Introduction
For me, the answer to this question for the 21st century lies in school leaders sharing leadership, trusting their teachers and building relationships based on openness, support, and negotiation. By grasping the notion that knowledge is spread throughout the school, including students who are able to teach their often elderly teachers a thing or two about ICT, leaders will commit themselves to the leadership of the many. They will encourage their teachers to be leaders in their classrooms and in their teams. They will minimise the distinction between the leaders and followers, and depending on the context, acknowledge that these roles may be reversed.
But leadership is a highly contestable concept, always has been and, I hope, always will be.
What follows is a miscellany of suggestions that may be useful in guiding aspirant leaders towards their own leadership journey.
‘A to Z’ suggestions for school leaders wishing to encourage members of their staff to embark on the leadership journey.
A – Active listening. Model the use of active listening. Listening to the concerns, interests, values and hopes of others in the school, may lead to some deciding to take up the leadership challenge. The skills of active listening are described by Thomas Gordon and Richard Farson here.
A – Adult ego state. Model the use of what Eric Berne identified as the Adult Ego state, particularly when dealing with conflict situations and explain its importance to all staff in dealing with challenging colleagues, students and parents. When in the Adult Ego state reasoning is to the fore. The Adult Ego state processes emotive responses, our own and others, but allows us to continue to think clearly and responsibly. When we ‘hook’ the other person’s Adult Ego state, problems are more readily solved and decisions made. Learning to resist the temptation to respond to challenges in the parent or child ego states will be a valuable resource for anyone considering the LC. It will help them realise that they have the capacity to deal with difficult people and to manage conflict. Read about psychiatrist Berne’s legacy here.
B – Benefit to students: how do students benefit? In these complex times, focussing on this overarching question in the midst of the hurly burly of policy, politics and change, may encourage the would-be-leader. Of course, those who take up the leadership challenge soon discover that what is best for students is highly contestable.
C – Change theory. Speak and write about change and model how to bring it about in the school. Encourage those who may be drawn to the leadership challenge to do likewise. Explain the connection between change and leadership. Also, remind potential leaders that teachers, on the whole, only really believe in a change process when they see it is beneficial to their students’ achievement, engagement or wellbeing. So keep the focus of change efforts on teaching and learning. Encourage them to systematically research change efforts in their own classrooms and in their other areas of responsibility.
D – Develop norms that support aspirant leaders. With so many school administrators belonging to the baby boomer generation soon to retire, there is a great opportunity for school leaders to develop positive perceptions of the leadership challenge among members of Generation X. The vacancies will be there but what about the applicants? Creating a culture that values learning for leading could do much to support and sustain the efforts of those considering leaving the comfort of the faculty office and staffroom to tackle the leadership challenge.
E – Educational platform. By articulating what they stand for, leaders will encourage others to do likewise. Leaders’ narratives of what the school has achieved and what it could become may encourage others to take up the leadership challenge. But the most powerful stories would be about what helps students because they will strike the chord that will move the listener (or reader) towards the leadership challenge. Elliot Washor is a school leader who is magnificent at this on topics from literacy to school redesign.
Potential leaders need to know their educational philosophy on numerous aspects of school life before they will be ready to hold a principal class position. School leaders should challenge others to clarify their educational values on matters of pedagogy, decision-making, professionalism, and student welfare and discipline, to help them prepare to lead.
F – Feelings matter. Dr Brenda Beatty’s paper Emotion Matters in Educational Leadership has, as a sub-heading, an aphorism that concludes with these words:
‘People will never forget how you made them feel.’
If this is true, it is not so much what the leader says or does that will empower staff members to take up the leadership challenge, it is whether or not the leader makes them feel that they have the potential to succeed in a promotion position. Leaders’ emotional intelligence may be the key to whether or not they are able to make meaningful contact with staff over the leadership challenge and communicate their support and confidence in aspiring leaders to help them to find the courage to embark on their own leadership journey.
G – Growth. A quality leader will be concerned with the growth in learning, character, creativity and leadership of all staff and students and will endeavour to create opportunities for all to develop their leadership capacity. Challenges should permeate the school as invitations to lead and take action.
H – Humour. I looked at the index pages of a few books on educational leadership and not one had an entry for ‘humour’. It is a much overlooked topic in educational administration. This is unfortunate. If leaders can respond with humour, not take themselves too seriously, they will encourage members of staff to see leadership as a possibility. Members of a school staff grant their leaders legitimate power (by virtue of their position) and expect them to display expert power (be knowledgeable about educational and administrative matters). A leader who has the sense that they are sufficiently competent to risk humour is, in fact, enhancing these bases of power, and encouraging others to see the human side of leadership and perhaps increase the chance that they may embrace the leadership challenge. So, show the aspirant leaders in the school, that laughing with others and at oneself helps gain loyalty and commitment.
I – Imagination. Encourage all staff to imagine the schools of 2020 that they would wish for all the children of the world. Those ready for the leadership challenge are likely to think long and hard about what action needs to be taken to turn such dreams into reality.
J – Job Satisfaction. What type of principal is most likely to encourage others to take the leadership challenge? There are principals who present themselves to others as carrying the weight of the world on their shoulders. Michael Fullan wrote about them in the early nineties in terms of overload as a result of ever-increasing expectations of the role of the principal. Perhaps many still feel overload but Professor Brian Caldwell in the 2006 Spring Edition of Leadership in Focus reported that some school leaders find their work exhilarating. It is likely that principals who are able to present themselves as being up in mood much of the time and who communicate genuine job satisfaction will encourage others to develop the ambition to take on the leadership challenge.
K – Knowledge & Skills Base. Encourage aspirant leaders to systematically audit the knowledge and skills that their training, experience, and ongoing professional learning have provided them. Then compare the base to what is expected of a 21st school leader to identify knowledge and skills gaps. Help them prepare a plan to fill the gaps and to access the opportunities to learn what they need to learn.
L – Learning to Lead. Help the aspirant leader to learn how to be active, rather than passive in their roles. Be the driving force for improvement that they can model themselves on. Both listen to and play a part in the broader community, fighting for what is best, as you see it, for students to model for the next generation of leaders the breadth of influence the school leader can exercise. Show aspirant leaders that leadership, like most things, can be learnt.
M – Mentoring for the leadership challenge. Make it known to everyone on staff that you are always willing to take on the role of a leadership mentor, if asked.
N – Needs. Work-life balance is a topic that a leader should be happy to discuss with aspirant leaders. I suggest that aspirant leaders consider whether they will be able to meet all their needs and all that is required of them in their life worlds and work life if they were to apply successfully for a school leadership position. How many hours a week are they prepared to work or are able to work? What about the weekend? How many evening meetings? Expectations vary immensely. Tell the aspirant leader: ‘Know your bottom line’ so that they only take on roles which allow them to meet their needs and their responsibilities within work and beyond it.
O – Overcoming the Leadership Cringe Syndrome (LCS). ‘Apply for a principal class position - who me?’ The antecedents of the Leadership Cringe Syndrome may go back to our convict past. Whatever the cause, the ‘us’ versus ‘them’ approach is quite deeply entrenched in the culture of many schools. In these places, taking on the leadership challenge can be interpreted as betrayal or desertion – going to the dark side. The once solid identity of the about-to-become aspirant leader is suddenly friable. To counter LCS, leaders should create diverse opportunities for staff members who are not part of the leadership hierarchy to work alongside those who are on important improvement projects. This will break down the dependence on the comfort of the staffroom or faculty office and make it easier to consider the leadership challenge.
P – Power. School leaders in the 21st century who choose to exercise power with and through their followers are most likely to influence others to take up the leadership challenge. Encourage all staff to think about how they can maximise all five bases of social power identified by French and Raven nearly fifty years ago: coercive, legitimate, reward, expert, referent. Start with analysis of leadership in the classroom and then scale the discussion up to the level of the school to prepare for the leadership challenge, with special attention to referent or relationship power. Without a big pile of goodwill, not much that matters happens.
Q – Quality. Total Quality Management, Dr William Glasser’s Quality Schools and Langford International Inc. have in common the systematic pursuit of quality throughout the school. Leaders should challenge aspirant leaders to know where they stand on quality in all aspects of education and demonstrate their commitment to it.
R – Reading, ‘Riting (& Speaking). Encourage everyone to be a reader of professional literature, a writer for publications within the school and beyond both in print and online about programs, policies and events, and a speaker at parents and citizens clubs, community and service clubs, and conferences. These are invaluable in building the confidence needed for the leadership challenge. Involving staff in reviewing existing policies or writing new ones makes distributed leadership a reality.
S – Self-belief. Self-belief is needed to face the leadership challenge. By definition, self-belief comes from within and will be built on a range of life and career experiences. The leader can help provide the environment, challenges and support for aspirant leaders to demonstrate to others their emerging leader selves by credibly performing management and leadership roles.
T – Theory. I have met many educators who are put off by the notion of educational theory. Instead of a theory they say: ‘Give me a strategy. Give me something I can use on Friday after lunch’. These are reasonable requests but if aspirant leaders are stuck in the anti-theory mindset, do whatever necessary to persuade them that they will hamper their prospects if they cannot overcome this aversion. By one definition, a professional is someone who refers to a body of knowledge to make decisions. The body of knowledge available to school leaders is from research into what constitutes sound theory and effective practice in all aspects of education, but more specifically in educational administration including leadership. If they have the time to devote to it, encourage aspirant leaders to take on postgraduate study in some aspect of education they have a passion for.
U – Understanding the cultures of the schools. Organise visits to other schools for those who may wish to take-up the leadership challenge, particularly if they have been in their current school for more than a few years. If geography permits, form partnerships with schools that are different in some way from your own for staff to exchange visits. Such visits can provide a crash course in the nature and strength of a school culture and prepare aspirant leaders for immersing themselves in a new culture and commence understanding what a daunting task it is to change a school culture, should they need to.
V – Visibility - management by walking around. Be visible because management by walking around is a tried and true means to rich, informal communication and it may provide unexpected opportunities to prompt others to consider the leadership challenge.
W – Welcome. Feedback on decisions and behaviour, assistance in identifying strategies to solve problems and questions on your educational beliefs and values- invite them all. Modelling adult learning and involving everyone in organisational learning may lead others to the leadership challenge.
X – Theory X. What assumptions do aspirant leaders make about their fellow educators? Challenge them to respond to the assumptions about human nature in Douglas McGregor’s Theory X:
Y – Is for ‘you’. The leader could do well to remind aspirant leaders of the ancient wisdom of ‘Know thyself!’ To face the psychological challenges of leadership takes a robust sense of self and the resilience to come back from the inevitable set backs. I’d recommend they learn William Glasser’s Choice Theory or Albert Ellis’s Rational Emotive Therapy. They may be very useful during the approach to the leadership challenge and beyond.
Y – ‘Yes!’. That is the word that applicants want to hear from the selection panel. Assist aspirant leaders get short-listed and then to respond convincingly at interview by setting up structures within the school for providing detailed feedback on applications and on practice interviews. Offer to read applications and provide detailed feedback on them yourself and participate in mock interviews too. This is an opportunity for coaching that meets a need.
Z – The alphabet ends but the search for leadership that will make a difference for all students is unending.
Discuss presentationABOUT THE AUTHOR
Dr Ray Daniels is a former secondary school principal who is currently teaching at Springvale Secondary College, in Springvale, Victoria, Australia. He is also director of the Australia-wide education consultancy Learning Partners (www.raydaniels.com.au).