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A Leadership Team is critical to the success of school change
initiatives. Here are some suggestions to assist you with
the first steps of forming a team, when leading initial small
group work, and when encouraging personal reflections to encourage
support and commitment of individual team members.
- First Steps
Gather your Leadership Team and:
- emphasize that the purpose of this group is to lead
change in the school.
- identify reasons for why the school needs to change
(NCLB mandates, assessment scores, opportunity gap,
etc.). This discussion should create a sense of urgency.
- offer that the starting point for change is relationships.
At this point the Leadership Team should begin a discussion
using Carl Glickman's description of schools as Conventional,
Congenial, and Collegial. (worksheet/handout—School
Culture)
A critical first step in forming a Leadership Team is
establishing a relationship among the school’s leaders
(the principal, administrators, department or grade level
chairs, teacher mentors, and other instructional leaders)
that encourages conversation about the school’s
unique culture and the challenges of changing and improving
their school. This conversation might begin, as Glickman
(1993) suggests in Renewing America's Schools,
with an analytic discussion of the school's culture as
conventional, congenial, or collegial.
This ongoing discussion and the decisions that follow at
your school will begin to create what Gordon Donaldson,
speaking at the Council for Educational Change 2003 Summer
Leadership Academy, described as a "leadership-rich"
school. He further states (2001) "Leadership is a relationship
that mobilizes people to fulfill the purposes of education"
(p. 41). He sees the alternative to shared leadership, that
is, classical leadership in schools, as an exercise in "herding
cats and pushing rope." Your Leadership Team may use
Donaldson's ideas to evaluate its direction and decision-making
by asking:
- Our relationships: are they strong enough to support
each of us?
- Our purposes and sense of commitment to them: are they
clear enough so we can commit?
- Our action-in-common: are we working with students in
a coordinated manner so that we multiply each other's
efforts?
- Small Group Work
Another productive activity is to ask the Leadership Team
to engage in a small group discussion of Glickman's School
Culture model and identify where they feel your school would
be on the continuum. Next, ask them to identify where they
think the faculty would place your school on the continuum.
Discuss, listen, and record/list perceptions using overhead
projection.
In this next activity your Leadership Team can review their
perceptions using Donaldson Staff Commitment to Purpose
Continuums (worksheet/handout—Staff
Commitment to Purpose Continuums), which include:
- Strong Working Relationships
- Range of Readiness for Commitment
- Readiness to Act
In closing your meeting, two responsibilities remain. One
is to provide an overview of your expectations of each of
the Leadership Team members as participants in leading change.
Specifically, that this effort will impinge on their time,
require effort on their part and that they will be expected
to lead by example. This frank disclosure serves as an invitation.
It also serves as an opportunity for participants to commit
to the agenda of change.
- Reflection
Finally, ask each Leadership Team participant to review
the purpose of the meeting just finished and their own commitment
to change, and to begin the thought process for the construct
of a meaningful and purposeful vision statement for the
next Leadership Meeting.
Next: 2. Share
Leadership: Building Learning Teams
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