Professional Development - page 6

On 17 April 2021 Bob Dignen gave the workshop “Language to Leadership: A hands-on approach to soft skills and leadership development for ELT professionals”. Not only ELTABBers but around 50 trainers from various cities and ELTAs across Germany attended. What great networking online delivery gives us!

The main theme Bob imparted to us throughout the workshop was supporting leaders to deliver results. He wants us Business English Trainers to delve more into this area so that we, too, may assist our clients better in achieving this.

What makes a leader?

The first point of Bob’s agenda was the question: “Who leads?”

Bob gave us the following input before answering the question:
In the title of the workshop Language to Leadership, we see a reversed take on a book written by L. David Marquet, a submarine commander, entitled “Leadership is Language: The Hidden Power of What You Say and What You Don’t”.

Marquet explains the difference language can make. Understanding this can empower a team to make better decisions and to take greater ownership. This point of the book is the link for us as language trainers to the topic of leadership. (For more information on the author, check out this interview with Marquet).

As Watzlawick didn’t say

Bob then used a spin off from the famous axiom by psychotherapist Paul Watzlawick, “You cannot not communicate”. The idea is that humans communicate as soon as they perceive each other. From this it follows that every kind of interaction is communication.

You cannot not lead.

Bob Dignen

So according to Bob, the same can be said about leading: Just as “you cannot not communicate”, “you cannot not lead”. He wanted to impress upon us that we are all leaders; we need to acknowledge our leadership and individual responsibility as well as common and shared responsibility with others.

What is leadership then?

The next point on Bob’s agenda was: “What is leadership?” For pursuing this idea, Bob broke us up into groups for the following exercise. We were to choose an animal associated with leadership and think of three key characteristics. We then shared our choices in the break-out groups and then in the larger group. This was a good introduction to kicking around the concept of what is leadership.

This type of exercise is important when starting any new project. Clarifying what team members actually understand of the language used for the goal of a project can be crucial to the success of a process.

Afterwards, Bob defined leadership as a group of individuals going in the same direction.

A brief History of Leadership

We were given a quick historical overview of leadership concepts, including:

• ‘Great Man’ leadership based on a male military model such as Napoleon (19th century).
• Taylorism: a scientific form of management, practiced to run organisations more efficiently, e.g. assembly lines in the automotive industry (1920s).
• Jung-based psychological profiling of leadership (became the trend in the 1940s).
• Behavioural Leadership styles, analysed by Blake and Mouton or the DISC Profile based on four main personality profiles: dominance, influence, steadiness and conscientiousness (1950s).
• Situational Leadership, a model created by Hersy and Blanchard. This focuses on two factors – task behaviour and relationship behaviour (1960s).
• Servant Leadership, focuses on sharing power and putting the needs of employees first in order for people to develop and perform as highly as possible (introduced by Robert K. Greenleaf in the 1980s). This idea was initially not so successful but did later evolve into Scrum and Agile leadership.
• Transformational Leadership fostered by James V. Dowton and James MacGregor Burns, became the basis for change management in the globalised world. Such leaders are inspirational and can motivate and influence their followers (1990s).
• The next step, “Emotional Leadership”, as based on Daniel Goleman’s “Emotional Intelligence”, is being able to lead others who know more (2000s).

In the present age of globalisation and digitalisation, other new leadership models are emerging such as Ram Charan’s idea of A ‘Leadership Pipeline’ for leading teams, multiple departments, leading a group of leaders and the scope changes as people rise in an organisation. A series of videos can be found on YouTube.

Essentially all leadership comes down to feedback and realising it must be gathered again and again.

Different Types of Leaders and a Paradigm Shift

A new paradigm of leadership is presently emerging and it is not yet clear how this will evolve. Simon Western’s work “Leadership: A Critical Text” gives us three models (all of which may be operating parallel in the same organisation).

Leader as:

1. Controller – deference to power delivers results but the risk is alienating one’s team – may not be sustainable.
2. Therapist – psychological approach and coaching idea of being closer to the team and using personal development but the risk is neglecting dealing with complexity.
3. Messiah – personal approach – team and organisational leader producing an authoritarian system.

The fourth – emerging – paradigm features the Leader as Eco-Integrator. It is based on democracy and aligning networks of people. It also incorporates systems theory for managing complexities.

Another brand-new idea is remote leadership as given in the article “Leadership one year on: so remote, and yet so close” by Mark Dekan, CEO of Ringier Axel Spring Polska that appeared in the Polish version of Forbes magazine.

Thinking Globally – International Leadership

Bob’s next question was: “What about international leadership?” He spoke of looking at competence sets that deal with the global and the personal response to ambiguity, world markets, and inter-human dynamics.

Now we came to the more hands-on part of the workshop by Bob using a case study about Kai Bendix, General Manager of Nivea Beiersdorf in India, for investigating his next agenda point:

“What is good leadership?”

After viewing Kai operating in India we had to identify three challenges he had and what competencies he possessed when dealing with these. We did this in break-out groups and then gave feedback in the big group.

Suspense mounted – Bob showed us Kai’s prior experience in Bulgaria where he had been successful. After viewing the video about Kai being a Nivea managing director in Bulgaria, we formed breakout groups and analysed his challenges, his influencing strategies and the solutions he found.

• What does he do and why?
• Could this be carried over to his present challenges in India?

We discussed this again in the big group.
The third part of the case study was back to India and what Kai did in the end. We discussed whether this matched our expectations or if there was a twist we had not thought of.

The workshop ended with Bob posing the final point of his agenda:

“How do you feel about delivering leadership training?”

Final Thoughts about the Workshop

Many times throughout the workshop Bob encouraged us to evolve with him and feel more comfortable in dealing with leadership in our teaching and training.

We learned how complex international collaboration means taking action, finding solutions that comply with ethics and laws, being transparent, and managing loss of face. We saw how different forms of communication influence outcomes, and how to create trust and find the right balance in amalgamating conflicting cultures.

For those interested in becoming a Leadership Trainer, Bob has just the right training course for this
qualification and reminded us that higher fees can be charged in going in this direction. If interested, please contact him at bob.dignen@ilp.training.

About Bob

Bob Dignen is the Director of York Associates based in York, UK. He also founded his own organisation International Leadership Performance (ILP). His publications include Communicating in Business English (2003), Communicating across Cultures (2011), Communication for International Business: the Secrets of Excellent Interpersonal Skills – co-authored with Ian McMaster (2013).

Along with contributing to Business Spotlight and teaching at the Gdansk University of Technology, he is also cooperating with an interdisciplinary team who authored Three Pillars of Organisation and Leadership in Disruptive Times published by Springer International Publishing in their series Future of Business and Finance. (See this link for more information)

Suggested Reading

• Cialdini, Robert B. Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion (1984, 1994, 2007, 2016 Harper Collins).
• Dignen, Bob and McMaster, Ian. Collins Effective International Business Communication: Build yourInterpersonal Skills in English (2013).
• Dignen, Bob and Wollmann, Peter. Leading International Projects: Diverse Strategies for Project Success (2016).
• Goleman, Daniel. Emotional Intelligence (1996).
• Marquet, L. David. Leadership is Language: The Hidden Power of What You Say and What You Don’t (2020).
• Meyer, Erin. The Culture Map: Decoding How People Think. Lead and Get Things Done across Cultures (2016).
• Kahnemann, Daniel. Thinking Fast and Slow (2011).
• Western, Simon. Leadership: A Critical Text (2013).
• Sinclair, Annette and Agyeman, Barabra. Building Global Leadership: Strategies for Success (2004).

Being a freelance English teacher or trainer in Germany has its ups and downs. Shaun Trezise shares his tips on how to navigate and circumvent some of these. He also explains how you can have the best of both worlds – freelancing and permanent employment at the same time.

Teaching is – or should be – fun. New people, new conversations, new classes and even long-running ones that have stood the test of time…all of these lend a lot of variety to our day to day work lives. When it comes to the actual teaching I think most people reading this blog are pretty happy with their lot.

It’s a good job. But is it really a “job”? How many of us are employed by someone other than ourselves? I have to admit this is deeply unscientific but anecdotally it seems that in Berlin today, most English as a Foreign Language teachers are self-employed. Now is this through choice?

The Dreaded Red Tape

In some countries, working for yourself can mean lower tax bills and lower health insurance costs but I think most would agree that Germany is an outlier here. The German Pension Insurance office has hit too many English teachers here with large bills of two, three or four years of backdated payments to catch up on.

No holiday pay, no sick pay and limited government support in general if you end up with no clients for whatever reason. Not to mention the difficulty in tracking down a reliable tax advisor, which took me personally over two years.

Naturally, as educated, professional and informed workers, most of you know the pitfalls and costs and price your worth accordingly, but I’ll be honest and say I learned most of it the hard way. The three things that helped me the most, as a worker were:

1. Getting a reliable tax advisor, who knows how to use email
2. Joining a union, in my case GEW, for support, info and some specific employment insurances
3. Signing up to a workers’ cooperative for invoicing, payment guarantees and no more letters from the myriad German state insurances

The third point is the most recent, but I wish I had done it so much earlier. Last year was eventful to put it mildly, and my monthly income varied wildly. Trying to pay the correct amount to each office took time, effort and multiple phone calls, not to mention written correspondence. I did not particularly enjoy this period…

Becoming a Freelance Employee: Joining a Cooperative

…Then I remembered a talk given at an earlier ELTABB event from SmartDE, a workers’ cooperative. I booked an appointment and headed off to a seminar, before deciding that I thought it would be a good fit for me. Essentially, the cooperative employ you, and pay you based on your invoices.

In this case, you get a regular monthly salary, minus all your deductions for health, pension, social security etc. It means that the money that shows up in your bank account is yours to keep, and you don’t have to worry about who needs paying and when. They even manage your income tax.

Clearly there must be a catch. In this case that is a 7% fee to the non-profit organisation which essentially goes to keeping the lights on and everything running. It also funds your salary, in the case of late payment of invoices. They invoice your clients for you, and pay you at the end of the month regardless of whether the client has come through in time.

So what do you think? I’d like to hear about your experiences as a worker in ELT. Are you employed or self employed? Is that your choice? Would you change if you had the choice? Do you have any other suggestions for dealing with red tape and general work life as a teacher? Please feel free to leave a comment below if you have anything to add!

Also, you can find some more Berlin-specific tips for English teachers here.

If you like Shaun’s writing, be sure to check out his website and business Facebook page!

English Online Training – Website

English Online Training – Facebook

Many ESL professionals are passionate about the work they do – much less so about marketing themselves. At the last Inter ELTA Day, experienced solopreneur Christin Jönsson spilled the tea about effective and authentic personal branding. The good news: it’s not rocket science and it doesn’t have to be expensive.

In her talk, Christin started off by pointing out the obvious: you’re a passionate ESL teacher or trainer, but selling yourself isn’t something you care about in a big way. Because all you want is do a great job and make your clients happy.

Still, as a freelancer, you’re most likely a small fish in a big sea. What you do isn’t monumentally different from what your colleagues do – and that’s OK, of course. Nobody is expected to re-invent the ELT wheel.

However, this means that how you package your offer could be important if you want to be noticed and find work in a consistent manner.

How branding can help both you and your clients

As a solopreneur, having your own brand can go a long way towards attracting and building fruitful relationships with your clients. Here’s why:

A good brand will stand out and convey a message of professionalism and trust.

Authentic branding shows that you care and put in the hard work to make your business presentable. So in the mind of the customer, your offer will naturally look more attractive and, indeed, valuable. Just like beautiful wrapping paper makes a nice gift look even more precious.

In short, a good brand will stand out and convey a message of professionalism and trust. This will help your clients feel that they are making a good choice working with you. As a result, the collaboration will be more pleasant and successful.

Before building your brand, there are some things to consider: if your offer doesn’t speak to your target audience, your service may be overlooked. Also, if you are too vague about your values, you may attract the wrong clients.

Therefore, Christin recommended asking yourself the following questions:

• Who is my target audience?
• What exactly do I offer?
• What are the values that I’d like to represent?

As an example: your target audience could be international NGO representatives, your offer could be intercultural communication for the not-for-profit sector and your values could be building trust to foster cooperation and facilitate win-win-solutions.

To sum up, your brand reflects what you offer to whom and in what spirit.

So once you are clear about these key factors, what else do you need to build a brand that shines?

Little tweaks, BIG difference

Here are some tips from Christin that you can start implementing right away to increase professional credibility:

1. Having a professional email address (a no-brainer, really. For business purposes, your email address should contain your name or the name of your brand and have a recognizable ending, such as .com or .org). To  make the most of it, add more information about your business (links, logos…) to your email signature.
2. The name of your business. You don’t have to cook up something fancy, but it should feel authentic to you and relate to what you do.
3. Create something that represents your business visually. Most of us are visual beings, so having a visual anchor, such as a logo, will make a more memorable impression. You can put it on everything you use, so your clients will spot your brand at a glance.
4. Having your own website. OK, this is more than just a little tweak. But actually, it’s not as intimidating as it sounds. With all the inexpensive options and services out there, you can easily have your own landing page set up.
5. Little giveaways. Apart from promo materials such as brochures or business cards, think about everyday items, such as notepads, pens, calendars…just see to it that they are of good quality, because they represent your brand.

A closer look at the visuals: Logos, fonts and colors

A picture is worth a 1000 words… so while not manadatory, a logo is definitely nice to have. Potential clients will remember your brand and connect the dots of who you are and what you do at a glance.

A logo works best if it meets the following criteria:

1. it’s recognizable (simple and clear)
2. it has personality
3. it stands out from competitors

You can either buy a logo or use one of the free logo design makers out there (just beware of hidden charges). This can be a fun and creative DIY project – try out different icons, colors, fonts and shapes. Alternatively, just get the logo and pick your own colors and fonts with the help of Powerpoint and Microsoft Office. Fonts and colors matter, because they add aesthetics and meaning.

The font you pick must be free for commercial use, such as the Steiner font, which is also specifically designed for logos. You can just download and preview fonts at wordmark.it.

As your brand develops, tweak your logo from time to time to make sure it still represents you.
If you want, modifiy your logo and use different variants of it for different purposes.

Using images

Images are something you might want to use for your promo materials, such as flyers or brochures. To be on the safe side legally, you can buy stock photos from sites such as depositphotos.com or Shutterstock. If you have them done by a photographer, make sure you have the commercial rights. Of course, you can also use your own images.

For best quality, always make sure to get a big photo and adjust the size if necessary (if you try to enlarge a small image, it can easily become blurry).

Having your own website

Having your own landing page is a slightly bigger project than building a logo. However, with platforms like Squarespace or Wix you can set up your own page without coding skills – it’s basically copy and paste. Alternatively, you can pay a freelancer on Upwork to take care of your website.

If you live and work in Germany, please note that your website has to come with a legal notice and privacy statement (a well-versed freelancer should be able to get this done for you). Also, you will need to register as a small entrepreneur (“Kleinunternehmer”) at the chamber of commerce because your website serves a commercial purpose.

If this sounds overwhelming and you don’t want your own website (yet), a telling LinkedIn-profile and a digital business card are a solid alternative.

Last but not least: Tell a story

The last tip Christin had in store was the one about storytelling.

If you want to be remembered by the people you meet at events and conferences, witty banter and stories are the way to go. The reason for this is, again, that there are lots of people out there doing what you do.

That’s why telling a little story works so much better than just stating the facts.

To give you an example, here are two answers to the frequently asked question “What do you do?”

A: “I’m a business English trainer.”
B: “I help people make themselves heard in international business settings.”

Which of the two sounds more intriguing to you, and who would you rather chat to and have (virtual) lunch with?

While both replies are valid, the second one evokes much stronger images – you can almost see the clients at a fancy dinner table, discussing business matters.

Moreover, the second answer isn’t about a generic service (boring), but about solving a specific problem (interesting).

So the next time somebody asks you about your job, instead of giving a predictable answer try to describe what you do in one or two sentences (alternatively, try adding a sassy little tagline to your online profile and business card).

Final thoughts on authentic branding

While setting up your own personal brand may seem like a mammoth project, the info that Christin shared at the Inter ELTA day can help you get started in an easy way,  and at (almost) no cost.

Do you actually need your own brand if you already have a good network, social media profile and references? Of course not – if it works, it works.

But if you feel that you’d like to try personal branding, you can implement some of the tips from the article. Whether it’s creating your own digital business card, designing a logo or thinking of a little story to tell about yourself.

In the world of education, nobody wants to risk compromising the privacy of their students – whether in a public or private language school. Often, the teacher is held accountable by both parents and the school. This is where Mobile Device Management software shines by providing a user-friendly way to handle data protection in the digital classroom.

What do Google, Microsoft, SAP, Samsung and IBM have in common? Except for being tech and software giants, they, and many more, all use Mobile Device Management software (MDM).
MDM means securing, monitoring, managing and supporting mobile devices – smartphones, tablets and laptops – through software.

The whole industry has steady financial growth and growing importance in all parts of the world. In 2020, the MDM software industry was valued at about 3.5 billion dollars on a global level.

What’s the secret sauce here?

The answer is probably not too exciting – demand. That’s right, good old market demand for the type of software that could make the difference between a successful company and a scandal-ridden one. Millions or even billions could be lost if security is breached and clients’ data stolen or leaked.

What if…?

Let’s consider the following example: a medium-sized and family-owned marketing agency has around 100 employees. They are a reliable company with an impressive portfolio and some global players as their clients. One of the graphic designers, David, likes bowling and is a member of the local bowling club.

Great news! David’s team has made it to the regional bowling cup’s final tournament. The team takes a mini bus and goes on a weekend getaway to have fun and win the tournament.

You win some, you lose some. This time, they won. Super!

Fast forward: David comes to the office on Monday morning, wearing a freshly-printed T-shirt saying “Bowling Champion”. Everyone in his team is excited for him. After sharing a few stories, hard-working David returns to his desk.

Around 2 pm on the same day, the emails start pouring in. The majority of their customers from the last six months are emailing them to check their IT security system. Someone has hacked clients’ accounts using data the marketing company had access to. The company is rapidly bleeding client data. At that stage, it’s impossible to keep it a secret or to be discreet about it.

Their reputation as a reliable company is out the window for the most part.

Innocent actions – calamitous side effects

How did we get from bowling to a security breach? Relatively simple. When David was at the bowling center at the tournament, he logged onto a public Wi-Fi and that’s when things went sour.

A not-so-nice IT professional used the public Wi-Fi network to infect David’s laptop with a new type of malware. New is the key word here. All types of malware (viruses, trojan horses, spyware etc.) develop and transform very quickly. Thus, even with the best security software, it’s not possible to keep up with all the modifications and new versions out there.

These days, information is everything.

The bottom line is: every time someone logs onto a network, whether a free Wi-Fi Hotspot, home or office network, both sides are exposed to potential security issues or breaches. Perhaps even by no fault of their own. They could simply be a carrier for the malware – just like David was.

The example illustrates why numerous companies now use MDM software in order to protect themselves and their data. Because these days, information is everything. A company’s reputation can thus be damaged beyond repair in a matter of days.

Data Protection in Education

Similarly, in the world of education, nobody wants to risk compromising the privacy of their students; whether in a public or private language school. This is especially important when thinking about safeguarding the privacy of data when you have 25 minors in the classroom.

Therefore, MDM software plays an increasingly vital role in the classroom of the 21st century. Many US school districts already use it. A few obvious examples of schools’ uses are: preventing students from visiting distracting websites and content, serving as an additional layer of security and simultaneous management of multiple logged in users (students).

There is an extensive list of pros for using MDM software in education, whereas the cons list is getting shorter and shorter.
Using MDM software solutions typically has these advantages:

• Enhanced security
• Remote management
• Improved efficiency
• Achieving policy compliance

This kind of software is very much in use in the global market, so most big MDM names are already GDPR compliant or CCPA compliant and their product is readily available. In that sense, data protection is completely taken care of.

Good news: the teacher doesn’t need to do anything special.

So if we start thinking about what this means for the teacher, there is good news: the teacher doesn’t need to do anything special. Using MDM software means that the added layer of security is in place and teaching activities can get more time and attention.

MDM software brings many benefits. Anything from managing two devices to 100, the uniformity of using MDM software saves time while ensuring equal conditions for students.

What does all of this mean for your teaching?

The variety of situations in which MDM software may become the norm include, but are by no means limited to:

• public/private schools
• language schools
• universities
• companies
• one-on-one training/tutoring situations

We as teachers may not even be the ones using or administrating it, but we could find ourselves on the receiving end of it. For example, doing in-company training, you may need to connect to the company’s internal network for resource sharing. They will add your laptop or phone to their MDM software’s trusted device list and only then will you have access to their network.

MDM software is here to stay. In two years from now, we may not have a choice any more.

My best recommendation about this type of software is to try it. Take advantage of the fact that there are more and more companies making great MDM platforms. Most of them have the option of having a free account, a trial period or product demo. That is exactly what you want to do – register a free account and try using it now or at least this year because in two years from now, we may not have a choice any more.

Mobile Guardian is a company which focuses on education and covers schools in North America, Europe, the Middle East and the UK. You can find out more about it in this short video demo and this Mobile Guardian tutorial.