Educational Leadership

Developing Leadership is designed to defined the roles of leadership and how these roles affect organizational decision making. The primary focus will be to develop definitions around the essential elements of leadership within the dynamics of the school setting and how leadership becomes a pivotal force in effecting the learning outcome of the school. Leadership role of the school principal is about many things. At the top of the realm is how the school principal can portray him or her self in a leadership role that permeates a positive culture where individuals can be productive and function in a climate that is supportive. The leadership role of the principal in today’s schools is unlike the authoritative legal roles of the past.  This new role of authority exist on the principals ability to influence the behaviors of individuals to authorize actions of continuous school renewal from the ideas of what people believe is the purpose of educating students. The new leadership role that must be accomplished by the school principal is to focus on the culture of the school to achieve school improvement. In this blog I will explore the essential elements of leadership and demonstrate how these elements can be adapted to influence the school improvement process.

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The process of “Empowerment,” or articulating a vision for the future, is the first step in offsetting the lack of direction. It should be noted that Empowerment or vision statement development is not a stand-alone entity created by one for all others to follow. True empowerment is a shared commodity that belongs to all stakeholders. It is important to note here that a vision, once shared, can lead to common aspiration and a sense of connectedness among stakeholders.

A shared vision leads to common commitment.  A shared vision is not an idea; rather, it is a force of impressive power. It may be inspired by an idea, but once it goes further—if it is compelling enough to acquire the support of more than one person—then it is no longer an abstraction. Few forces in human affairs are as empowering as a shared vision. 

At its simplest level, a shared vision is the answer to the question, “What do we want to create?” Just as personal visions are pictures or images people carry in their heads and hearts, so too are shared visions pictures that people throughout the school carry because they reflect their own personal vision. Therefore, shared visions create a sense of community that permeates the school and gives purpose and meaning to diverse activities. Shared vision is vital for the learning school because it provides the focus and energy for learning. 

Strategy I of the Leadership model therefore means that a learning school cannot exist without a shared vision. Without a focus and commitment to some vision or goal that the stakeholders truly want to achieve, the forces supporting the status quo can overwhelm the forces supporting meaningful change. With shared vision, the stakeholders are more likely to expose their accustomed ways of thinking and redefine them in more cooperative and constructive terms, thereby recognizing personal and organizational shortcomings. Thus, developing a collective vision for the future of the learning school is the first strategy to a systematic design for successful implementation. In the next section, the reader will learn how to apply Strategy I, Empowerment, as a tool for bringing individuals with various personal competencies to share a clear focus and understanding of a school’s goals, objectives, and long-range aspirations.

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Successful school empowerment cannot occur in a learning school without first assessing whether the position of the vision is acceptable. Assessing positioning is the process of systematically evaluating the quality of the vision statement in order to determine how the goals of the program will be developed to support issues of school reform. Assessment of one’s position on the new vision is a process that requires collaboration and the development of trust. Trust is the lubrication that makes it possible for schools to work. Trust implies accountability, predictability, and reliability. It is what keeps schools humming—the glue that maintains educational integrity. In traditional settings of school reform, educational leaders do not take time to assess their position on reform issues even when these issues are mandated through state or federal laws. The typical response from educational leaders when asked why they must make these changes is, “It is out of our control” or “This is what the law requires of us.”

A second type of response to the question of why we have to change is to use new mandates as an excuse for developing policies that fit self-centered ideas on school reform. In each case, the educational leaders did not assess their position about why the school should change. This traditional approach to positioning limits the ability of others to participate and sets up boundaries that restrict the development of a learning school. The restrictive leadership approach leaves the stakeholders with the feeling that they should stay away from making decisions on their own, and it probably also inhibits them from acting on their own. Using the traditional approach, assessing a position would be that the leaders decide what needs to be done to improve the school and expect the stakeholders to be loyal to their requests.

Unfortunately, the results of this position are low trust, negative feelings and comments about school reform, and lack of commitment to school improvement. This example reiterates two very important reasons for stressing trust through positioning. The first has to do with educational integrity. A learning school can be compared to healthy individuals; in fact, it is analogous to a healthy identity. A school possesses a healthy structure when it has a clear sense of what it is and what it is to do. Therefore, educational integrity involves choosing a direction and staying with it. However, in order for a school to have integrity, it must have an identity, that is, a sense of what it is and what it is to do. The second reason behind the significance of positioning has to do with staying the course, that is, constancy. Effective leadership takes risks; it innovates, challenges, and changes the school’s culture. Innovation—any new idea—will most likely not be accepted at first, no matter how wonderful the idea may be. If everyone embraced the innovation, it might not be a true innovation. Innovation causes resistance to stiffen, defense to set in, opposition to form. It takes repeated attempts and endless demonstrations before innovation can be accepted and internalized by any school.

Assessing one’s positioning through ownership is a process in the  leadership model that allows for valuable input from all the stakeholders. Assessing the positioning of the school’s vision can provide insightful direction toward the establishment of future goals, can enhance the development of ownership, and can greatly improve the overall effectiveness of the schools program. In this component of the model, practitioners will be taken through a process for developing an assessment plan through assessment climate profiling. The assessment position through ownership involves two basic acts: gathering information so that decisions will be informed and supportable, and applying criteria to the available information in order to arrive at justifiable decisions. The assessment process should be implemented systematically and openly so that others can follow along and so that everyone can learn from the process. Information gained from the process will be transferred to the school’s strengths and weaknesses chart for final analysis and revisions. Once this has been accomplished, the principal will be ready to develop strategies for designing a learning school.

• Trust is the mechanism that makes it possible for learning schools to work.
• Trust implies accountability, predictability, and reliability.
• Relentless dedication engages trust.
• All innovators face the challenge of overcoming resistance to change.
• Resistance to change involves the achievement of voluntary commitment to shared values and beliefs.
• True leaders must assess the needs of their audience.
• The assessing function requires sensitivity to the needs of many of the stakeholders and a clear sense of the audience’s position.
• The leader is responsible for the set of ethics or norms that govern the behavior of the people in the school setting.

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In many school organizations, intoxicating rhetoric about visions and noble intentions usually abound, but without a strategy for communicating those ideas, nothing will be realized. Achieving success will require more than rhetoric; it will require the capacity to communicate a compelling image of a desired state of affairs, the kind of image that induces enthusiasm and commitment in others.

How do learning schools communicate their vision and future goals? How do they then get their stakeholders aligned behind those goals? Both of these questions have the same answer: through the management of meaning, that is, the mastery of communication. 

True organizational communicators must be able to “concretize” their ideas. They must articulate and define what was previously unsaid. They invent images, metaphors, blueprints, and models that bring their subjects to life. In short, they organize meaning for the members of their organizations. When Meaning through Communication is achieved in an organization, everyone is guided by a common interpretation because, in this context, the word meaning goes far beyond what is usually meant by communication. It has little to do with facts or knowing how to do things. Facts and knowing have to do with technique and methodology, which are useful but limiting. 

Concepts like “thinking” are emphatically closer to “meaning” than the concept of “knowing” is. Thinking prepares one for what is to be done or ought to be done. It challenges old conventions by suggesting new directions, new visions. The distinctive role of leadership is, therefore, the quest for “know-why” ahead of “know-how.” Put another way, leaders must first be problem finders (know-why) before they can be problem solvers (know-how). 

How do leaders know if a discovered problem or a creative idea is valuable? Reasoning and logic are not always the best way to evaluate creative solutions. So how are they recognized? Why do people align behind one solution, direction, or vision and not another? The answers to these questions are a part of the leadership process for developing the learning organization. Within Strategy III lies a communication process for the practitioner who seeks to ensure full collaboration of all stakeholders.

• Communication is the process used to build the actionable consensus that seems always to be needed if change is to occur.
• True, total agreement is impossible since people inevitably distort all communication in light of their own feelings, histories, priorities, and experiences.
• Seeking to achieve total agreement is likely to be counterproductive since it would take away from that most unique of human traits: the ability to modify an idea to fit with the circumstances as the individual uniquely perceives them.
• What is likely needed is agreement in broad terms on a change goal or target- “west” or “east”- and a deliberate attempt to leave all other qualifying details to be worked out later.
• Moreover, what really is needed to form a consensus is simply the illusion of an agreement with an actual change target/goal so diffuse as to be acceptable to all.

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Public schools have typically not viewed data driven dialogue as essential or appropriate. Each school, however, does present an image, whether planned or not, through its most important professional development programs – staff and students. A good data driven dialogue plan allows individuals to learn and apply their learning through both relevant and practical activities.

Data Driven Dialogue:

• Increases odds for achievement.
• Facilitates clear communications, good management.
• Organizes thoughts and ideas, eliminating forgetfulness.
• Provides a system for realizing long and short-range goals.
• Creates a true sense of accomplishment.
• Decreases stress caused by the unknown. 

Successful data driven facilitators implement a variety of the following planning strategies. They use both personal and professional knowledge about the school’s stakeholders such as What are their out-of-school interests? and What are their personal and professional goals?

1. They involve the learners in planning by asking for their ideas and then using as many of them as possible.
2. They show respect for individuals who contribute unaccepted advice by taking time to let them know why their ideas did not become part of the professional development program.
3. They use evaluation information to reassess needs by constantly monitoring what the individual has learned, integrated, and acted upon to determine the next most meaningful step in the learning process.
4. They help the stakeholders tie their individual needs to school and district goals. For example, an organizational context that supports individual growth is provided when faculty members collaborate to determine goals and the professional development activities necessary to meet the goals.
5. For many, the team building involved in creating data driven dialouges will greatly influence the perceptions and self-images of those involved in the organization and planning for future learning. 

Since the organizing and planning for learning is the last and most complex phase of the creation of data driven dialogue, I will attempt to resolve this complexity in the planning process by providing specific tools that can be used by leaders as facilitators to focus on the weaknesses of the learning school. After verifying the existence and nature of the performance gaps, other planning tools represented in this section of the data driven facilitators model can be used to produce solutions. Designed to reduce ambiguity by breaking the problem into smaller easier-to-understand components, the facilitator’s tools can be systematically and sequentially implemented. The data driven dialogue model will help facilitators to develop methods for transforming goals into a plan of action and for identifying the necessary strategies, resources, and timeframes needed for implementation of the plan.  

Finally, the data driven facilitator’s model includes a method for continuous evaluation of the plan as it is developed and as it unfolds. A continuing evaluation process is extremely important to an effective data driven dialogue because it provides an assurance of accountability among the stakeholders, an opportunity for making adjustments to the original plan if necessary, and a source of information as to the progress of the plan.  

• See Virtual Collaboration for Facilitating Data Driven Dialogue

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When one confronts a complex problem, such as school reform, the issue of priorities is not easily settled. A traditional solution to the dilemma of setting priorities for school reform is one that identifies and solves all the problematic features that surround the idea of school reform itself, but provides no strategic vision for addressing the issues at hand. For instance, recently in Oklahoma, House Bill 2728 was passed, which increased high school graduation requirements through the establishment of a two-tiered diploma system. The new graduation requirements allow students to pursue a Diploma of Distinction, which requires a more rigorous academic commitment. Those students who are unable to achieve at this higher academic level have to settle for second best. Many educators in Oklahoma predict that these “improvements” in one area will produce unintended negative consequences in others (e.g., increasing graduation requirements and developing a two-tiered diploma system without appropriate changes in assessment, curriculum, and instructional methods may increase the dropout rate).

In their zeal to meet the needs of the high-achieving segment of Oklahoma’s graduating students, the legislators failed to assess how the changes would affect the education of all graduating students.

The following scenario could be a possible outcome of this kind of situation. Oklahoma schools that once served all students by ensuring that they all received an equal opportunity for learning are now challenged to meet the new requirements, which are in conflict with their central beliefs. To offset the gap that has been created by the new legislation, teachers and administrators will spend much of their time discussing and implementing “quick-fix” methods for addressing the ill effects of the new reform bill. Consequently, they will have very little constructive time left to design and implement a strategic plan for actually solving the problem.

“School reform” legislation like the one described in this example is occurring throughout the United States, largely because serious questions are not being asked and reflected upon concerning how a school, as a learning school, can best meet the needs of all of its clients. To meet the challenge of mandated school reform issues, schools will need to realign their present visions by establishing new priorities that are linked to the new standards. This does not mean that schools must change their beliefs; however, they must examine how their present beliefs support the challenges of required change. If schools are to be viewed as learning schools, questions such as those listed below must be answered so that the schools’ stakeholders will begin to see, and be guided by, a common vision for the future.

• What is this school about?
• What is our image of learners?
• What makes us unique?
• How do we work together?
• How do the requirements of the individual school site align with the requirements of the state and the district?
• How do parents and the community fit into the picture?

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Schools are complex organizations that must be lead effectively if learning is expected to occur. This is a reminder that in most schools it is difficult for the school principal to control things directly. Still today after many years of refinement in the literature about the role the principal should portray in the school their exist those administrators who still believe that leadership is the art of standardization.

Leadership as the art of standardization is a way to control how individuals behave, think and act indirectly by standardizing the work they do. Those who practice the art of standardization rely on their ability to be direct supervisors and allow for the hierarchy to emphasis ways to delegate the school improvement process. This type of leadership has its bases from the old school of Fredric Taylor and decisions about school effectiveness is based on the anticipating the standardization of all teaching, learning, curricu­lum, assessment, and management.

The art of standardization encourages the development of instructional delivery systems in which measurable outcomes are identified and tightly aligned to a set curriculum and to specific methods of teach­ing. Once instructional delivery systems are in place, teachers are supervised to ensure that the approved curriculum and approved methods of teaching are being followed. Students are tested to ensure that the approved outcomes are achieved. But the railroad theory works clumsily at best. Many teachers and schools do not like being put into straightjackets. Teachers often complain of being subordinates and the community is left believing in the myths of public education.

To offset the art of standardization principals need to change their belief systems to counteract the hierarchical roles once anciently practiced in the old school of leadership.

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The ability of organizational leaders to perceive patterns of change and then use them to develop models for decision making can determine the success of the entire school. Decision-making models approach problem solving by using a sequential format to create a systematic plan for how to approach the problem and then designing a process in which the probable outcomes will be realized through successful implementation.  One definition of decision making that is useful to memorize is a quote from Chester Barnard’s principles of decision making.

• Do not decide questions that are not now pertinent
• Do not decide prematurely
• Do not make decisions that cannot be made effective
• Do not make decisions that others should make

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