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Keith Hadden
A deputy superintendent from a neighbouring school district declares that school-based decision making is dead. A principal in an urban school labels the school budget “secret.”
More important than these statements alone is the fact that on both occasions they went unchallenged by those in the room, many of whom would surely count themselves among the democratic.
Such affronts to shared leadership and the ensuing absence of free exchanges are challenges for educational leaders who strive to create a style that invites others to be a part of learning communities that capitalize on the diversity of groups and the strengths of individuals. After all, the roots of democratic citizenship are surely sown in democratic schoolhouses.
Many of us have heard the allegory about Canada geese. When the lead goose tires, it rotates back into the formation as another goose flies forward to assume leadership of the point position. It’s a lesson that ought not to be lost by those charged with building interdependence among professionals, each with special talents, interests and resources. There are myriad strategies to build a culture of shared leadership on a school staff, many of which involve giving up one’s traditional notion of leadership, a difficult task for tenacious Type A personalities, who may view democracy in a school as a threat to their own status and power. But it is precisely the skills of serving, facilitating and sharing that characterize leadership that is conducive to shaping a positive school culture where the potential of all is realized and stretched.
One’s own leadership style may be revealed by where one parks in the school parking lot. There was a time when hierarchical protocol dictated that those coveted stalls located closest to the school entrance were reserved exclusively for the school’s leaders. Nowadays, witness the number of corporate stalls dedicated to employees of the month as a testament to the demise of the privilege of leadership. Or at least the privilege of appointed leaders; chances are good that the occupants of those employee-of-the-month stalls are as much a part of the leadership of the organization as are the chieftains who gave them up.
Giving up the lead is no more synonymous with relinquishing leadership than sending your child off to university in another city is an abdication of your love and support. Effective leadership involves identifying goals and the means to achieving them—it is not the exercise of power. A superintendent, who early in her tenure was advised by a colleague to share the load more so as to avoid burnout, replied: “I can’t give up control, I don’t have it yet.” The perception among leaders that they must be in control seems contrary to how we encourage classroom teachers to behave in their role as leaders of students. In fact, we often hold democracy as the keystone to successful classrooms. The notion of the teacher as the sage on the stage has long been rejected in favour of the teacher as guide on the side; that is, the teacher encourages an enquiry-driven classroom.
Recent research reinforces what competent leaders have known all along: “Effective leaders must work to understand the values and opinions of their followers—rather than assume absolute authority—to enable a productive dialogue with others about what the group embodies and stands for and thus how it should act” (Reicher, Haslam and Platow 2007, 24). School principals routinely juggle competing values and opinions from a wide range of stakeholders. Teachers, support staff, parents, students, social agencies, corporate entities, trustees, school district administrators and taxpayers all have agendas they would like fulfilled. At times, the principal can feel overwhelmed by competing demands, which can at times seem like a quagmire; however, when leadership respects differences and allows participants to contribute to group identity, the principal is most likely to define and achieve common goals.
Principals who expect teachers to foster democratic ideals in the classroom through inquiry and critical analysis are in the best position to model behaviour that nourishes others’ capacities. It is often said that we teach the way we were taught; it is also likely true that we lead our classrooms the way we are led in our schools. Teachers are more likely to share leadership in their own classrooms if they have the opportunity to share in the leadership of the school. Principals who are committed to building capacity in their staff will use strategies that are designed to invite participation, embrace diversity and focus conflict. Though a prescriptive list of such strategies does not exist, the following strategies serve as examples of how schools can create a culture of expanding capacities.
Seven Key Elements to Successful Leadership
1. Use delegation to distribute power and influence throughout the school community. Delegation is more than the simple downloading of tasks; it must also provide resources, decision-making authority and accountability in authentic culture-building pursuits. It is only through the delegation of meaningful tasks that teachers develop their own leadership capabilities and ultimately contribute to school improvement. Though at times it is necessary for all to contribute to a ritualistic school activity (for example, the Pancake Breakfast), such tasks serve well as a bonding of community but less so as a means of developing roles in a professional learning culture. Moving school staff from a culture of what Hargreaves (in The New Meaning of Educational Change, 3rd edition, Fullan 2001, 136) terms contrived collegiality to one of true collaboration and interdependency requires careful handling.
2. School committees that go beyond the delegation of ritual tasks can serve as effective vehicles for capacity-building in others. Most schools have many committees, but what ought to be common among all of them is the notion that they convene as a subset of a larger entity to which they are accountable and to which they should make recommendations. When asking a teacher on staff to lead colleagues in a revision of report cards, for example, it would be prudent to establish the parameters of the committee at the onset. Parameters could include the provision of resources such as time, money and exemplars and also ought to define the authority of the committee. Members will not want to be blindsided with a perceived veto if they are acting in the belief that they will bring proposals for adoption to staff. Providing teachers with ownership of resources and some authority will enhance their skills and attitudes that contribute to leadership development and help them fulfill their roles as interdependent parts of a learning community.
3. Schools that are particularly good at celebrating the accomplishments of students and staff are more likely to have the types of communities where triumphs and tragedies are seen as collective rather than individual. Schools characterized by attitudes of one-for-all and all-for-one empower people to share ownership such that problems and solutions are seen as common to everyone. Schools that lack this communal attitude may share celebrations, but problems may still land on the desk of the principal. Inviting others to play leadership roles levels the field for all and ensures that the responsibility for carrying the ball is a joint one.
4. Meetings (love them or hate them) are part of every organization. But what do they look like in organizations where many share the lead? Some principals have found success through strategies such as sharing the role of chairing meetings; providing time for meetings; using collaboratively established agendas; pre-establishing and agreeing upon guidelines for running meetings; and restricting meetings to decision-making items. There is no quicker way to bog down staff than to load up valuable meeting time with information items that can be dealt with by e-mail or engaging in long diatribes that invite no input from others. Enabling others and building capacity means principals will not attend every meeting. Whereas research attributes the success of school-based initiatives to principal involvement (Smith and Andrews, in DuFour and Eaker 1998, 187), principals must also exercise discretion and courage to choose carefully what they need to be a part of and what can be shared with others. An important rule of thumb for principal participation is to remember that when you have nothing to say, you should say it.
5. Democracy is messy. In building capacity in others and in working with others who already have the capacity to lead and to influence, leaders need to be strong enough to accept suggestions and criticism and be open to change that comes with giving up the lead. Principals who easily embrace change will also more easily embrace others’ visions of what could be. Melding opposing views is difficult and time consuming work, but the payoff for the compromise in efficiency that comes with shared leadership is that those who were part of the decision have some responsibility to carry the decisions out. This is the theory behind site-based management: decisions should be made closest to the level at which they will be carried out. Cleaning up after a staff meeting where contention reigned supreme but where attendees’ diverging opinions were heard and considered is a lot less messy than cleaning up after a meeting replete with authoritarian decisions that affected others but did not involve them.
6. Some bemoan the loss of talent and experience caused by the current attrition in educational leadership. Iacocca (2007) extends this to leadership in general when he laments: “Name me a leader who has a better idea for homeland security than making us take off our shoes in airports and throwing away our shampoo” (12). Fullan (2003) notes: “It is not turnover of leadership per se that is the culprit; rather, it is whether there is any attention to continuity of direction” (24). The importance of mentoring as a feature of building capacity in others cannot be overemphasized. Myriad tasks, such as constructing the budget, supervising and evaluating staff, chairing committees, liaising with outside agencies and spearheading initiatives can all be shared among colleagues. Coaching others so that results in protégés lead in the absence of veterans ultimately helps to ensure the sustainability of collaboratively developed initiatives.
7. A key to building a community of learners where all members have a stake in improving schools is found in the forging of solid relationships. Kouzes and Posner (in Leading In a Culture of Change, Fullan 2001, 54–55) cite seven essentials for developing relationships: (1) setting clear standards, (2) expecting the best, (3) paying attention, (4) personalizing recognition, (5) telling the story, (6) celebrating together, and (7) setting the example. School staffs that are characterized by high levels of trust can weather the storms caused by drastic change that is entirely, habitually and collaboratively focused on student learning. School leaders, to whom readers of this article ought to be referring as all staff, more readily earn the trust and respect of colleagues when they embody the sentiment expressed by 6th century BC philosopher Lao Tzu. “A leader is best when people barely know he exists; when his work is done, his aim fulfilled, they will say, we did this ourselves.”
The phrase strong leadership may be a misnomer that mistakenly ascribes power and status to a select and centralized few. It is more difficult to engage the minds of many in a common direction for a common good than it is to direct others through authority based on ascendancy in a hierarchy. Adolf Hitler’s reign began in a time when people yearned for strong leadership and ended with people dreading it (Reicher, Haslam and Platow 2007). Capacity building is a democratic exercise that Apple and Beane (1995) define as all members of a school community having a right to fully informed and critical participation. Through such participation, a resolution may be found to the dilemma posed by Tom Donahoe (cited in DuFour and Eaker 1998, 181): “Schools are trapped by a leadership dilemma: they require skilled, effective principals in order to outgrow their utter dependence on those principals.”
References
Apple, M., and J. Beane, eds. 1995. Democratic Schools. Alexandria, Va.: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.
DuFour, R., and R. Eaker. 1998. Professional Learning Communities at Work—Best Practices for Enhancing Student Achievement. Bloomington, Ind.: Solution Tree.
Fullan, M. 2003. The Moral Imperative of School Leadership. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin.
-----. 2001a. Leading In a Culture of Change. San Francisco, Calif.: Jossey-Bass.
-----. 2001b. The New Meaning of Educational Change (3rd ed.). New York: Teachers College Press.
Iacocca, L. 2007. Where Have All the Leaders Gone? Toronto, Ont.: Scribner.
Reicher, S.D., S.A. Haslam, and M. Platow. 2007 (August/September). “The New Psychology of Leadership.” Scientific American Mind.
Keith Hadden has served as a principal in the Taber and Lethbridge school districts. He is currently seconded to the Lethbridge School District office as a district principal.
