Leading view papers – Days 1 to 7

 

Let’s try something flat: deep development for democracy-centered school leadership

 

Abstract

The Flat World is calling for a new type of worker – one who is creative, self-directed, and equally skilled at working independently, or with, others. Yet, school leaders continue to engage in bureaucratic practices which tend to produce compliant teachers and students. Current training practices do not provide the depth of learning that is necessary in order to displace bureaucratic habits that have developed and been reinforced over a number of years. The Virtual Principal’s Office provides the context for deep development. Early data shows that university graduate students can learn to practice democracy-centered leadership in 10 hours of training. Research is ongoing regarding the transfer of these practices to their work setting.

Introduction

Every morning in Africa, a gazelle wakes up
It knows it must run faster than the fastest lion or it will be killed.
Every morning, a lion wakes up.
It knows it must outrun the slowest gazelle or it will starve to death.
It doesn’t matter if you are a lion or a gazelle,
When the sun comes up, you better start running.

(Thomas Friedman, The World is Flat, p.114)

I was recently at a dinner with other college professors where a guest asked another guest where he was from, a question prompted by his heavy foreign accent. To the surprise of the guest who posed the question, the response was, ‘I am from here!’ Those four words caused me to reflect, ‘Here is a native of Ethiopia, educated in an American university, and now directing dissertations on American education. He is, indeed, “from here”.’ The world is shrinking even in the conservative field of education. At the same time, I was reading Thomas L. Friedman’s book, The world is flat, and the convergence of the question/response and Friedman’s book led me to reflect on the contrast between changes in the economic and political world, the subject of Friedman’s book, and the relative stability of educational leadership. School leaders are likely to take exception to this last statement. They may well argue that they are constantly changing. However, as Richard Elmore (2004) points out, while schools don’t resist change, indeed, they are changing all of the time, what they do resist are the fundamental changes that can make a significant difference in traditional core practices of teaching and learning. Yet, if Friedman’s book says anything, it says that in the political and economic world, change is coming quickly and, further, that it is substantial.

In general, he reports a trend moving from the national level, to the company level, to, just since 2000, the individual level. He reiterates this point several times throughout the book. For example, in citing the forces that have ‘flattened’ the world, he includes the fall of the Berlin Wall, which signalled to the world that authoritarian rule had been trumped by democratic, consensual, free-market-oriented governance. In another part of the book, he writes that Globalization 3.0 (the emergent power of individuals to collaborate and compete globally) has shifted the productivity model from a silo model to a side-by-side model. Later, he writes that the main objective in the Cold War was to build strong nation-states; in the Flat World, the main objective should be to build strong individuals.

In considering how to prepare new leaders for the 21st century, five issues must be settled. The first is, what type of school experience holds the most promise for ‘building strong individuals’? The second is, do schools, generally, provide for that type of school experience? The third is, what type of leadership is likely to create the organization that will foster the development of that type of school experience? The fourth is, does that kind of leadership currently exist in the schools and, if not, why not? The fifth is, what kind of leadership preparation will prepare leaders to create that kind of organization?

Turning to the first question regarding the kind of school experience that will build strong individuals, Friedman offers some guidance. In his book, he observes that India has the second largest Muslim population of any country in the world; yet there is no evidence of widespread support for terrorism. Yet, in Pakistan, just across the border of India, there is widespread support for extremism. He then poses the question of why there are such differences between the two countries. He suggests that the answer can be found in three related factors – context, stories and imagination. Regarding context, he notes that India has the oldest democracy in that region. Muslims enjoy relatively secure protections of freedom of religion and open access to the economic and political opportunities available. And, he writes, these opportunities are not just theoretical – as examples he reports that the president of India is a Muslim, a female Muslim sits on the Supreme Court, and the richest man in India is a Muslim. This context of democracy, and the opportunities it provides, lead to stories in the Muslim community of success, challenge, and potential. These stories, in turn, fuel their imaginations of a better life, and of building, rather than destroying. In Friedman’s analysis, democracy provides the context for differences between India and Pakistan. By extension, we can say that democracy provides the context for building strong individuals who can compete in a Flat World.

Turning to the second question, regarding whether the current school context provides a democratic school experience, a national online survey in the United States provides some evidence. On a set of 10 questions regarding aspects of democratic practice, including freedom of religion, freedom of expression, and freedom of the press, among others, none of the 10 received a higher agreement response than 59% agreeing. The average of the responses on the 10 questions was 33%. Even this low level of agreement on the practice of democracy may be suspect, however. Consider that participation in decision-making, one of the questions on the survey, received agreement by 59% of the respondents. However, typically in the United States, such participation is quite limited as to the range of issues that may be addressed and, typically, only the compliant students are permitted to serve on decision-making bodies. As an example of student participation in decision-making on real issues that are of concern to them, students in one school were able to reverse a student dress code. For most schools in the USA, such student power would be unthinkable. As a side note, this school is in an inner-city neighborhood where many of the parents do not speak English, yet the students achieve at a high level. Similar to the limits on student participation, teachers may be provided with opportunities to serve on committees, but it is not unusual for teachers to report that their recommendations are ignored. Currently, teachers in the US are being encouraged to participate in Learning Communities. Again, however, the issues they are directed to address are those within the context of standard practice and improvements within the context of those constraints.

With regard to the third question regarding what kind of leadership will provide a democracy-centered school, we have several contenders. For example, a current approach that is gaining wide discussion is that of distributed leadership (DL). DL is generally defined as focusing on practice, generated in the interactions of leaders and followers, and dependent on the situation. However, such a definition leaves open the possibility that a leader might well decide that, in most situations, bureaucratic/authoritarian leadership is required, since distributed leadership does not specify a preferred leadership practice. One then gets into the circular problem of authoritarian practices leading to Theory X-type behaviours on the part of the subordinates, which, in turn, generates more of the bureaucratic/authoritarian practice that is then further justified by the behaviours of the subordinates.

In the US, another emerging emphasis on leadership is that of instructional leader. Again, however, absent a preferred leadership approach, any practice may be accepted as long as it can be justified as exercising instructional leadership. It is the contention of this paper that a preferred leadership practice, democracy-centered leadership, is the only one that will produce the kinds of organizational practices that, in turn, will prepare students for the Flat World.

Turning to the fourth question, concerning whether the leadership currently exists to develop that type of school experience, the evidence is not encouraging. In a pilot study conducted by the authors, 25 principals in three school districts took a survey to identify their preferences: the Myers-Briggs-Jung Typology survey. One hundred per cent of the upper level principals and 79% of the lower level principals indicated a preference for ‘sensing’. Sensing types prefer to focus on the present, facts, and concrete issues. Given their preference for the present and the concrete, they are unlikely to pursue the more distant goal of preparing students for the 21st century through the practice of democracy-centered leadership. As further evidence of the unlikely adoption of democracy-centered leadership, consider that the research evidence for the past 50 years has established inclusive, collaborative, Theory Y, transformational leadership as more effective. Yet when we observe in schools, we are much more likely to observe bureaucratic leadership in evidence. Some authors have identified Soft Theory X as the prevailing type of leadership in schools, which relies on persuasion and personal relationships to gain compliance. Persuasion and ‘friendliness’ in order to gain compliance are not aspects of democracy-centered leadership.

Turning to the fifth question, of what kind of preparation might prepare democracy-centered leaders, the first issue that must be addressed is that of current training practices. Typical training for school leaders, whether in a university setting or provided as an in-service activity, involves information, followed by discussion, examination of cases exemplifying the practices, perhaps video presentations where such practices are in evidence, and an ‘at home’ assignment to engage in a project where the practices can be implemented. In the best training, students are observed on-site as they practice or videos are made of the practice and feedback is provided. Most of this training promotes practices that could be described as sound and based on emergent understandings of effective leadership. In spite of this type of training, which has been going on for decades, however, traditional/bureaucratic practices continue to be the norm.

The authors of this paper feel that the type of training described above is too shallow to displace practices that have developed over a lifetime of observation and reinforcement. Consider, for example, that the typical school leader has observed school leaders practicing school leadership for 10 to 12 years. Then, as teachers, they have continued to experience traditional school leadership, except in rare cases. Add to this the fact that bureaucratic practices are easier to implement than democracy-centred practices and the challenge to altering prevailing leadership practices becomes evident. In brief, traditional practices are too deeply imbedded to be displaced by typical training approaches.

The authors have been engaged in developing a change approach modelled on flight simulators. Consider that pilots of jet planes must react quickly, automatically, and correctly, if a problem develops. Simulators mimic potential problems and the pilots must engage in the correct behaviours, even if these are counter-intuitive. Training is repeated over and over until the pilots reach the level of automoticity. They must re-train every six months to ensure that the correct behaviors are still in place.

We call our approach the Virtual Principal’s Office (VPO). Students are taught the theoretical and research basis for democracy-centered leadership and provided with specific examples of its practice. This approach is then contrasted with bureaucratic practices that they are experiencing. The differences in organizational outcomes are described, both by the instructors and by the students themselves. Then the students are immersed in a variety of scenarios in which they are expected to exhibit democracy-centered leadership, receiving feedback on their practice after each experience. This is repeated again and again, well past the level of proficiency. The stated goal is that democracy-centered practice will become their ‘default setting’ – it will become their initial response. Early results found that, with 10 hours of practice, students are able to readily exhibit democracy-centered responses to scenarios ‘on the spot’ (that is, without prior knowledge of what the scenario is and playing it out in real time). Research is ongoing as to whether the ‘default setting’ transfers to their school leadership assignment; however, anecdotal reports have been encouraging. Reinforcement of the practices will occur in subsequent courses in the leadership training program.

This paper began with the Friedman story about the gazelle and the lion and went on to observe that, while the world was changing, educational leadership practices are not. As this paper suggests, an approach to educational leadership that will prepare students for the Flat World is available. The sun is coming up for educational leaders and whether you are an educational leader or one who prepares them, you’d better get running!

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Dr Charles A. Reavis is Director of the Georgia Center for Educational Renewal and Goizueta Professor of Educational Leadership, at Georgia Southern University, in the USA.

Dr Barbara Mallory was formerly a principal of an upper level school and, as such, won Principal of the Year for the state of North Carolina twice, an unprecedented recognition. She currently serves as an Assistant Professor of Educational Leadership at Georgia Southern University, in the USA.

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