When I was first a headteacher, after a few weeks of SLT meetings, one of my colleagues – a good friend, and an AHT – said to me, “Blimey, you don’t half talk a lot in meetings!”. “Is it bad?” I said. “Yes, it’s pretty bad!”
Oh dear. Deep down I knew she was right. So – what to do? I knew I wouldn’t be any good at policying myself so we devised a process of rotating the chair – each week, a different member of the team took on the roll of chair for the meeting, running the agenda, keeping the timing and momentum going and, crucially, ensuring everyone had a say.
This included cutting people off if they went on too long, bringing in people who indicated they wanted to contribute and, ideally, inviting the silent people a chance to offer a view if they hadn’t yet voiced their ideas.
This worked brilliantly – I had my share of airtime but no more and everyone in the team gained from the experience of running the meetings. Plus, because a new person picked up the baton each week, the meetings always had fresh energy and a sense of doing thing properly without falling into lazy habits. I actually felt more liberated in terms of being able to have my say when I didn’t have to keep an eye on the clock and the agenda at the same time.
