and too‐often overlooked pre‐requisite to student success. As we navigate the unprecedented challenges facing education right now, Matt's practical wisdom will help all of us see and break through our self‐limiting ‘brick walls' so that we can be the leaders our students and teachers deserve.”
— Dacia Toll, founder and former CEO of Achievement First
“Matt's ingenious five‐square approach provides a practical way for everyday people like you and me to bring emotional intelligence up off the page as a concept and into our daily lives as parents, spouses, colleagues, leaders, coaches, and educators. Often what stands between us and actualizing our own capacity is a sound approach, a method by which we can again and again activate our own wherewithal and potential irrespective of the situations we find ourselves in. His years as a teacher, school administrator, leadership coach, and emotional intelligence practitioner have resulted in the practical wisdom and insight he has brilliantly weaved together and is sharing in this book. Matt's five‐square methodology will forever transform how you think of yourself, your students, and your own capacity to become an emotionally intelligent person and noble school leader!”
— Michele Nevarez, founder and creator of the Goleman EI suite of Coaching and Training
The Noble School Leader
The Five-Square Approach to Leading Schools with Emotional Intelligence
Matthew Taylor
Copyright © 2022 John Wiley & Sons. All rights reserved.
Jossey‐Bass
A Wiley Imprint
111 River St, Hoboken, NJ 07030
www.josseybass.com
Except as expressly noted below, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise, except as permitted under Section 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act, without either the prior written permission of the Publisher, or authorization through payment of the appropriate per‐copy fee to the Copyright Clearance Center, Inc., 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, phone +1 978 750 8400, fax +1 978 750 4470, or on the web at www.copyright.com. Requests to the Publisher for permission should be addressed to the Permissions Department, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030, phone + 1 201 748 6011, fax +1 201 748 6008, or online at www.wiley.com/go/permissions.
Certain pages from this book (except those for which reprint permission must be obtained from the primary sources) are designed for educational/training purposes and may be reproduced. These pages are designated by the appearance of copyright notices at the foot of the page. This free permission is restricted to limited customization of the DVD‐ROM materials for your organization and the paper reproduction of the materials for educational/training events. It does not allow for systematic or large‐scale reproduction, distribution (more than 100 copies per page, per year), transmission, electronic reproduction or inclusion in any publications offered for sale or used for commercial purposes—none of which may be done without prior written permission of the Publisher.
Limit of Liability/Disclaimer of Warranty: Although the publisher and author have used their best efforts in preparing this book, they make no representations or warranties with respect to the accuracy or completeness of the contents of this book and specifically disclaim any implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. No warranty may be created or extended by sales representatives or written sales materials. The advice and strategies contained herein may not be suitable for your situation. You should consult with a professional where appropriate. Neither the publisher nor authors shall be liable for any loss of profit or any other commercial damages, including but not limited to special, incidental, consequential, or other damages.
Jossey‐Bass books and products are available through most bookstores. To contact Jossey‐Bass directly, call our Customer Care Department within the U.S. at 800–956–7739, outside the U.S. at +1 317 572 3986, or fax +1 317 572 4002.
Wiley also publishes its books in a variety of electronic formats and by print‐on‐demand. Some material included with standard print versions of this book may not be included in e‐books or in print‐on‐demand. If this book refers to media such as a CD or DVD that is not included in the version you purchased, you may download this material at http://booksupport.wiley.com. For more information about Wiley products, visit www.wiley.com.
Library of Congress Cataloging‐in‐Publication Data is Available:
9781119762874 (Paperback)
9781119762867 (ePDF)
9781119762928 (ePub)
Cover Design: Paul Mccarthy
Cover Art: Courtesy of the Author
Introduction
This book is about a kind of leadership development that we haven't paid much attention to in the education sector. Every school leader experiences the need for this approach when they have been working hard to grow a technical leadership skill and inexplicably hit a brick wall. We double down on skill and knowledge building over time, and still there's no movement. As managers we begin to assume that our leaders may not have what it takes, or that there's some fixed trait that will keep them from getting there (they just have a low bar … their awareness is too low). As leaders we just can't figure out why we don't do something (delegate to our teammates, show vulnerability) that we deeply want to do. Or we assume that some competencies are just not our strengths and that we are fixed in certain ways (I will never be good at conflict. That's just the way I am.).
We've gotten increasingly good in our sector at technical leadership skill and knowledge building in the areas of instructional leadership, data practices, and building school‐based systems. But this brick‐wall phenomenon falls into a different category of leadership competency building that calls for a very different approach. We can't see the obstacles to growth because they are hidden inside of us—or below the surface—and they're very personal. So even when we are teaching and learning discrete skills, we're not getting to that level of figuring out the real obstacles. Practicing skills without figuring out a leader's inner obstacles is like riding a merry‐go‐round that never stops.
I have been obsessing about these brick‐wall leadership competencies for close to a decade now. Through hundreds of coaching and training sessions with school leaders across the leadership pipeline, I have built a development model based on Daniel Goleman's Emotional Intelligence (EI) theory. EI brings an essential lens to leadership development with its focus on self‐awareness, self‐management, and social awareness—what we need to know about ourselves and others before we ever engage them. In the book, I share how we have operationalized EI to create a common language and road map for building personal leadership competencies. My framework—The 5‐Square—is applicable across competencies and across all levels of the leadership pipeline. This book introduces the 5‐Square, takes readers on a guided tour for applying it to their personal leadership challenges, and provides practice opportunities to build those brick‐wall leadership competencies over time.
The leaders who have used my 5‐Square have experienced significant growth in competencies
