Am I being put on competency?

[PithyMauveZebra]

I’ve been working at a school for a while. Less than a year. The department is very very fractured. Not only that but I’m a strong personality and have snapped a couple of times at work because of the pressure.

I have had my manager tell me that one of the senior leaders is now stepping in for a few weeks to provide some support to me in the department and when I spoke to him, he talked about his experience and how he struggled as a hod when he did it years ago, working with fractured or tricky teams much like mine and so on and so fourth. I’ve found I’ve had a tricky relationship with my manager too.

I have spoken to a friend and now she’s saying be weary of competency. They might be going down that route. But I said surely they would have to mention that I need support or have targets given in my appraisal. Or can they start things like this? I’m a bit worried as to what’s going on?

When you say you have a "strong personality", but have "snapped a couple of times under pressure" within a "fractured team", can you give an example?

Have you been specifically hired to handle this "tricky" and "fractured" team?

Were you hired from elsewhere for this role?

Were you aware of how "tricky" the team was when you were hired?

So I’ve had some major health issues come up this year. One that’s being looked into.

snapped I mean, my manager is aggressive in meetings at times so I’ve ended up snapping and being sharp. For example, “x,y,z hasn’t been good enough and you need to be doing better” so I’ve said “ You need to stop speaking to me in that way please because I’ve got a lot of pressure and the way you’re saying this makes me feel as though I’m not doing my work correctly”

I. Terms of a fractured team, they don’t seem to want to get on board with any changes I’ve made. They seem to collude a lot and seem to present me as I’m making lots of changes etc. but a lot of it has been necessary changes.

You can't tell your manager to not give you feedback just because you're under pressure. That's not how things work.

If x,y,z isn’t good enough it’s your manager’s responsibility to tell you - they wouldn’t be doing their job if they didn’t. If they need to tell you then you haven’t been doing that part your work correctly. Is your health good enough to be working? Do you have unusual pressure or is it the same kinds of pressure as everyone else.

Why don’t your team want to get on board with your changes? Have you been on any leadership training? It sounds like they’re putting in support for you - embrace it and work with them closely.

You are in the wrong role. Likely they will extend your probationary period, which is presumably 1 year then put you on a PIP.

I agree with @ByQuaintAzureWasp in that it sounds like this isn't the role for you.

I don't think there's any way we can tell whether this is a formal measure. You need to ask them. Either way, this isn't a catastrophe if you want to keep the job. With luck the support will help. Best of luck.

Investigations around cancer. Manager has been quite forceful and I’ve tried to develop the department but it’s been unsupported the whole way.

It could well be the start of formal proceedings, yes. I’m sorry for your health issues but unfortunately these are a separate matter from work. If you need to be off sick then do so, otherwise it will be expected for you to be in work fully ‘functioning’. Changes are hard to implement in an established team, even relatively minor ones. Have you been on leadership courses? If not can you ask to go on one, identify it as your learning needs and be proactive in addressing it. What about supervision? Are you getting regular supervision? Is this documented? Have you had any training around supervision, both giving and receiving? Are you providing supervision to your team? From what you say the team sound quite disjointed, you need to take some accountability and be proactive in addressing issues. If you are being offered support take it gratefully, work with this support, not against them.

Does it sound like the start of formal processes? Can I also ask if things are going to be formalised? I have been to leadership courses. I’m only temporarily here then take on a subordinate role again

If I was in this situation with a team who weren’t onboard with changes I’d back up a bit and have some more conversations.
So, for example, before a team meeting I might ask everyone to think of one area of improvement for our team and three suggestions for how to improve it. I’d be clear that I wasn’t promising to implement everything, but that this was s discussion topic.
At the meeting I would let everyone talk and guage support for the ideas. I’d also bring one of my own (so on the same basis as everyone else) and let them discuss that too.
After the meeting I would implement any ideas which already matched my plan for change, crediting them to the team member that suggested them. Plus anything else which seemed sensible, logical and not wildly expensive.
I don’t work in education and I appreciate that time is a huge factor in teaching, but this sort of approach will bring your team together a bit more.

How have you gone about the changes though?

perhaps do done leadership research and look at leaderships styles - are you coming across at quite autocratic?

Yes it sounds like the beginning at least of a support plan. Perhaps speak to your union about the different stages of the process and when you would be entitled to have a union rep with you. Many schools aren't known for being great at following their own procedures correctly... Sorry about your health, it sounds like a tough time.

If this is a temporary role, perhaps the course of action would be to invite you back to your substantive role, rather than start formal capability proceedings, though of course it’s very difficult to tell. The thing that leaps out at me are that the changes you’ve made haven’t been well received, which to some degree is just human nature but on the other hand, recognising this, getting buy in before changes are made and supporting people to adapt after changes have been implemented are part of being a leader. I wonder if asking for support would reassure your manager that you are aware of gaps in your training, rather than resisting help.

Yes it does sound like the beginning, but informal so may not come to anything if they can see improvements. You can ask for it to be formalised but I’m not sure how that would benefit you at this point, it’s good they are doing it informally for now. What about your supervision? This is the chance to discuss things and have a written record of your performance and action plans for improvements / support needed.

But surely it seems pointless when there’s only 3 months left of the contract I’ve temporarily taken on to now offer support?

That's 3 months of a child's education so of course it isn't pointless. It's a 3rd of their academic year.

Are you in a teaching union? If so, contact them for advice.

It’s not the teaching aspect. It’s the management.

If what you are doing is affecting the team in an adverse way then yes it is worth it.

I will be as soon as they open

Competency isn’t a word. Competence is.

Competency is a word.

Competency is a word

https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/competency

www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/competency

None of us can tell you whether they're going to start a formal capability process. If you only have 3 months left on the contract, I would hazard a guess not - this may be more about damage limitation for the school.

Either way, while I understand that you've got health concerns etc going on in the background, I'm afraid your response to your manager was completely unreasonable. You can't just demand that they stop raising concerns about your performance - you need to actually engage with those concerns.

It's good that you're stepping down from the management role soon. Hopefully that will ease the pressure on everyone.