Positively Leading

S2E2 - Is Leadership a Marathon or a Sprint? Two Way Learning and Compassionate Leadership with with Denise Shillinglaw

• Jenny Cole • Season 2 • Episode 2

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This week I speak with Denise Shillinglaw, whose inspiration includes Nelson Mandela and Princess Diana. Denise reveals the pivotal moments that shaped her career, her early passion for teaching, and her commitment to fostering a nurturing environment for her students. She is a published author on Two Way Learning with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and share what that means in her classroom. She even gives us a sneak peek into her personal life, including her exciting plans to run the People's Marathon in Paris.

Explore how Denise champions the role of collaboration and emotional intelligence in education. From supporting EALD students to integrating principles from Brené Brown’s "Atlas of the Heart," Denise offers practical advice on making education a two-way street. She underscores the importance of understanding students' backgrounds and leveraging team collaboration to create a supportive and cohesive learning environment. Tune in for an insightful discussion on leadership, emotional resilience, and the profound impact of leading from within the team.

Did you know there is more? You can access every episode, show notes, links and more via my website Positively Beaming.

Jenny Cole:

Hello and welcome to Positively Leading the Podcast. I'm your host, Jenny Cole, and I'm the CEO of Positively Beaming. I am really delighted to have today as my guest Denise Shillinglaw. Welcome, Denise.

Denise Shillinglaw:

Hi, Jenny, thank you so much.

Jenny Cole:

Denise is currently the head of English in a public senior high school in the northwest of Western Australia and she leads her team of 10 amazing English teachers, and she is a leader and author in the field of two-way teaching and learning in Aboriginal education and, in fact, in 2019, she was awarded the EALD Teacher of the Year. Denise tells me she's always working on something new, whether she's on leave or even when she's on holidays, and which I'm sure many of you can relate to. She loves travelling with her family, reading, writing, planting and hugging trees. And a really interesting fact is that Denise is about to leave for Europe to run the People's Marathon in Paris as part of the Olympics.

Jenny Cole:

Denise, you are the first marathon runner I've ever had on the podcast and maybe a bit later I'll ask you if leadership is a marathon or a sprint. But what I do want to ask you first up is you've said that you had some leaders growing up that really impressed you, or in your journey that really impressed you. Can you share with us who those people are, what they did to inspire you and perhaps a little bit about your journey more generally?

Denise Shillinglaw:

Great. Thank you, jenny. Look, I was born in Zimbabwe, which was Rhodesia back then, and grew up for the first 13 years of my life in that country with relatives in South Africa. I was almost born in Mozambique, I hear my mother tells me, but was born in Salisbury. So when I think about leadership, a lot of leadership when I was young was obviously from my family and from my peers and I noticed, even when I was a child, you know, the charisma and the authority that leaders would have, and of course I didn't know the language for that, but noticing that kind of quality in people who had the ability to make others follow them, and mostly that was good, of course. And growing up in an environment where I didn't really understand the politics of race, it was interesting because I think Nelson Mandela although the name would have been thrown around in the family home over many years, I didn't realise who he was until much later but I guess, aside from peers who were leaders, experiencing a little bit of leadership myself in terms of athletics and swimming and hockey, because those were my sports in primary school.

Denise Shillinglaw:

You know I was in primary school when Princess Diana, lady Diana, became Princess Diana. She was married in 1981. And I remember her being a significant symbol of, I guess, peace and beauty and relationships, because she had some magic quality that tended to bring people together and I've been in awe of that all of my life, probably for quite different reasons. You know, she was an enigma, so far away from the everyday person, but she was an everyday person and when I talk about leadership the circular model that I prescribe to I think about her in terms of how she led, almost by accident and not deliberately, which is often how people find themselves in leadership positions. So Nelson Mandela, 10 years later, you know, was freed from prison and many years after that I read A Long Walk to Freedom. So two very significant and very, very different people who, in my memory, are kind of on the periphery. But when I think about leaders, I think about that magic of charisma and what they meant for everyday people, what they meant for everyday people.

Jenny Cole:

I had never considered Diana a leader, but you are absolutely right, she had the ability to build really quick, strong connections with people and get people to follow her with compassion and empathy and all of those less heroic leadership attributes. That's a lovely way to think about her. When you started your journey, did you start off as an English teacher. Share with us how you got to be a head of department.

Denise Shillinglaw:

Look, I was always going to be a teacher. From as far back as I can remember, that's what I used to do is play with my mum's magazines on the lounge room floor at about age five or six and they would be my students and I'd tell them and put them in the corner. They were all women because they were all front cover of a magazine, but even those women might have been a little bit badly behaved so that I could do something as the teacher at the front. So, look, I was always going to be a teacher. I worked out, probably in my first year at university.

Denise Shillinglaw:

Primary teaching wasn't going to be it, and literature and books have always been a very big part of my life. You know, and I was thinking about, leaders are readers, readers are leaders. You know, that's just part of the parcel, but I think, in terms of English teaching, I went to university, finished a literature degree, went travelling, came back, started my journey, I suppose, suppose, in little old lake grace. That was my first, my first teaching post, and then through through mandarin and different, different schools, of course, um, and I was welcomed into my second school by a head of department who, who? Absolutely gorgeous woman. On my very first day she met me at the front office and gave me a huge bear hug and I've never been welcomed into a place of employment with so much love and beauty. And you know, again, she was an amazing role model as a leader, very comfortable in who she was and the role that she was playing, and very compassionate and was also about leading people and bringing out the best in staff and in students.

Denise Shillinglaw:

So from day one I just felt like I belonged in that place because that leader had reached out to me in such a generous and affectionate way. You know, we don't really talk about love and affection in place of education, which is quite bizarre, but I really do believe that that's what good leaders do and you know Nelson Mandela and Princess Diana that's what they exuded is love and compassion. So by the time I was about 28, 29, I was acting head of department in that school alongside my colleague who'd given me the bear hug, and together we led a team of 14, I think it was at the time it was a very big school. So I think that sense of being welcomed, you know, motivated me to work hard because I always knew that you put in the work even before there was any idea of aspiring to be a leader. You put in the work. That was your job, that was your mandate and it was really important that you did the best possible job every day, every year.

Jenny Cole:

Beautiful and you found yourself up north and you've been in your current school for some time, but not always in the same role as a level three teacher and even at times as the acting deputy, and that I'm guessing that's where your love of two-way teaching emerged. Can you tell us about that and what that means and how you got into it and how important it is for you Two-way?

Denise Shillinglaw:

teaching and learning indeed is very important. When I moved up north I saw an opportunity. It was a important. When I moved up north, I saw an opportunity. It was a leadership opportunity through the district office.

Denise Shillinglaw:

Back in those days a lot of the curriculum consultant positions were still part of the district office and I had applied for a position there as an ESL, esd curriculum consultant and was blessed with the opportunity to work with a team. There were 10 of us in the curriculum team and we worked all across the Kimberley, worked on the ESL band scales project. We did a lot of work on two-way in schools with the development of first language and culture and then using the code, switching stairway to code switch Aboriginal English and Creole into standard Australian English. So I was in the district office for five years doing that work and travelling around the Kimberley, which was one of the most amazing opportunities I've ever had and didn't really think about myself as a leader until several years into that role, when you know schools would consider you as a leading curriculum across you know a number of schools or a whole district and supporting principals in rolling out curriculum improvement programs and so on.

Jenny Cole:

Talk to me about what two-way teaching and learning looks like on the ground. What does it look like in a classroom or in a school with a significant Aboriginal population?

Denise Shillinglaw:

Well, first and foremost, the value of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander staff, whether it's a big school or whether it's a remote community school, those teams of people who are on the ground, working with families, supporting the students who are in the school.

Denise Shillinglaw:

The strength of that team is critical for the engagement of students, for the relationships to develop between the school and the community and the families in that community, but also the role of those staff in working together with teachers.

Denise Shillinglaw:

Now, the benefit of being an English teacher certainly over the past, I guess 15 or so years is that language is the number one and most obvious difference in the school environment where you're working with literacy mandates from you know the department.

Denise Shillinglaw:

You're trying to improve kids' confidence in reading and writing in a language that is actually different to the one that they speak at home, or the ones that they speak at home or in the community, which may include Aboriginal English, creole and one or more traditional languages as well.

Denise Shillinglaw:

So the complexity of linguistic backgrounds is really important and, again, you rely on your Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander staff to provide that information so that educators are understanding I guess not only the amazing capabilities of young people having so many languages and dialects behind them, but also what that means in a classroom context and being able to teach not only the basic interpersonal language skills, which is what we call BICS and CELP, and CELP being the Cognitive Academic Language Proficiency. So most kids from community, if they speak Aboriginal English and Creole, can function really well in interpersonal social environments, on the footy field or in the classroom per se. But obviously in high school the cognitive academic language demands become much more manifest and challenging. So and teaching teachers to be aware of that, so that the vocabulary of subject areas is explicitly taught.

Jenny Cole:

Yes, and I hadn't really thought about it like that. Um, and so if I was a new teacher or you have a new teacher in your department what's one of the first things that you would suggest they do when they were, say, planning their, their lessons, to accommodate the cognitive load of of those who are EALD?

Denise Shillinglaw:

Well, first thing, like most things in, I guess, anything that we're talking about these days to be most effective is developing relationships. So I mentioned the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander staff. So a new staff member, I would say to them this team of people are your number one allies, I suppose. Work with them, talk to them about who the students are in your class and they will be able to give you some of that profile stuff. And then, number two, develop the relationships with those students, those students, because those relationships will endear the students to you and you to them, so that everybody knows each other well enough to be able to work together. If those relationships are not sound, if they are superficial, the work is just very, very difficult. So relationships, relationships, relationships absolutely.

Jenny Cole:

We can't start ramming curriculum and content down kids throats. Until we understand and we have a relationship with them, they're just not going to learn. None of us learn if we don't think we're cared for um that's right I wonder if that's the, that's the nelson mandela princess diana, and I wonder if that's the Nelson Mandela Princess Diana. That's the link there. They made people feel like they were seen and cared for.

Denise Shillinglaw:

Indeed, and I think you know I've worked with a lot of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in the last 20 years. You know it's been such a privilege and I continue to work with very dear friends and their feedback constantly is you know, they want to be seen in the curriculum, they want to see themselves in the classroom, they want to see you learning about their culture. You know, because I think teaching and learning is a two-way street In terms of the role of teachers. We have to forget, well, not forget. We have to put aside the assumption that the only knowledge that is in the arena is what we give to young people. You know it is a reciprocal situation. There is so much to learn from young people, but also from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander colleagues. So, you know, I think that's the thing about leadership, isn't? It is about constantly learning and putting yourself in situations where you're broadening rather than narrowing your vision.

Jenny Cole:

I couldn't agree more. And you say that you've got a particular view on leadership, a circular leadership model. Do you want to talk us through that? Sure.

Denise Shillinglaw:

Sure, I think.

Denise Shillinglaw:

Coming back to Princess Diana, I think what enabled people or attracted people to her was this concept that she was like everybody else, even though she was dressed immaculately, you know, wearing very expensive jewellery, you know, I guess the appearance was superior, but her heart was in the right place and she was able to connect with people in ways that I think the rest of us goodness, you know, there's not many people who have that magic, who have that magic.

Denise Shillinglaw:

So I guess, for me, as a leader, I like to think of myself as leading from within, and that's what the circular model is. It's almost I was thinking about this the other day it's almost like I'm in camouflage and until somebody kind of says, right, who's the leader here? And I step forward, you know, you would think that hopefully you'd think I'm just one of the team, because I think you know that's what strong organisations are. The strength of the organisation is the team. Somebody does lead, yes, somebody does have the vision and enables, but I really do believe that unless you're part of the team as the leader, then there's the risk that you lose your people. So I think of myself as being in the camouflage, you know, invisible to some degree, or just blending in until such time as I need to make myself visible as the leader for whatever reason, and often that is to satisfy somebody else's idea of what the leader should be, which is interesting.

Jenny Cole:

Yes, it is interesting. Which is interesting? Yes, it is interesting. And so for new leaders, or those who might just be in team leader roles, um, I worry generally that they're very worried about being everybody's friend. You know, because they went from colleague to perhaps a leadership role and, if I'm hearing you right, you're not saying blend in and be one of the boys. You're saying be in there as a team member unless there's a sharp decision that needs to be made or a communication that needs to happen. It's not about just being one of them, it's actually about walking with them rather than above them. Have I got that right?

Denise Shillinglaw:

Correct. That's the hierarchical model. Above is always the hierarchical model and you know, the unilateral hand of power comes down and that's the boss, and there may be moments for that in leadership, but often that's not necessary if the team understands how the model works. You know, I think, about Kuzis and Posner, who talk about modelling the way, you know, and I think sometimes people think that modelling the way is about, you know, just leading in your own way and they have to follow the model that you're setting. But I think, coming back to the team, I think it's about modelling what it is to be part of this team, which more often than not is, you know, in terms of education, you teach well, you work very, very hard and sometimes I think you need to work harder than your team works in order to support them and model the way, model the expectations, model the behaviours, model the code of conduct, all of those sorts of things which I think are really really hard not hard things, but it's hard work to sustain that as middle managers, when you know you have a very long list of things that your team expects from you as well. But I think that realisation of decision making and responsibility means that you understand what is your mandate, but that doesn't stop you from being part of the team. In fact, it's probably even more important.

Denise Shillinglaw:

I watched a few of those episodes. You know the Undercover Boss programs, which I think are just amazing because all of a sudden, people who are away from the arena are stepping back into and these are hierarchical models, of course stepping back to the lowest or lower parts of the organization and having these realizations about people, their own people. So it shouldn't be a surprise to us that we need to be, we need to be part of the team. You know we need to be spending time with the cleaner. We need to be spending time with all the people who, in the hierarchical sense, some leaders have moved on from.

Jenny Cole:

There's some research that says the. It actually says the more money we get. So that generally means the further up the chain we are, the less empathy we have for those below us. Again, in a hierarchical model or just if we're talking about wages and I like the fact that if you're not in with your team, camouflaged and modelling all the expectations and doing the things that need to be done alongside them, you're doing your role, they're doing theirs, but you're doing them alongside them then we maintain that empathy, we maintain that connection, we maintain that ability to see what's important for them.

Denise Shillinglaw:

That's right.

Denise Shillinglaw:

That's what I feel, and I think what I've found is that your team ends up being more people than you started with, which is a gift, because then you're finding that you're leading other people, and then you're leading people to be leaders, and then you're leading people to connect with other people and empower others and, you know, put other people on the stage.

Denise Shillinglaw:

You know. So I think that's certainly something that I've learned from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people is that, you know, in Western culture, we tend to pursue leadership for its own gain, for our own personal benefit, for promotion and so on for its own gain, for our own personal benefit, for promotion and so on. But leadership really should be enabling those who are behind us or with less power, enabling them to come forward and developing them and enabling them to pursue whatever it is that their dreams and vision is for their life or their family or whatever the case may be. So I think that the understanding of power and influence is critical when you're working, I believe, not only in the two-way space, but in life in general, because there is chronic abuse of power and influence all over the country, all over the world, and to me that's not leadership, that's tyranny.

Jenny Cole:

Yes, yes, it's very easy to see it as leadership, because you started with. You know leaders have charisma and influence, but it's about getting that balance right. Too much charisma and too much influence and and we get what we're seeing in the world at the moment. But leaders need a certain amount of charisma and confidence and influence to get people on board. And once they're on board and in your team I'm hearing you say let them shine, let them do what it is, let them lead, even from a teacher or an education assistant or an AEO role. Let them shine. What are some of the strategies you use or some of the ways that you promote leadership from within? What does some of your team do that might be considered leadership? What does some of your team?

Denise Shillinglaw:

do that might be considered leadership. Look, I've always thought of our time, our tenure as leaders. It's a little bit about legacy but it's more about sustainability, I think, because we're not all going to be in the same place forever. So, in terms of establishing processes, we have some fairly embedded processes now in the faculty where you know people lead moderation, for example. So if they're, you know, leading the year 11 program or the year 11 ATAR program, then they will run and organize samples and things and facilitate the group to do some, some moderation. And that happens at every year level year 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12.

Denise Shillinglaw:

So we've always got teams of people working together to benefit the faculty, to assert expectations, to collect samples which become resources. We work together in designing programs. So again, there's opportunity for people to trial things, to experiment with things, to report back on things, which I think makes teaching and learning really interesting, because you know, english again is the kind of subject that you can do anything with, provided you're achieving, you know, the outcomes that are listed as part of the curriculum. So we are blessed with the flexibility to plan, design, deliver courses which really cater to the needs of whatever that group or cohort are, and the scope for autonomy and experimentation and innovation is really really quite broad and I think that's what excites teachers when they have that autonomy and creativity and then everybody's very excited and you support that process. So a lot of the time that's just being led, because those are the processes that are embedded in the team.

Jenny Cole:

That's absolutely gorgeous and I was going to say and so what's your role in that? And your role is to support. What does support look like? If you're leading that fabulous collaboration and sharing and design process, what are you doing?

Denise Shillinglaw:

Yeah, just the little behind the scenes stuff. This is the camouflage. So you know people are busy, teachers are so busy. So I see my role as you know, keeping track of what needs to happen, what hasn't quite happened yet, or, you know, we might be a little bit late here with this assessment, or, you know, planning for the exams or whatever the case may be. So my role is just to make sure that everything is just clicking along nicely and to remember and prompt if people have become overwhelmed or if someone's sick or whatever. So then I just need to nudge things into place.

Denise Shillinglaw:

So that's certainly not, you know, the whole coming in and running everything or taking over, but it's also, I think, good leaders keeping in touch with their people, touching base, you know. So how's that going with that course? You know what's happening with that student, because I know you were concerned about them a couple of weeks ago and that takes an awful lot of you know, finger on the pulse, energy and knowing your team, knowing their priorities, knowing what they're trying to achieve with the different groups they're working with. And look, I'm not saying it's 100% all the time, but again, if you have mostly solid processes, then those things are just checks and balances along the way, um, and if you, if you have to uh, prompt or um, intervene to to get someone else to lead um, you know that's what I see. My responsibility is in yeah, fantastic.

Jenny Cole:

I know that we share a love of Brené brown, particularly her work in Dare to Lead and Atlas of the Heart. How do you bring Brené's work into your role and what are some of the perhaps the key messages from that work that you might share with new or aspiring leaders?

Denise Shillinglaw:

Brene is extraordinary. You know again another female leader who thinks outside of the square and in leadership I think about innovation a lot, you know, rather than just kind of reproducing what the previous person or group of people have done. I think true leaders are those who are innovate, who innovate and who are on the cutting edge of doing things better and doing things differently, certainly if they don't work. So, you know, I love using that word reverence from the heart, because I, you know, I revere Brene Brown probably as much as I do Princess Diana and quite a few other people. So I've read a lot of her work. But Atlas of the Heart is the book for me that is pivotal for the next, I would say, 20 to 50 years. I think it's an amazing book about those 86 emotions and it's also an amazing book for leaders, who you know. Just about every text we read or every pd we do on leadership is talking about emotional intelligence. Um, but I don't actually think we've ever gone into the emotions with the level of integrity that she has. So all of a sudden we have a vocabulary and a manifesto of what this means then to be emotionally intelligent in a leadership space. So personally, it's been an amazing text. So personally it's been an amazing text what we have decided to do in our faculty because we're seeing so much anxiety in young people. You know I was thinking about how do we translate the contents of what this book gives us into enabling young people to be the best possible communicators that they can be, given the high levels of depression and anxiety and mental health that we are coming across and I mean we as educators today, so not just in our town or Western Australia or Australia. This is a manifest issue worldwide and I'm reading a lot of that in the UNESCO documents that are coming out at the moment. It's also obviously affecting teachers, because teachers are leaving by the droves, as you know. So my staff have all got a set of the emotions. I've bought multiple copies of the book for the team.

Denise Shillinglaw:

We're slowly moving through how we can start to integrate the teaching of these emotions into our courses over the next few years. It's a big job and I'm not expecting it to happen overnight. So we're slowly developing some resources. We're slowly trying to put some, I guess, concrete activities into our courses, because if we as adults haven't quite got a handle on all of these very complex emotions, then I dare say that most young people don't either.

Denise Shillinglaw:

So I guess what we want to see in the next few years is that students are coming out of school knowing more than that, you know mad, sad, glad, bad, um I can't remember the fifth one, so you know if we're talking about, you know, envy and jealousy and frustration, and reverence and awe and all of these things, yeah, of course, that are, um, that could be simultaneous in a 15-year-old who's you know, having some issues with their friendship group. Then I think we've got a better chance of empowering them to communicate with each other, with themselves, identify. Oh, I'm feeling all those things right now. Is that okay? Yes, it's fine, it's human.

Denise Shillinglaw:

So I think, you know, this is our next kind of bit of innovation that we're trialling and we're trying to see how useful it will be, not only to us as educators, but also to those students who in a few years you know, five to ten years are going to be parents themselves. So you know, we're always thinking of this bigger picture of these young people who are children when we first see them, they're teenagers, young adults by the time they leave us and in a few years they're adults. For example, I saw two students this morning in town. One's 24, she's just finished her master's degree and has got a job interview this afternoon and I was absolutely thrilled for her because, you know, she almost dropped out of my ATAR class in year 11, but you know, she's just an incredible young person, person. Wow, you know these, these are the visions that you're you're trying to keep in your mind that this is not the the you know today and tomorrow. This is the investment for the future yes, we're producing adults, citizens.

Jenny Cole:

We're not. You know, we're not producing necessarily university entrants or 18-year-olds. I love what you're trying to achieve with the emotions. I'd really be fascinated to keep touching base with you about that. I often say in workshops if people have been in my workshops they'll hear me say I had no idea that emotions were called feelings, because you felt them in your body. I was 37 when I discovered that that's far too late to understand emotions and we just don't have the words for it. If we can't name it, we can't do something about it. So that's such a legacy that you're leaving those. Those students and hopefully the staff that work with them too, are learning, as they're teaching about how to, to name and perhaps even regulate their own emotions.

Jenny Cole:

How exciting absolutely, thank you it's all about being comfortable with the uncomfortable, isn't it? That's um thatne again. Absolutely, something that we all have to do in leadership and in life is just get comfortable with the uncomfortable. If you had some advice just general advice to a newer aspiring leader, what might you say? Or if you had some advice from someone that was very wise early in your career, what did they tell you?

Denise Shillinglaw:

I think advice for young leaders is humility. What goes with that is reading, reading and talking to people, because no one ever expects you to know everything. That's a given. But as long as you have got that mindset of always learning and open to learning is listening and reading, because I think it takes too long to learn by doing in a leadership role and when you're leading people, they expect you to be on top of things and across everything.

Denise Shillinglaw:

So if we're experiencing whatever issue in our school, then the expectation is that we as the leaders understand what that means beyond our school and then what's happening out there. That should help us back here, and I find that without that set of reading or research, then things don't change back here and you can't be innovative, you can't be visionary and you can't be innovative, you can't be visionary, you can't shift and adapt and change with trends and issues if we're not going beyond this. So reading and research and listening to others and looking out to be able to bring that back is so important. Otherwise, you know the trap is that you'll just end up doing the same thing over and over again and we all know that that doesn't work in education.

Jenny Cole:

I know We've been plenty of years of doing the same thing over and over again. That's fabulous advice Read, look outward, gather as much information and research as you can. People will forgive you as a new leader if you make a mistake. They don't they, you know. They know that you're human and that you can't know everything, but you're right. They are expecting that you will have the answer, and the more widely you've read, the more likely you are to be able to come up with an answer. I love that we're going to finish off, and this is the question that I thought I might ask you at the beginning, but I thought it was a bit rude to do so. Leadership is it a marathon or a sprint? And, importantly, how can we make it feel a little bit more like a brisk walk? You don't have to answer that, but it's a wellbeing question. How do you keep yourself well and happy in a really busy job?

Denise Shillinglaw:

It is a really busy job. It is a really busy job and the expectations seem to increase every year that I do it, and I'm sure other middle leaders would say the same thing. So it absolutely is a marathon and a marathon that never ends. But, like training for a marathon, you have to keep well, you have to be very disciplined and, you know, I think those two things go hand in hand. That's why I have, you know, those marathons listed on my CV, because I think they are indicative of those qualities of leadership which is about perseverance and discipline and having a goal and doing everything that you can to achieve that goal in a positive way, in in a positive way. And I think having a disciplined life also helps you to manage the balance, because I see where people's workloads become out of control and we've all been there it's become out of control and then it completely takes over their life. And I know there's times in my year, every year, where I get to that point and I have to rein it all back in Because, once out of control, very difficult to bring it back in control. But all those things that come with having a disciplined life, you know nutrition, sleep, obviously, exercise you know all those things we all know but we don't all do when you have those key ingredients. That's, I think, what keeps you on.

Denise Shillinglaw:

Essentially the straight and narrow and I think that's the same with leadership is that you there's no quick and fast way, and I do see a lot of young people straight into teaching classroom for five minutes and then they want the leadership role and you know they just want to climb the ladder and move back to hierarchical structures that are ineffective in my view.

Denise Shillinglaw:

So that's not disciplined, that's the sprint, and if there's no training from that sprint, you're probably going to do a hammy on the way through. So I think you know that the perseverance and the integrity of marathon training is that you can't bluff it because it will make you pay. So you know. In closing, I think you know those are the qualities. You're very humble when you're out at 5 o'clock in the morning and you've got 30k's ahead of you. You know no one else needs to know that, because it's for you. And I think the thing about leadership is you developing yourself as a person, as a learner, as a listener, as someone paying attention and understanding your place in the world, even if that world is your school or your family or whatever it is, and thinking about how you can bring those qualities out in somebody else. So you're always modelling the way. You're always modelling the way.

Jenny Cole:

I'm not one for sporting analogies, but that was absolutely beautiful in that if we're not fit, if you're not disciplined, if we're not ready, then neither the marathon nor the leadership journey is going to work. So thank you so much, Denise, for sharing your wisdom with us. We are going to make sure that your contact details are in the show notes and some of the interesting information you've shared with me in your CV. I'll make sure that that's available to people. So thank you very much for joining me and for those listening. I shall be in the same spot next week, Thank you so much, Jenny.

Denise Shillinglaw:

Have a great day.