Understanding leadership dyn school’ roles – and moving forw Phil Ramsey Senior Lecturer in the School of Management, Massey University Jenny Poskitt Associate Head of the Institute of Education, Massey University
Involvement in Kāhui Ako, or cluster, initiatives has unearthed some leadership tensions and dilemmas. Leadership can be both formal and informal, but at its heart, it is about inspiring others to act together in a common direction. But who does that, when, how, and with what authority has been a tension that many principals and those assigned to new leadership roles in Kāhui Ako have encountered. Trying to understand the constraints and complexities, and minimizing the misunderstandings that occur as people co-construct new ways of working, has been, and continues to be, a challenge. This article seeks to help explain some of the tensions encountered, and provide some insights into potential ways forward. Dynamics of Leadership Context matters. A rugby team may have played half the game with the wind behind them, effectively employing tactics that lead to success. At half time the team changes ends and faces a new context. They are playing into the wind. As they are about to kick off to start the second half many aspects of the game look the same: the field, the opposition, and the spectators. Yet one contextual factor, the direction of the wind, means that tactics that brought success only a few minutes earlier can now lead to disaster. Management researcher Barry Oshry (2018) explored the impact that social context has on leadership and organisational behaviour. A move from one group to another often involves a change of role. Behaviour that is healthy and engaging in one social context (e.g. your school) may be inappropriate in another (e.g. the wider Kāhui Ako). Why is that? To use Oshry’s terms, principals act as ‘tops’ in their own schools, and as ‘middles’ when working together as part of a Kāhui Ako. These ‘top’ and ‘middle’ roles have different opportunities and constraints, to which we now turn. Tops and Middles Tops are those with executive responsibility in a social system (such as school principals, CEOs of companies). This responsibility involves control of the system’s resources and deciding how to shape the system to meet present and future challenges. Of course there are many challenges: the future is uncertain, there is never enough information, and people in other roles may not appreciate the complex challenges facing the community or why change might be necessary. Middles (like team leaders and HODs) are those who act as agents of the executive, taking managerial roles that put into action the direction set by the tops. They are delegated responsibilities by the executive, though usually without the
power (or resources). Middles carry out their responsibilities while integrating their efforts with those of other parts of the system (e.g. responsible for the junior school, while working with other team/departmental leaders). The context in which they operate, however, makes integration challenging because ‘middles’ find themselves in between people or groups with different interests. Typically, middles find themselves torn between the competing interests of those at the top (e.g. the principal’s ‘directives’) and those at the ‘bottom’ of the community (e.g. classroom teachers). Implications for Kāhui Ako or cluster leaders Oshry’s (2007, 2018) research uncovered how easy it is for social systems to develop dysfunctional patterns of interaction, based on the tensions and challenges of the various roles. But they can become functional through ‘systems leadership’ – leading across boundaries through positive influence, rather than exertion of power, and where multiple ideas, skills and contributions are required for solutions to complex problems. The focus is on empowering the collective rather than the individual. Go-ahead Kāhui Ako are based on systems leadership, which necessitates people in leadership roles to think and act systemically (‘across schools’, as well as ‘within their school’). Principals within the Kāhui Ako community adjust and act fluidly between their roles as ‘tops’ within their schools, and as ‘middles’ in the Kāhui Ako, working as change agents and integrators of education, on behalf of the governmental ‘tops’ who have responsibility to shape the broader education environment. What choices and adjustments might principals face? Leading from the Middle Principals typically experience a deep sense of responsibility for their school. A natural reaction to responsibility, especially when faced with complex decisions, is to take control. This can involve: fighting to ensure you get your share of the scarce resources available; prioritising what is most important to the school’s direction; giving clear and detailed instructions; and providing assurance to others that they can trust your decisions. Actions like these align with traditional models of leadership (Block, 1993), where leaders’ attention is focused on the health of the system in which they are the ‘top’. The Kāhui Ako context places principals simultaneously in the top (of their school) and in the middle of a system, requiring them to balance the interests of ‘their’ school alongside the interests of the wider Kāhui Ako. To illustrate the difference, Table 1 contains characteristics of principals acting primarily as ‘tops’ (in the first column) and as ‘middles’ (second column) in the Kāhui Ako context.
dynamics ‘within’ and ‘across rward Table 1: Top and Middle Approaches in Kāhui Ako Principals as Tops
Principals as Middles
Group Size
Maximise size to (1) i n c re a s e re s o u rce s available to own school, and (2) take pressure off the need to engage as a ‘team’.
Manage size, keeping the number of schools relatively small in order t o e n a b le e f fe c t i ve collaboration.
Relationships
Group is held together by mutual self-interest. Members do not need to change power-based interactions. Expertise is a key value.
E f fe c t i ve te a m wo r k re q u i re s d e l i b e ra te effort to build trust and respect amongst members, who freely choose to engage. Learning is a key value.
Goals
Adopt goals that reflect funder’s priorities which can be achieved with minimum effort or which coincide with school goals.
Ensure goals are meaningful to the team and the broader community that provides context for the Kāhui Ako.
Direction
Frustrated that funders don’t give clear and unambiguous direction. Want to be told what to do, and want to complain about direction.
Understand the challenge of complexity, that tops don’t understand the local context. The team has a role in educating the system about what is missing and in pulling direction from the top.
Group size Size of Kāhui Ako groups vary. Greater numbers make effective collaboration more challenging. From a ‘top’ perspective, being part of a large group can be attractive. A larger group can attract greater funding. If the group is large then not every principal needs to be fully engaged. So the extra resources, which can be used to benefit the school in which the principal has executive responsibility, come at a relatively low cost in terms of the principal’s investment of time. Principals who take a ‘middle’ approach, may prefer to keep the size small. In a smaller group there is more opportunity for effective collaboration. According to Oshry (2007), a key danger for middles is the tendency to become isolated and feel alienated from one another. As groups get larger, additional members make collaboration more difficult, with more effort to coordinate, resolve conflicts, and communicate, and less effort is available to do the work of the group (Schwarz, 2002).
Relationships Principals who act more like a top, tend to rely on power-based relationships. Others within the school are aware of the power associated with the role, and may acquiesce to the strongly held view of the top. Principals may not recognise the part that power has played in such interactions, and may assume that others are yielding to greater experience and expertise. Over time, this can lead to school leaders feeling that others outside the school should also yield to their expertise. Some principals report having been put ‘in their place’ by fellow principals reminding them who has the greater experience or the larger school. Alternatively, principals who see themselves as a group of middles who share responsibility and power for educational success across the Kāhui Ako schools, are more likely to put effort into deliberately building trust and respect with one another. Indeed, they understand the pivotal role of middles (and system leaders) to foster relational trust and positively influence interpersonal culture (Edwards-Grove, Grootenboer, & Ronnerman, 2016). Establishing an effective team takes deliberate effort, with attention to the establishment of group norms and processes that design effective practice into their work together (Edmondson, 2012). Goals When the mindset of members is to use the group as a vehicle to get resources, the goals of the Kāhui Ako will tend to be set with funders in mind. The group is likely to take an approach of ‘satisficing’: adopting goals that only commit the group to the minimum effort needed to do what is required, and measured, by the Ministry of Education. In contrast, an effective Kāhui Ako group wants to achieve goals that members find meaningful. When goals have meaning that members understand, the group makes decisions that move the system toward goal achievement (Schwarz, 2002). And, as intelligent middles, the principals set goals designed to make a contribution to the larger system in which they operate, responding to the particular needs of the local context which may not be understood by funders. For this reason, these Kāhui Ako give special attention to working with their communities to establish local priorities, common to all the schools represented. Direction A key role of tops is to provide direction. Because complex organisational systems are made up of multiple local contexts, tops frame their direction in broad and somewhat ambiguous terms, with the intention that middles will apply the directions to their local context. Principals in a Kāhui Ako, hoping to satisfice the Ministry while keeping their personal engagement
to a minimum, can find the lack of clarity frustrating. In contrast, Kāhui Ako with a ‘middles orientation’, recognise that ambiguity creates opportunities. They draw on the collective insights and expertise of the group to devise a clear direction for learning in the local community, based on national priorities. System Leadership – a potential way forward When principals with a system leadership perspective engage with other schools as part of a Kāhui Ako, they give attention to the health of the broader community of which their school is a part. Instead of operating with positional power to get things done, they collaborate as a group of middles. They work to build the health and identity of their school while also striving to collaborate with other schools to address common issues. Key to being effective in this is awareness of the twin goals – optimising opportunities for their individual school (as ‘tops’), and the common good of the Kāhui Ako (as ‘middles’) – and realisation that there are choices to be made (Oshry, 2018). Furthermore, in their dual roles as ‘middles’ and ‘tops’, who relate horizontally (across schools) and vertically (within the school), they can mentor pedagogical leadership skills in departmental and team leaders (Leithwood, 2016). These other leaders, in turn, enhance learning and teaching capacities in the staff to improve student learning: the fundamental purpose of schools and Kāhui Ako. Through awareness and choice the principal, with a system leadership perspective, can fluidly shift attention to what is needed at any given time and, in doing so, learn to optimise the health of the whole system.
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References Block, P. (1993). Stewardship: Choosing service over self-interest. San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler Publishers. Edmondson, A. (2012). Teaming: How organisations learn, innovate and compete in the knowledge economy. San Francisco: John Wiley & Sons Inc. Edwards-Groves, C., Grootenboer, P., & Ronnerman, K. (2016). Facilitating a culture of relational trust in school-based action research: recognising the role of middle leaders. Educational Action Research, 24(3), 369-386. Leithwood, K. (2016). Department-Head leadership for school improvement. Leadership and Policy in Schools, 15(2), 117-140. Oshry, B. (2007). Seeing Systems: Unlocking the mysteries of organizational life. San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler Publishers. Oshry, B. (2018). Context, Context, Context: How our blindness to context cripples even the smartest organizations. Axminster: Triarchy Press. Schwarz, R. (2002). The Skilled Facilitator: A comprehensive resource for consultants, facilitators, managers, trainers and coaches. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. About the Authors Phil Ramsey is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Management at Massey University. His teaching and research has focused on issues of leadership and organisational learning, with particular interest in how these operate across different national and organisational cultures. Along with his university work, Phil is actively involved in consultation and leadership training. He is an associate of InterLEAD Consultants, and a contributor to their Strengthening the Core program. Contact details: p.l.ramsey@massey.ac.nz Jenny Poskitt is Associate Head of the Institute of Education, Massey University. Alongside her leadership responsibilities, Jenny has research and teaching interests in professional learning, assessment and qualitative research. Although she began her career as a primary teacher, Jenny has conducted research in primary and secondary schools throughout New Zealand. Associate Professor Poskitt serves on various Advisory Groups in the Ministry of Education, NZCER, Royal New Zealand College of General Practitioners, and internationally. She is president of the New Zealand Assessment Institute, and a member of the International Educational Assessment Network. Jenny’s engineer husband, two adult sons and a teenage daughter keep her education perspectives grounded! Contact details: j.m.poskitt@massey.ac.nz
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