The birth of inclusive leadership and the death of exclusive prefectship

Questions about leadership (student and staff) abound in schools. Who are the right leaders; what makes a good leader; what skills should leaders possess; what virtues do we hope leaders will personify? Student male leadership is further complicated because of the uncertainty of the teenage years. If it is hard to ‘select’ a good leader, it is an even more complicated and uncertain process in an adolescent boy.

For most of Scotch College’s history, a traditional ‘prefect’ system has dominated the student leadership model. Begun in the early years of the 20th century by the second headmaster of the college, P.C. Anderson, the system of ‘a chosen few’ guiding the majority has dominated. It is a system still used in most schools and has within it some of the assumptions of an Australian life that, we suggest, is long past. It echoes a tradition of a predetermined ruling class over the majority of others whose job was to follow the ‘born (or born-to-rule) leaders’. Assumed in the model is the capacity of adults to preselect students on their ability at the end of year 11 to blossom into mature leaders over the following 12 months. Some nurturing and some training were, and are, built into such models in most schools.

The initial questions around this model for student leadership were raised when the current headmaster of the college began to employ the Myers-Briggs Personality Indicator Tests as part of a ‘Philosophy and Values’ course for year 12 students at two previous schools. These schools were Uniting Church boys schools in Sydney and Perth. One of the outcomes of this testing with the students was the discovery that many of the boys chosen for leadership positions had some similar attributes. Almost all leaders chosen had ‘extroversion’ (rather than introversion) as a personality indicator, an expertise in sport and a Caucasian heritage. These factors were not absolute but seemed to dominate over a number of years of testing. The implications of this enduring image of the successful young leader meant that other young men with different personality types and skills had diminished opportunities for leadership roles, in spite of their capacity to contribute equally to the college community.

During the early years (1998-99) of the current headmaster’s contract, discussions occurred at the council and pastoral care committees of the school about the nature of student leadership and the headmaster’s reflections became part of that dialogue. Such was the vigorous nature of those discussions in 1999 that the chairman of the college council wrote to the headmaster and members of the house head committee questioning the current assumptions of student leadership and calling for a debate on the issue. Together with the paper from the chairman, the headmaster presented a proposal to the house head committee to broaden the scope of leadership at the school. Despite this unprecedented move from a chairman of council to write directly to staff and the proposal from the headmaster, there was no energy or enthusiasm to change, despite the general acknowledgement of the problems that existed with the current system. In 2001, the headmaster delivered the proposal again to the committee which was, once more, met with coolness and a general lack of enthusiasm for change.

This paper attempts to:

• examine the reason why the same proposal was successful in gaining traction in 2004 when it had been met with caution and scepticism on two previous occasions
• analyse the change process at an organisational level
• outline the new system of leadership that is now in place.

Elements of the change process

One of the most intriguing elements of change processes in schools (and other organisations) is why some things fail within a certain environment and yet succeed when certain elements of that environment change.  In this particular case there were attempts to change the system in 1999 and again in 2001 to a broader based student leadership model but neither attempt received an enthusiastic reception.  Why then did the attempt commenced in 2004 and implemented in 2007 succeed? At an organisational level it is contended that there were three factors that combined together to produce the change. While there is little doubt that the earlier attempts to change the pattern of student leadership created a receptivity to another way of doing things and there had been some slight change in the personnel of key committees, the three most significant factors (in order of importance) are noted below.

1. The discovery of a ‘champion’ from within the staff. The most significant difference in the 2004 attempt to change was the discovery of a staff member who would champion the cause. This staff member was already a member of the most significant pastoral care committee that would need to drive the change. This staff member was well regarded by colleagues and had a high profile among the other house heads who were in charge of pastoral care in the senior school. This person emerged as being an enthusiast for the change and strategically positioned themselves with a ‘like-minded coalition’ of a few other house heads to progress the change. Because of her interest in the issue of leadership, she began a Masters Programme of Leadership and Management at Curtin University Business School. This gave her even greater credibility to the insights and discussion about leadership.

2. A review of pastoral care within the secondary school. At the time that the matter of student leadership was emerging again in 2004 as a point for debate, there was in interest across the staff in a review of our pastoral care performance and the structures we had to deliver care for the boys of the senior school. A large committee was formed that worked alongside the house head committee to question some of the assumptions and structures that were in place. As part of that review, visits to other schools occurred that stimulated further questioning of some of the current paradigms around pastoral care and student leadership at Scotch. One of the schools visited by the ‘champion’ had taken a significant step some years ago to broaden their student leadership model. The opportunity for this member of staff to see a new system of leadership in action allowed for a greater clarity of language between members of the house head committee on her return, which fostered a growing level of confidence in the possibility of successful change.  It was a concrete example of successful change away from a model that had stood for almost a century.

3. Council and executive clarity about the college’s mission, vision and values. While the discussions about pastoral care and student leadership were being forged among the staff, another discussion was developing with the college’s council and executive. There had been some dissatisfaction from the headmaster and council about the clarity of language used to describe the purpose and work of the school. This produced a combined meeting of the college’s council and executive to finalise some work on the school’s ‘mission, vision and values’ statements. While the outcome sharpened the language of the headmaster and deputy headmaster in articulating the central ideas of the school’s work, it was not anticipated that this would have an immediate or obvious bearing on either the pastoral care review or the discussion among the house heads about student leadership. However, this was not the case. 

The emerging rhetoric around the school’s new vision, mission and values statements became evident during subsequent discussions about student leadership. In particular, the school’s values provided a compelling reference point for the language of the new student leadership paradigm of inclusivity that the house head team was proposing. Questions were raised about the alignment of our systems and processes with our values. In terms of student leadership, how could the ‘reality’ our students experience be the same as the ‘reality’ the school espouses?  How could our values of equality of opportunity (equity), excellence regardless of ability (personal achievement) and breadth of experience for learning be enacted in the realm of student leadership? What systems, structures and/or processes could we develop to ensure alignment; in other words, what could we be doing to ‘walk the talk’. It was these questions that honed our language, provided a greater purpose for change and an irrefutable meaning to our proposed course of action.  

The movement towards change

The momentum and enthusiasm for change intensified during this time. In a sense, the urgency to change increased, inspired by relevance of the new leadership paradigm to some of the college’s values. The guiding coalition worked to get the vision right and to embark on a creative strategy to accomplish the vision. At every opportunity, the vision and developing strategy was communicated to the house head team which critiqued, developed and refined the strategy further. This empowerment was critical in managing and maintaining support for the change. The change process also involved communicating the vision to the staff of the college at major staff meetings, to the college council and to parents via a number of parent meetings held by the headmaster. Students were kept informed through meetings with their House Heads.

One of the keys to driving successful change is having support and commitment from senior management. The headmaster’s support and strong leadership was critical in adding credibility to the development of a new system which, for some stakeholders, was not in need of transformation. Furthermore, the headmaster was supportive in publicly recognising progress and achievement and in assisting the guiding coalition and House Head team find ways to make the vision become a reality. For example, two obstacles to the change emerged for house heads. These were:

• a perceived lack of time to support the programme and to deliver a leadership curriculum for all year 11 students in preparation for the practical application of leadership in year 12
• a fear that the task of developing and continually modifying the leadership curriculum, as well as controlling and monitoring student involvement in the programme in both years 11 and 12 could not be absorbed by a house head load.

The headmaster responded accordingly by restructuring the timetable for house heads to enable each one to teach the leadership curriculum to their own year 11 students and by creating a new position, the head of student leadership, to oversee the programme and drive future developments. In addition to this, the headmaster continually promoted the new paradigm of student leadership at assemblies and other public forums that involved the stakeholder groups of the college, speaking about the change in the context of what we value at Scotch. Ultimately, this support and ongoing endorsement has been critical in maintaining the momentum for the change and enabling continuous development and improvement of the new model.

What does it look like now?

A strategic scaffold. Alignment with our school vision and values has been a fundamental consideration in developing a new model. While a framework had been emerging during 2005, the commitment to aligning our philosophy with our practices enabled the strategic scaffold to unfold. The vision for student leadership has emerged from these considerations with three of the school values reflecting the essence of what we are trying to achieve. Equality of opportunity, breadth of experience for learning and excellence regardless of ability underpin our vision of becoming a school recognised for its strong culture of student leadership. Furthermore, the vision and values are supported by the principles of student leadership articulated by the headmaster in 2001. These are that:

• student leadership is primarily made up of character, but also is dependent on opportunity and roles
• all boys, regardless of personality or skill, have the opportunity to interact with others in a way that offers challenge and responsibility
• the recognition of achievement in society and schools should be based not on potential, but on performance
• gaining self-knowledge through failure and success with others is a spiritual search because it is an essential component of learning about one’s own humanity
• student responsibility must be real to achieve real outcomes
• the development of student potential is a matter for all students at all year levels
• commitment to a community or institution and taking responsibility for its welfare is an important attribute of maturity for all people.

Student leadership in practice. The practice of student leadership is distinguished by four pillars which support the strategic scaffold of the programme:

• reward and recognition
• action
• feedback
• theory.

Reward and recognition. Recognition for the leadership demonstrated in many different and varied ways by year 12 students through their positive contributions to the lives of others in the school community is acknowledged at the end of year 12. The W.R. Dickinson Leadership Award will be presented to each student who has fulfilled the criteria for leadership.  Named after the fifth headmaster of the college, the award has two higher levels of achievement, similar to other awards presented at the college. Accordingly, the W.R Dickinson ‘Leadership Colours and Honours’ awards are accessible to students who fulfill the more demanding criteria for these awards

Action. In providing more opportunities for all students to develop and demonstrate leadership skills, avenues for leadership that were primarily the domain of the select prefect body have been opened up to the year 12 cohort. Currently, all year 12s have an opportunity to be involved in school portfolios, participating in working committees and in support groups. Chaired by our four senior leaders, these groups are comprised of eager students with a diverse range of talents and abilities, who are keen to contribute to the school in positive ways and learn new skills of meeting protocol, individual accountability and systems understandings in the process. In addition, every year 12 holds a house portfolio. This provides each student the opportunity to assume responsibility and show commitment to a smaller group within the School.

A significant role that prefects have played in the past has been in the oversight of student behaviours during recess and lunchtimes. This has involved monitoring interpersonal relationships, particularly those between the younger students, and ensuring the environment is maintained in an orderly manner. Currently these roles are being performed by year 12 students’ in house groups, each student being a member of a team that provides feedback about each other’s performance. With two house groups fulfilling this aspect of the programme each week, the presence of year 12 students around the school has increased substantially which has been helpful in promoting a community in which building positive relationships between our year 12 leaders and other students is valued.

Feedback. Feedback provided to each student during their leadership experiences, and particularly following a duty period, is a crucial component of the programme in year 12 for it fulfils two aims:

• to provide timely and accurate information to support further the development of skills and leadership competencies and to acknowledge the work that has been done
• to help the year 12 students stay focused, energised, positive and feel supported.

Through online self and multiple peer evaluations, all students play an integral part in the monitoring and feedback process. At all times, they have access to information about their progress and are assisted by their house captain, house head and/or head of student leadership when shortcomings in their performance are identified. One of the hardest aspects in involving all year 12 students in a leadership programme is maintaining motivation from a critical mass of students who may not feel they are suited to leading. How to encourage them to seek their potential and maintain a positive approach is a question that is frequently explored. Although there is not one magical answer, three factors that do have some bearing on success is the preparatory work that is done in the lead up year, regular and timely feedback provided to the students about their progress and the support of key staff involved in the programme.

Theory. Questions about the types of leadership behaviors that we would anticipate seeing and hearing from our year 12 students raised concerns among the House Head team about how well prepared our students were to know, understand and fulfill our expectations.  ‘Leading by example’ and ‘servant leadership’ seemed to be the most relevant, accessible and easier styles to promote for all our students in the first instance. However, what other approaches could we consider for our students given the diversity of situations in which they would be immersed? How could we assist our students’ value their own style but also challenge them to develop other ways to lead in different situations? What aspects of personal leadership did they need to consider to grasp fully their own capacity for leadership and accept the different, but often equally effective, ways of others? From these discussions among the group about what leadership might involve for our students, a commitment to find ways to provide all students access to leadership learning opportunities in the preceding year emerged. The headmaster responded to a compelling case for a long-term leadership development programme by removing obstacles that would enable house heads deliver a leadership curriculum to their year 11 students during two periods per week over the duration of the year. The programme, which is embedded within the academic curriculum, explores the concepts of effective leadership within the context of developing personal effectiveness. Furthermore, the curriculum affirms that every student can develop a range of leadership skills and demonstrate leadership in various ways in their lives and provides an opportunity for students to discover and understand their own leadership potential; their strengths, as well as their challenges.

Programme evaluation

An evaluation of the programme occurred in July this year. The objective was to determine the attitudes and behaviours of the year 12s towards the new model and to obtain information that might strengthen the programme further. The survey involved qualitative and quantitative type questions, anonymity and voluntary participation. Sixty per cent of the year 12 cohort responded.
It was encouraging to read many of the responses to the qualitative questions, the suggestions for improvement and also, to note the level of importance the students ascribed to the values upon which the programme is established. Issues of concern involve the privileges associated with taking on the role of a year 12 leader and duties being the main focus of leadership opportunities. In response to the comprehensive feedback provided, house heads have made adjustments to the programme for the forthcoming year which includes giving the year 12s greater ownership by allowing them to control the programme to some degree and altering the incentives so that the motivation for taking on the role of a year 12 leader is driven by the desire to make a positive contribution to the school, to learn more about leadership and team work and to experience personal growth. In the feedback, students raised these three aspects of intrinsic worth as positive outcomes of the programme.

Challenges encountered

Resistance from a member of the guiding coalition team. The early discussion in 2004-2005 about changing the model of student leadership to a more inclusive approach was greeted with great enthusiasm from the headmaster and house heads. The creation of a ‘guiding coalition’ of three influential house heads to drive the process of change and to garner further support and approval from the larger house head team was a crucial first step in leading the change effort. With a model from another school in hand to inspire a tangible shift away from the century old ‘prefect system’, this team began working to develop a model that better reflected the organisational climate at Scotch. During this early development, one member of the team became uncomfortable with the direction being taken and proposed a different model. This model, along with two others that the team developed was presented to house heads at a retreat. The different model was rejected and as a consequence, support from this team member was withdrawn. The change process was lengthy and time consuming, involving continual research and development, resource gathering as well as involvement from major stakeholders. As the accepted model developed, further resistance that had been festering covertly became apparent. Whilst the original member of the team was in general agreement about the benefit to be gained from having more boys involved in leadership, he questioned what we were aiming to achieve at many levels; philosophically, in matters of process, in perceived problems associated with practical implementation and the need to change for change sake.

Reflections on the resistance. While, at the time, resistance to the change effort was not particularly welcome, the barrier was viewed not so much as a distraction, but rather as an opportunity to learn. The resistance and questions it raised provided an influx of energy to re-examine aspects of the assumptions about student leadership that may have been inappropriate or not well considered. In addition, the resistance stimulated thought and research into ways the management of change could have been improved. What emerged was that whilst attempts were made to communicate the vision to multiple stakeholders at frequent intervals and to ensure commitment from senior management and the house head team, there was an assumption that what was communicated formally was heard and understood. Channels of communication used; email, written reports, presentations at staff meetings and discussions at house head meetings, were participative in form and designed to ensure understanding but, in hindsight, they were far from participative in nature. Either as a consequence of insufficient time allocations or in the structure of the gatherings, these methods of communication were not conducive to long and sustained debate and dialogue. Arguably, what was missing was the time and space for dialectic communication to occur between house heads, in particular. Either formally and/or informally, this would have provided more opportunities to raise concerns, clarify understanding and provide feedback in two way conversations. This aspect is probably one of the most crucial success factors in implementing change and in this case, was not fully understood nor addressed at the time.

 

Conclusion

Full implementation of the new programme for senior student leadership commenced at the beginning of 2008. The leadership curriculum introduced in 2007 to year 11 students has been followed by a programme involving all year 12 students in leadership opportunities. The challenge for the future lies in learning from the shortcomings experienced in the change process and listening to the feedback provided by the students.  In addition it is imperative that the house head group, supported by senior management, commits to produce short term wins to help keep the urgency level up and force detailed analytical thinking that will clarify or revise our vision further amid our philosophy of continuous learning and improvement.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Reverend Andrew Syme is Headmaster of Scotch College in Perth, Western Australia, Australia. Ms Jennifer Davies is a teacher at the same school.

 

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