flexible working is growing. More staff now report access to flexible arrangements, which correlates with improved wellbeing. 7. Pupil behaviour continues to place pressure on staff time. A significant proportion of teachers report spending too much time managing behaviour and follow-up. So, there are signs of progress but there'sstilla long way to go. In a system under strain there is a risk of things going backwards rather than forwards. I'd recommend having a read of the findings for yourself: https://lnkd.in/e7Rkr6eG #EducationLeadership #TeacherWorkload #SchoolImprovement #TeacherRetention #EdLeadership

To all the change makers: WE ARE DOING BEHAVIORAL CHANGE THE WRONG WAY. What works? To change behavior, focus on creating ways that help people get around barriers that stop them from behaving in desirable ways. What does NOT work? What we intuitively tend to do: focusing on obvious but ineffective factors like providing knowledge, developing skills, or influencing attitudes. Here is the research, from a review of meta-analyses: Across domains, interventions designed to change individual behavior are the least effective when they target knowledge, general skills, or attitudes. They are most effective when they change habits. Interventions that change the social or structural elements of an environment are the least effective when they focus on legal and administrative sanctions or on increasing institutional trustworthiness. They are most effective when they change the provision of social support or access to a particular behavior (e.g., making it the default or reducing friction in accessing it). Change is hard. We can make it easier by forming new habits, providing robust social support, and increasing access to desired behaviors. Let’s prioritize these approaches to truly drive effective change in ourselves, in organizations and beyond. Article here: https://lnkd.in/e76nz-fs #Change #Behavior #Leadership #Research #Workplace #HumanResources #Learning #Growth #Habits #Innovation

𝐒𝐭𝐨𝐫𝐲 𝐨𝐟 𝐦𝐲 𝐀𝐦𝐚𝐳𝐨𝐧 𝐒𝐭𝐲𝐥𝐞 𝐬𝐡𝐨𝐩𝐩𝐢𝐧𝐠 From ordering on Amazon to studying how Amazon actually builds people. What caught my attention wasn’t speed or scale. It was a very deliberate capability system Amazon built early on to solve a people problem most companies struggle with silently. The problem was clear. As Amazon scaled rapidly: • Managers were technically strong • Teams were growing fast • Decisions were getting delayed • Ownership was becoming uneven So Amazon didn’t launch motivational programs. They built a behavioral capability program called the Amazon Leadership Principles (LP) Mechanism, reinforced through the Bar Raiser Program. This was not a culture deck. This was a system. Here’s what Amazon actually did. Problem statement was clear - High-performing individual contributors were becoming managers, but lacked: • decision clarity • ownership mindset • strong people conversations • behavioral consistency at scale The capability program Amazon hard-wired 16 Leadership Principles into: • hiring interviews (through Bar Raisers) • promotion decisions • manager feedback loops • leadership training simulations Every manager was trained to assess behavior, not just outcomes. Examples: • “Disagree and Commit” → how decisions move without consensus paralysis • “Ownership” → how leaders respond when things break • “Dive Deep” → how conversations shift from opinion to data These were explicitly practiced, observed, and coached. What changed : Managers stopped managing outcomes alone. They started managing behavioral signals early. 📊 Impact (reported across Amazon leadership & people analytics studies): • 20–25% faster decision cycles in LP-aligned teams • ~30% reduction in first-time manager failure rates • Significant drop in escalation loops and rework • Higher internal mobility and lower cost of external hiring This wasn’t soft skills. This was behavioral capability engineering. Now here’s the important part for GCCs entering India. Most GCCs copy: • org structures • processes • tech stacks Very few copy capability mechanisms. The GCCs that scale successfully will adapt this structure by: • defining 6–8 non-negotiable leadership behaviors • embedding them into hiring, promotions, and feedback • training managers to observe and coach behavior, not just performance • tying learning ROI to decision speed, ownership, and execution quality Not more training hours. Not generic workshops. But repeatable behavioral systems. 𝐈𝐟 𝐲𝐨𝐮’𝐫𝐞 𝐚 𝐆𝐂𝐂 𝐥𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐫 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐤𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐚𝐛𝐨𝐮𝐭: • 𝐥𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐡𝐢𝐩 𝐜𝐚𝐩𝐚𝐛𝐢𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐲 𝐝𝐞𝐬𝐢𝐠𝐧 • 𝐦𝐚𝐧𝐚𝐠𝐞𝐫 𝐞𝐟𝐟𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐯𝐞𝐧𝐞𝐬𝐬 • 𝐛𝐞𝐡𝐚𝐯𝐢𝐨𝐫𝐚𝐥 𝐬𝐤𝐢𝐥𝐥 𝐝𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐥𝐨𝐩𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭 • 𝐑𝐎𝐈-𝐝𝐫𝐢𝐯𝐞𝐧 𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐤𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐜𝐞 𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐬𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐦𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 Because scale without behavioral capability only creates noise. #GCCIndia #leadership

At 21, I stepped into the role of trustee secretary with zero experience. Today, I advise 4 institutions across Bangalore. If I could start over, here’s what I would change 👉 I’d invest in building emotional resilience from day one. Why? Because sometimes staying emotionally stable isn’t just helpful. It’s essential in an industry that tests your patience daily. Leadership in education is deeply rewarding, but it also comes with daily unpredictability, pressure, and high expectations. What I’ve learned is this: The most underrated leadership skill is the ability to stay grounded, even when there’s little reason to. Here’s what I would tell my 21-year-old self: 📍Learn to pause and stay composed - even during staff disagreements or parent escalations. Your presence matters more than your position. 📍Before high-stakes meetings, take time to center yourself. I now use breathwork and visualization to walk in with clarity. 📍Every decision is influenced by your emotional state. Prioritize calm over chaos. This sharpens your judgment. 📍Build a simple morning ritual to check in with yourself. It helps you lead with intention, not just urgency. 📍And when things don’t go as planned (like when a key initiative doesn’t deliver results) - see it as feedforward, not failure. Every misstep holds a lesson. The education sector saw me as too young. I saw myself as someone determined to create positive change. That's why emotional resilience became my superpower. Did people doubt me? Often. Did challenges overwhelm me initially? Yes. Did this mindset work? Beyond my expectations! The truth is, every successful educational leader was once overwhelmed by the responsibility. The difference is they learned to manage their internal state regardless of external chaos. Your students, teachers, and stakeholders need leaders who can think clearly under pressure. How do you maintain emotional stability during challenging times?

In this new paper Sanna Lassen and I suggest that the notion of the “leadership pipeline” fails to capture the challenges and complexities of progression into and between leadership roles in contemporary higher education. Drawing on empirical examples, we show how academic leaders experience fractured transitions, role ambiguity, competing institutional logics, and misaligned reward systems between research, teaching, and educational leadership roles. To address this, we propose an ecosystems perspective on higher education leadership that highlights the dynamic interdependencies between core university functions (teaching, research, administration), internal institutional contexts (strategy, finance, regulation, digital, civic engagement, campus), and the wider external environment (political, economic, socio‑cultural, technological, legal and environmental forces). Our paper highlights the importance of identity work and identity workspaces where academic leaders can experiment, gain legitimacy, and reconcile competing professional and managerial expectations. For those involved in leadership recruitment, development, and policy, the message is clear: supporting future leaders means moving beyond pipelines and investing in more inclusive, connected, and context‑sensitive ecosystems that recognise multiple routes, logics, and identities. The paper is published #OpenAccess in European Review as part of a collection  on “Institutional perspectives on universities” arising from a symposium hosted by Academia Europaea and the Wenner-Gren Foundation in May 2025 - please let us know what you think! https://lnkd.in/eHF2JvJW Cambridge University Press, UWE Bristol Business School, UWE Bristol Leadership and Change Centre, UWE Bristol Research and External Engagement, Centre for Educational Development (CED), Aarhus University

A Leadership Framework for Independent Schools As leaders, we constantly navigate the complexities of school communities—balancing vision, strategy, culture, and operations—all while keeping students at the heart of our decisions. I’m excited to share a resource that distills years of research and practice - The Framework for Leadership in Independent Schools in the Australian Context, designed as part of my doctoral thesis. Here are a few insights from the framework that could transform your leadership - 1️⃣ Situational Leadership: Effective leadership begins with understanding the unique context of your school. Student demographics, culture, teacher experience, and available resources shape the foundation for tailored leadership. 2️⃣ Transformational Leadership: What happens when things go wrong? Leaders who ask “What can we learn?” create a culture of inquiry and continuous improvement, paving the way for meaningful innovation. 3️⃣ Student-Centered Leadership: Every decision you make should reflect the belief that all students can learn and achieve. Equity, inclusivity, and holistic development are at the core of great schools. 4️⃣ Strategic and Visionary Leadership: How do you envision your school in 10 years? Ground your planning in long-term challenges and opportunities, inspiring a shared commitment to sustainable goals. These are just a glimpse of the 10 dimensions of leadership outlined in the framework, which integrates situational awareness, cultural alignment, ethical principles, and pedagogical focus to create a leadership approach tailored to independent schools. Whether you’re a seasoned principal or an emerging leader, this framework is a practical tool to guide your decision-making, build trust, and ensure alignment with your school’s mission and values. Click below to access the document. #EducationalLeadership #IndependentSchools #Principals #LeadershipFramework