Coaching leadership: towards a knowledge of practice
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Associate Professor Jan Robertson
University of Waikato
Hamilton, New Zealand |
‘Ehara taku toa i te toa takitahi.
Engari taku toa he toa takitini.'
‘Power does not belong to individuals alone.
It resides within the whole community.'
Effective educational leadership
Effective educational leadership is a collective, shared endeavour to improve educational experiences. All members of an educational institution can, and should, take up the responsibility to contribute to this. Leadership is seen, therefore, not as a status or position held, but a process that is evidenced by an energy and commitment to focus on shared goals and a shared vision for education.
Educational leadership is necessarily focused on learning and student achievement. Learning, which should be authentic and respectful of the individual learner (whether child or adult) and leadership that asks: ‘ Leadership of, and for, what?' (Starratt, 2004).
I believe that effective educational leadership is also about maximising potential – of ourselves, of others and of situations. In line with this, Duignan (2004a, p. 2) states that effective leaders ‘Influence self, others and each other to: attain worthwhile and agreed goals; engage in meaningful relationships to generate and live a shared vision; use scarce resources responsibly; and elevate the human spirit through actions and interactions that are ethical, moral and compassionate'. Perhaps most importantly, within effective educational leadership, there is professional accountability, where participants demonstrate not only the commitment to achieve shared goals and a vision for improved student achievement, but have the self-efficacy and authority with which to do so.
Who then are the educational leaders? These are the participants in an education community who contribute to the leadership energy that is required for the improvement of learning. In the current climate in educational institutions, the turbulence, the uncertainty and the contradictory tensions that leaders face on a daily basis make it increasingly important that leaders learn from their leadership experiences. Leaders are dealing with paradox and dilemmas, as well as the unfamiliar, and this complexity of the educational context, with its multiple and contradictory discourses, places unique pressures on educational leaders worldwide.
A new leadership
This type of education context requires a new type of leadership. New ways of developing leaders for our new places of learning are needed (Robertson & Webber, 2002; Stott, 2004). It is increasingly important within the profession to have leaders who are capable of:
- building capacity and commitment to shared goals and vision
- building strong relationships, partnerships and alliances
- focusing on authentic democratic education;
- understanding and leading the change process
- finding new approaches of doing, and being, in their leadership practice.
These ‘new approaches to professionalism will challenge the modest levels of knowledge and skill that sufficed in the past, with a vision for values-centred, outcomes-oriented, data-driven and team-focused approaches that matches or even exceeds that of the best of medical practice' (Caldwell, 2002).
‘Designer leadership development' (Gronn, 2002), based on competencies and standards, will not go far enough to create the types of leaders necessary for this new regime as ‘the wide variation between [institutions] … may give rise for differentiated strategies' for leadership development (Lupton, 2004). Duignan (2004b) calls for a focus on capabilities, as described above, rather than competencies … and heralds the advent of the ‘capable leader'.
I believe these will be leaders capable of:
- constructing new leadership knowledge
- creating opportunities to gain critical perspectives and critical thinking
- crossing boundaries to new ways of being and knowing.
These leaders will also be:
- concerned
- compassionate
- and will have the courage to create opportunities for conversations around continual learning and improvement (see Robertson & Allan, 1999).
This is where the practice of coaching leadership can lead to more effective educational leadership practice. Leadership is then learned and modelled through the everyday actions of leadership. Support and challenge of current practice are important elements, maintaining a focus on strengths and positives (Lieberman, 2004) to release the potentiality of self and others. Professional colleagues are well-placed to provide these elements. Such communities of practice are built on notions of ‘colleagues as resource people' and, more often than not, the answers the team are seeking will, and should, be found by the team. More than ever before in education, leaders need to be able to problem-solve and co-construct the knowledge needed to work effectively on a daily basis. My own research has shown that coached leaders will then coach others in their daily interactions and they will establish the reciprocal opportunities to do so. They value the chance to learn from each other and the leadership relationships they have within their institution.
Coaching provides an authentic leadership learning experience and the tools for thinking critically about leadership. Thus, a particular kind of organisational culture is developed, in which authentic learning and leadership are the two key components for all participants, starting with the educational leaders.
West-Burnham (2004) believes, ‘The most powerful means of developing leadership is to create an organisational culture, which values the sorts of learning most likely to enhance the capacity of individuals to lead'. He refers to the concepts of deep and profound learning. This is learning that is applied and learning ‘where knowledge is converted into wisdom and where understanding becomes intuition'. He believes that these two types of learning require two strategies to really make an impact: the opportunity to reflect and … coaching, ‘the essential learning relationship'. He purports, as I do, that those who have experienced this coaching relationship with their colleagues, bring these qualities and practices to their leadership and work in schools, with teachers and students.
Developing the new leadership
Because the context of leadership influences markedly how that leadership was exercised (Thompson & Harris, 2004), research, development and support are needed at the specific site of leadership practice. Effective educational leadership is a learned process over time that requires a certain type of leadership skill to initiate and maintain. Leaders must be learners first, and leaders second, in this new regime. This is where the process of coaching is influential in the continued learning of effective educational leadership practice. The coaching model I put forward is developed on the premise of the leader as learner and the coach as learner – as depicted by the Mäori concept ‘ako', a reciprocal learning process (Robertson, 1997; Robertson, 2005). The leadership learning is then based on real experiences in leaders' daily work, reflective observation of those experiences by oneself and with others, feedback from others, opportunities to question, problem-pose, problem-solve and analyse. New skills and practices, which lead to new ways of dialoguing and critical reflection on the relationships of practice, are essential to this process. Too often, the word coaching is used ubiquitously, and as a catch cry, losing all relevance and meaning, as participants have no understanding of how to coach. With skills, leaders may then develop new ways of thinking and leading. It is part of the ideal of professionalism but it seldom occurs in any depth in education, unlike in the professions of medicine and law.
‘Mä täu rourou
Mä taku rourou
Ka ora ai tätou katoa.'
‘Your food basket and my food basket
Will sustain us all.'
Coaching, then, can lead to the building of leadership capacity for educational improvement (Harris & Lambert, 2003). Once leaders have experienced being coached, they should be more confident, and able and willing to coach the development of leadership in their education community.
Being responsible for one's own development to provide more effective learning experiences for young people is perhaps the most important quality that coaching can develop. So often in education, those who are young (and those who are older) are told what to do, how to do it, and then how well they have done it. No wonder many have forgotten how to think! Coaching places the responsibility for self-assessment, growth and accountability back in the hands of the learner. Teachers who have worked through this coaching programme talk of how their classroom interactions changed, as their role moved from ‘teacher to coach' and hence, how they became the facilitator of a learning process with a focus on student achievement.
Drawing on learning experiences, as well as building on prior experiences and knowledge, assists with the construction of new learning. This type of professional leadership as learning requires:
- relational trust
- respect and regard
- reciprocity
- reflection on reality
- reflexivity (which leads to the development of new structures or protocols for leaders to work in new ways).
Coaching also provides opportunities for affirmation and validation of practice, which are important in leadership development. Self-esteem of the leader, as with any learner, is important. Any form of professional critique of leadership should have a careful balance of positive and negative feedback. Leaders need to feel confident to actively experiment with different and innovative concepts and ideas. This experimentation with new ideas has been based on the learning from reflection on previous experience and the critical reflection following that reflection.
Leaders who are reflective practitioners can then act with a degree of confidence in new situations, as they make informed decisions about their actions. Coaching with a professional partner assists leaders to be reflective in action, on action, and for future action, which results in a knowledge of practice. This moves leadership enquiry into a new paradigm for conceptions of professional learning – leadership as learning.
References
Caldwell, B (2002). Scenarios for leadership and the public good in education. In K Leithwood & P Hallinger (eds.) Second International Handbook of Educational Leadership and Administration. (pp. 821-848). Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers.
Duignan, P (2004a) ELIM Program, ACU National/Parramatta Catholic Education Office, Sydney.
Duignan, P (2004b). ‘Forming capable leaders: From competencies to capabilities'. In New Zealand Journal of Educational Leadership, 19(2), 5-13.
Gronn, P (2002). ‘Leader formation'. In K Leithwood & P Hallinger (eds.) Second International Handbook of Educational Leadership and Administration. (pp. 1031-1070). Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers.
Harris, A, & Lambert, L (2003). Building Leadership Capacity for School Improvement. Maidenhead, England: Open University Press.
Lieberman (2004). ‘How do teachers learn to lead?' A Paper Presented at the 2nd International Summit for Leadership in Education: Boston, November 2 – 6, 2004.
Lupton, R (2004). Schools in Disadvantaged Areas: Recognising context and raising quality. London: Economic and Social Research Council.
Robertson, JM (2005). Coaching Leadership: Building educational leadership capacity through coaching partnerships. Wellington: New Zealand Council for Educational Research.
Robertson, JM (1997). ‘A programme of professional partnerships for leadership development'. In Waikato Journal of Education, 3, 137-152.
Robertson, JM & Allan, R (1999). ‘Teachers working in isolation? Creating opportunities for professional conversations'. SET. No. 2. Item 3. Wellington: New Zealand Council for Educational Research.
Robertson, JM & Webber, CF (2002). ‘Boundary-Breaking Leadership: A must for tomorrow's learning communities'. In K Leithwood & P Hallinger (Eds). Second International Handbook of Educational Leadership and Administration. (pp. 519-553). Netherlands: Kleuwer.
Starratt RJ (2004). ‘The Ethics of Learning: An Absent Focus in the Discourse on Educational Leadership'. A paper presented at the 2nd International Summit for Leadership in Education: Boston, November 2-6, 2004.
Stott, K (2004). ‘Developing Extraordinary Leaders for Singapore 's Schools'. A paper presented at the 2nd International Summit for Leadership in Education: Boston, November 2-6, 2004.
Thompson & Harris (2004). ‘Leading schools that serve neighborhoods and communities in poverty'. A paper presented at the 2nd International Summit for Leadership in Education: Boston, November 2-6, 2004.
West-Burnham, J (2004). ‘Building leadership capacity: helping leaders learn'. A think piece for the National College for School Leaders. England, NCSL.
Note: Some passages in this article are derived directly from my book: Robertson, J. M. (2005). Coaching Leadership: Building educational leadership capacity through coaching partnerships. Wellington: NZCER.
This article was previously published in Education Today, in New Zealand, in 2005.
Associate Professor Jan Robertson (FNZEALS) is Assistant Dean, International Development Director, at the Educational Leadership Centre, in the School of Education, at The University of Waikato, in Hamilton, New Zealand.
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