The Connected Curriculum - Challenge #10

Leadership Styles and Effective Change

There are many leadership styles to study on, and a wealth of resources available to do so through the internet. Much has been learned, and the style that my mind and heart keep coming back to is one that does not back away from a challenge and is actually brought in to implement change.  I have always thrived on challenge and I enjoy the process of change, both positive and negative.  An administrator that is brought in to implement change must have the ability to empower their staff.  The empowerment of staff and community, which is mandatory of all leaders and planners who foster change, is a difficult process.  Power, because of its very character and capacity, must be directed, fostered, established, and invested wisely. In principle people are independent, in practice, in most so-called democracies; they are at best semi-independent, since their power is restricted by the views of other players in the policy-making and decision-making process.  Whether the independent state of humans is observed from the words of a songwriter who proclaims that "no man is an island" or whether it is observed from a systems theory perspective, individuals in any given setting are swayed by the other people and their work structure; as personalities they have, or can have, an influence on that location in which they work.

An effective leader structures their district in such a way that the staff and community are empowered to achieve school improvements with site-based management.  When, however, structures and systems designed to achieve staff empowerment are used, an acceptable mix of structure and leadership powers should be present to make up that development and investment of influence.  The development and investment of empowerment is as involved in strategic design as participants are involved in arriving at compromise, evolving a vision, creating a mission, and in the operational planning of the district. Effective leaders start by examining their own attitudes about their role as a boss.  They treat all of their staff as the core creative engine for the organization.  Effective leaders ask, clarify, and communicate.  There would be a need to not fret about looking dumb, out of control, or not really in charge. Most people resist change and effective leaders recognize how unique each individual staff member is and respect their opinions.

The allocation of power is also a skill needed by leaders and planners who direct schools in the recovery process. Delegation is first created on a base in which high expectations from and confidence in staff is demonstrated.  It does little or no worth to delegate responsibility to an individual and fail to give the person the chance to carry out that commitment.  Delegation can, if correctly carried out within a suitable structure, be a key means of facilitating work and avoiding a logjam in the institution. To delegate successfully, an administrator must make expectations clear, state what is delegated in such a way as to avoid obscurity, monitor the results of the delegation, provide encouragement and support to the person to who the function was delegated, and, finally, follow up to see the job was accomplished and what byproduct or side effects may have occurred. 

Effective leaders of change are individuals who can walk on both sides of the cultural tracks (especially in our community) and as the saying goes, "You Gotta Know the Territory". Leaders who can communicate effectively and produce confidence among the civic and opinion leaders in a community own an important skill; however, leaders with the awareness, understanding, and ability to communicate with the “powerless” will find they can recruit and benefit from the political strength derived from working with the lesser socioeconomic segments of a community.  Effective leaders believe that all people are of worth - those who are power brokers, those who are in the quiet majority, and those who do not have the resources within their clasp but who nevertheless have a major investment in the improvement of their school. A leader who is able to work effectively with all sectors of a community will have an advantage over leaders who are administratively motivated only by persons observed to be in power positions.

Effective leaders have the skill and knowledge to work in the political arena and are considerate to the politics of the community and state.  Politics is an actuality; as soon as people are challenged with change, politics becomes involved.  People contest change in bureaucracies by politicizing issues, just as others endeavor to accomplish change through the use of political power. Like it or not, administrators and planners for the improvement of education- those who would bring about change-must know how to face and, if possible, utilize political pressure.  Those who advocate the need for change will encounter almost insurmountable odds in their pursuit to make changes for the improvement of education. First, the need must be established; the opposition is usually only required to rear a question and prove nothing regarding the lack of a need.  Second, the supporters of change must lead others through planning struggles and decision making; the adversaries need only sit back and do nothing to produce the effort to collapse.  But even if the first two stages – selling the need and completing the plan-are achieved, the tremendous and often obstinate forces of a bureaucracy are still left, which can simply suffocate an effort to change. 

An alert and effective change facilitator (administrator) works on their ability to decipher the complexities of a power structure and the political environment of the community and state.  Once the political structure, within both an establishment and a community, are understood, their power can be harnessed and contained.  If an administrator views a political power organization from a systems perspective, he or she can gain valuable visions into the structure.  By developing a more in-depth awareness of political systems, those systems can be engaged to accomplish desire outcomes. Political behavior in groups is perfectly natural and reasonable.  Sometimes it is the only way to get things done. 

Until tomorrow...

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