authoritarianism, dictatorship, abdication, delegation, distribution, participation?
So Moral leadership is a value driven leadership-Engaged or Distributed leadership can enable values to pervade and jobs to be done.
Surely the role of the formally appointed leader is to create a culture in which the latent potential of the staff is nourished, recognised and released. After all, how many times have we heard “our staff are our greatest resource”—but does the speaker live it?
Engagement is the key to exploiting this resource. It is obvious that all wisdom and knowledge does not lie in the office-so using the skills, knowledge and competencies of the workforce seems so obvious as to be not worth stating, yet…
Dictatorship, backed up by strict regulatory processes can lead to short term compliance, but how do you get to a point whereby people/workforce broadly agree on what should be done?
So what type of leadership-for the country, your business, your school? Where are we now? what kind of leadership are we experiencing atm?
Who in N.I remembers the old 11-16 Curriculum review or am I betraying my age? If you believed in its modus operandi-read no further!! Aw go on…
The Impossible job part 2:Do you know what you are doing?
The OECD says that in many countries “there is a lack of clarity about the core tasks a school leader should dedicate their time to”. Pause for a moment-if you are a school leader-how did you spend your week-did it coincide with how you think you should spend your week?
An institution such as a school has many stakeholders-Board of Governors, parents, staff, DE, EA, politicians ,local council, clergy, students-all of whom have an opinion.
Schools are at the best of times, complex and difficult places to manage and quite possibly, at the moment, very divisive. Heads will be caught in a mire of competing demands.
With such a disparate group of stakeholders, authoritarianism offers, initially at least, the quickest and easiest way forward, but is it the best? The OECD recommended in 2008 that school leadership needs to be different -do you see any fundamental changes in Headship or in the way Headship is inspected and reported on-it looks much the same to me as it did 25 years ago-but with increased expectations, increased responsibility, increased accountability, increased demands
The OECD found that Principalship is “an increasingly unattractive job” due to “overburdened roles and working conditions” They reported that Principals feel unable to achieve all their tasks and responsibilities. As OECD stated “the workload goes beyond what one person can achieve successfully” “The terms and conditions need revised”…and so they do-
How can you prioritise your workload if you don’t know what is expected of you by way of core activities?
Part 3 The Impossible Job 3
The OECD devotes a full book on the subject of redefining and improving school leadership.
Do you see any fundamental changes in Headship or in the way Headship is inspected and reported on-it looks much the same to me as it did 25 years ago-yet the role is hugely different with increased expectations, increased responsibility, increased accountability, increased demands
The OECD found that Principalship is “an increasingly unattractive job” due to “overburdened roles and working conditions” It reported that Principals feel unable to achieve all their tasks.
It speaks of the ill suitability of the so called Heroic leadership or charismatic leadership in which one man (or woman) does it all.
Most of us have worked with someone who, although charismatic in public, was overwhelmingly arrogant or ego centric in private and took all the glory, made all the decisions and listened to nobody.
A recent US study of the largest 500 companies found no relationship between the perceived charisma of the CEO and the company’s performance but found a significant correlation between their perceived charisma and the size of their compensation package !(Tosi 2004).
Collins found that among two thirds of companies on a downward spiral, their failure could be attributed to a CEO with a “gargantuan ego”
Research showed that while many people are keen to contribute more at work , the behaviour of their managers and culture of their organisations is actively discouraging them from doing so (Towers Pernin 2005)—what do you think?
Of the top companies the two most significant traits in the CEOs were an unflinching belief that their company could be the best and a deep personal humility.
Surely the role of the formally appointed leader is to create a culture in which the latent potential of the staff is nourished, recognised and released.
The Impossible Job 4
A recent US study of the largest 500 companies found NO relationship between the perceived charisma of the CEO and the company’s performance but find a significant correlation between their perceived charisma and the size of their compensation package !(Tosi 2004).
According to research into Public Sector organisations, achieving shared organisational targets was the key to large agreed savings and a movement away from a blame culture (Shepherd 2007)
The crucial question then becomes “what form of leadership creates “engagement” ?
…a different form of appointments process would be helpful-one in which the leadership and management philosophy of the applicants was assessed. In my view it is crucial that any potential leader is aligned with the school community/philosophy with their mind and heart. In N.Ireland terms this means aligning with---selection/all ability,integrated,church influenced,open-
The transformational leadership style which would be beneficial is one of “nearby “leadership -Peters and Waterman would use the term MBWA-management by walking about-characterised by a strong sense of inclusiveness in which leadership is “distributed” throughout all levels of the organisation-valuing the contributions of all. A recognition that all wisdom does not lie in the office and that some of their colleagues might know more than or have better ideas than the boss. Teamworking and collaboration therefore feature strongly in this style.