A few months ago, I presented on the two concepts of Humility and Agility in Child Safeguarding at a conference here in Hong Kong. I’ve found both concepts provide value in my work in child protection.

With any given field, be it inclusive education, student wellbeing, or child protection, questions emerge through engagement. Questions such as “Why do I do this?” or “What would be the best way to do X?”

I find there are plenty of resources available on the what questions. For example, a quick search for “school safeguarding policy” turns up a number of Word and PDF documents ready for download.

A strong safeguarding policy is absolutely vital. It will describe the what, the why and the who. Policy tends not to focus on the how, as that factors into procedures and these are more likely to change (Page, 2016).

There is another how, which is closely linked with the why, on a personal level: “Why do I do the things I do, in the way that I do them?” (See also: Simon Sinek’s work1) Which is where my personal meditation on these two concepts of humility and agility originates.

Inspired by books such as Principles (Dalio, 2017), or You Need a Manifesto (Burgess-Auburn & Griffith, 2022), I’ve found it immensely helpful to try to capture your own internal compass in words. Dalio defines principles as follows: “Principles are concepts that can be applied over and over again in similar circumstances as distinct from narrow answers to specific questions. Every game has principles that successful players master to achieve winning results. So does life. Principles are ways of successfully dealing with the laws of nature or the laws of life.”

For me principles should be seen as foundational guideposts by which we make our decisions. In complex situations, going back to our core is helpful. Equally helpful for me is to maintain a humble mindset. With that in mind, let’s explore these two concepts, starting with humility.

Humility

I’ve adopted the definition from the APA Dictionary:

Humility: n. the quality of being humble, characterised by a low focus on the self, an accurate (not over- or underestimated) sense of one’s accomplishments and worth, and an acknowledgment of one’s limitations, imperfections, mistakes, gaps in knowledge, and so on. (APA Dictionary of Psychology, n.d.)

On a personal level, I have always admired excellent professionals who embody humility, and conversely I’ve always faced challenges when working with people on the opposite end of the spectrum.

I always seek to adopt humility as an attitude and employ it in my leadership style. This means I seek to act with personal humility, whilst promoting organisational humility. Both are significant. Working in an organisation where humility is not strived for can, in my experience, be risky. Power imbalances appear, blind spots emerge in organisational strategy and mistakes are treated harshly. Similarly, I’ve experienced the opposite, where mistakes are truly treated as learning opportunities and colleagues celebrate achievements, whilst striving for a collective sense of humility.

Keeping each other humble within the workplace then, is an important act to prevent us from becoming too sure of ourselves, too cocky, perhaps, too arrogant. It serves the purpose of keeping us sharp. We can absolutely celebrate each other’s successes, but must remain vigilant to not let them influence our perception and judgment of each other.

Agility

Agile thinking entered the collective work field back in 2001, with the introduction of the Agile Manifesto (Beck et al., 2001). Whilst originally conceived to help restructure the field of software development, the 12 principles have since been adopted in many different fields. It’s led to the introduction of productivity approaches such as scrum or kanban boards.

In my work in education I’ve always felt that school development should be more of an iterative process, one which is never truly finished in an ever-changing world. When I came across these 12 agile principles, I adapted them specifically to my work in safeguarding and child protection. To help you do the same, I’ve compiled a list of reflective questions below, with an easy-to-use PDF download that captures all key questions.

It’s in the interplay

The download available below + the questions raised can be viewed in isolation, but they become more powerful as a reflective discussion when connecting them together. For example, are the principles of frequent delivery and promoting collaboration visible across all parts of our community, including our parents/caregivers?

I found that the 12 principles of Agile only required very mild modification to principles 1 and 9 to fit the educational safeguarding context:

  1. Student Safety: Is student safety the paramount consideration in all processes?
  2. Changing Requirements: Are all our procedures and policies up to date with all (legal) requirements?
  3. Frequent Delivery: Do we clearly and effectively deliver interventions and support in safeguarding matters?
  4. Promoting Collaboration: Can we showcase collaborative efforts, in our school and with the wider community?
  5. Motivated Individuals: Are all staff motivated to take on their safeguarding responsibility?
  6. Face to Face Meetings: Do we prioritise regular face to face meetings between safeguarding staff in school?
  7. Maintain a Constant Pace: Do we regularly provide training, using a variety of delivery methods, to a variety of groups?
  8. Measure Progress: What tools do we use to measure progress in our safeguarding developments?
  9. Professional Excellence: Are all our staff (incl. leads) trained to the best of our ability?
  10. Simplicity: Have we regularly reviewed our procedures and tools to be as simple as possible?
  11. Self-organised Teams: Is our safeguarding team empowered to organise themselves based on need?
  12. Continuous Improvement: Do we continuously engage in activities to help us improve our preventative and responsive actions?

Download the brief self-assessment tool here

Closing thoughts on school culture

I could’ve written much more on the value of humility in school culture, and may do so in the future. For now, I think it’s important to recognise that both concepts of humility and agility very much feed into school culture.

John Amaechi (2021) defines culture as a visible manifestation of the choices and decisions made every day in the workplace: “Culture is the accumulation of millions of choices made by each colleague. People make choices. And those choices make culture. People don’t like to believe that culture can be defined…”

With this definition in mind, culture is no longer this nebulous thing that is hard to define. Yes, we all instinctively have gut feelings when it comes to the workplace. In seeking to make cultural changes, Amaechi’s definition helps us to put change into action. In short: stay humble, be agile. Good luck!

References

Amaechi, J. (2021). The promises of giants: How YOU can fill the leadership void. Nicholas Brealey Publishing.
APA Dictionary of Psychology. (n.d.). https://dictionary.apa.org/.
Beck, K., Beedle, M., Bennekum van, A., Cockburn, A., Cunningham, W., Fowler, M., Grenning, J., Highsmith, J., Hunt, A., Jeffries, Kern, J., Marick, B., Martin, R. C., Mellor, S., Schwaber, K., Sutherland, J., & Thomas, D. (2001). The Agile Manifesto. Agile Alliance.
Burgess-Auburn, C., & Griffith, R. (2022). You need a manifesto: How to craft your convictions and put them to work (First edition). Ten Speed Press.
Dalio, R. (2017). Principles. Simon & Schuster.
Page, S. (2016). Writing Effective and Successful Policies and Procedures.
Sinek, S. (2011). Start with why: How great leaders inspire everyone to take action. Portfolio Penguin.

  1. A topic Sinek has been exploring in-depth (2011) for over a decade.↩︎