Effective school leadership is a lonely voyage without collaborating partners. When a leader understands distributed leadership and emboldens a cadre of like-minded colleagues to use their knowledge and skills to advance a school mission, loneliness turns into camaraderie. A cadre of comrades is a powerful change agency.
Time and theory do not favor change.
In the usual pyramidal hierarchy of school personnel, a principal is assigned as its executive leader and all faculty and staff ultimately report to the principal. When a school board recruits, selects, and hires a principal, they usually see the new principal as a change agent, a leader who will use new thinking and strategies to improve the school. However, change does not happen with a vote. Change is hard work.
Once seated, most principals have less than five years to implement the changes the board envisioned. The average tenure of a school principal is 4.5 years. Of the five reasons the National Association of Secondary School Principals identified for principal, two are directly tied to time on the job and change theory.
- Inadequate preparation and professional development.
- High stakes accountability policies.
An effective leader of organizational change understands the concepts, requirements, steps, and time required to move an organization from what they have been doing in the past to what they will be doing in the future. “In Gallup’s experience, organizations that work on changing company culture typically see the strongest gains in three to five years”. But it takes seven to eight years for changes to be institutionalized as the ongoing company tradition. “Mr. Principal, your time is up!”
https://www.gallup.com/workplace/471968/culture-transformation-leaders-need-know.aspx#
Decisions and actions taken by a single person that affect an entire school, although inspired and informed, have so many strikes against them from the get-go that it is unlikely any are accomplished. A Stanford University report reiterates the findings of the Effective Schools research of the 1980s – the principal is the focal point for leading all school improvement efforts. However, according to McKinsey studies, “70% of change initiatives fail”. Change theory alone places a single leader against a status quo supported by those who are invested in past practices and the initial wall of resistance dooms most change efforts. Moving from a single person leading change to collaborative leadership is essential for increasing the likelihood of success and cadre development is a principal’s best friend.
Cadre not committee.
Cadre or committee? There is a difference. Cadre members are committed to outcomes not school politics. Although picked by the principal, as cadre members their voice is equal to the principal. There is no deference given to the input of the principal. Where committees discuss and recommend a principal’s school improvement actions, cadres members share with the principal in doing the work of school improvement. The key is empowerment. The difference is action versus discussion.
“Empowerment for teacher leadership is not an act of assigning roles of conferring authority but is rather a state of mind – teacher leaders embrace greater responsibility for the culture and work of their school and profession. Teacher leaders and administrators in both formal and informal roles recognize the power and synergy that arises from a spirit of genuine collaboration – culture in which the contribution of each person is valued and respected.”
https://www.nea.org/resource-library/great-teaching-and-learning/recommendations/teacher-leader
Committees are a traditional school structure. Whether standing or ad hoc, committees are balanced by faculty and staff representation. Often committee membership is open only if a current member leaves. And committee chairmanship is privileged. Good ideas and talents too often are lost in the games of committee politics and the mechanics of chain of command decision making.
“What we know is that instructional-leadership teams, such as district and building leadership teams, have internal struggles with status because school-based leaders are member of the team, and that often means that teachers around the table do not want to speak up and challenge their supervisors.”
Cadres are different. Cadres lead by example, exercising individual strengths that contribute to improvement goals. The principal is a member of the cadre, stirs the discussion, and leads the search for research-based ideas for cadre consideration. Unlike committee structures that recommend and wait for approvals, cadre members act on consensus. The cadre’s job is to advance and polish good ideas, create pathways within the faculty for understanding new ideas, and coaching professional development to implement school improvement. Principal approvals are baked in because the principal is a cadre member. It may sound camp, but the Three Musketeers’ “All for one and one for all” describes the best cadres.
Every school faculty has its in-house innovators; teachers who are out-in-front of the rest in trying new teaching, pushing for higher student performance and getting positive results. Their colleagues know who they are. Too often these “all stars” languish with a lack of leader recognition or diminish because they seem to compete with short-sighted administrators for the school spotlight. Outcome-minded principals don’t see them as competitors but as co-leaders. They encourage innovation and engage their “all stars” in constant conversation about “what ifs”. With collegial conversations, it does not take long for partnering to begin.
Cadre leading with mindfulness.
This may be read as a cadre highjacking school leadership, but it isn’t. The principal, the school board’s school leader, keeps cadres mindful of their mission.
When a principal creates a leadership cadre, each person in the cadre is empowered and mutual respect is the only politic. The cadre keeps its mind on these five steps for changing their school.
- Aspiration. What new outcomes are needed to improve the school?
- Assess. What is the current status of these outcomes?
- Architecture. What “small step trainings” are required to change the current status into the desired systems and culture?
- Act. Rehearsing and scheduling the who does what, when, and how much of cadre-led PD.
- Advance. Institutionalizing the new outcomes into the school’s way of life.
There is nothing magic in these 5 A’s. They work because they are systematic. Cadres tackle each step in its turn. And the resulting changes are accumulative. The more a cadre uses this plan, the more their colleagues will trust the cadre’s work.
Principals lead cadres with mindfulness.
Historically, a school principal was the lead or “principal” teacher. When a principal forms a cadre of leaders, the principal once again is the lead teacher. Once a cadre forms, a principal must exercise team leadership and coaching mindfulness because cadres need nurturing. Educators are human and trying to change the status quo of a school can take its toll on the cadre. When cadre comrades observe the principal exercising the following mindset, they find it easier to persevere.
These ideas are part of a principal’s mindset.
- Prioritize – do a few things well
- Communicate – do it always and in all ways
- Trust- relinquish some control and build relationships
- Collaborate – do better together
- Celebrate – do it frequently and freely
https://ascd.org/blogs/5-ways-to-build-staff-leadership-in-your-school
Be the change!
Change from the top down is a mighty struggle with a low success rate and loses its efficacy the more it is used. Change from within using a cadre as its agency has a much higher success rate and is repeatable. Principals become one with the change when their investment in camaraderie results in cadre leadership.