Why does a person take a leadership position? After all the hoopla of interviewing, recruitment and hiring have faded, after new pay checks have been received, and after your name is on the letterhead, most say they assumed leadership in order to make a difference in the life of the organization – in this case, a school or school district. Being hired to be a school superintendent is personally and professionally exciting. There is a honeymoon period of getting to know each other and egos bloom. However, the clock is ticking. The opportunity to make a difference began on day one not the end of the honeymoon. Now, what? Will you be a placeholder or will you have made a difference?
What Do We Know?
School boards typically hire a new superintendent who is different from the prior superintendent. This is not a slam on the predecessor, it is just the way things work. Also, school boards do not hire a superintendent to continue the work of the prior superintendent. The intention of the employer and the employee is that something new and better will happen.
Thus, the dilemma. The length of tenure and the time it takes to implement a meaningful program are not equal. Change takes time.
The mean tenure for a superintendent in the same position is five to six years. Interestingly, this is slightly more than a decade ago when the mean was 3-4 years. Tenures are somewhat longer for smaller school and suburban leaders than large, urban school district leaders. With an annual turnover rate of 14 to 16 percent each year, superintendents have roughly six years to do their significant work.
https://www.aasa.org/content.aspx?id=740
A six-year tenure is a superintendent’s window of opportunity. Because six years is an averaged number, some leaders arithmetically will have more years. On the other side of the statistic, an equal number of leaders have fewer years to implement the programs the newness they were hired to bring to their schools.
https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/SuperintendentsBrown-Center9314.pdf
The truth is this – time runs out.
Why Is This Thus?
Organizational change theory is well-studied and it pertains to school leadership.
“Change takes tremendous effort. It takes as much effort to organize and manage a significant change initiative as it does to manage the daily operations of the ongoing school operations. In effect, it takes twice as much human effort to affect a significant change because the humans also must do their daily work.”
https://nwi.pdx.edu/NWI-book/Chapters/Franz-5b-(system-change).pdf
“It must be considered that there is nothing more difficult to carry out, nor more doubtful of success, nor more dangerous to handle, than to initiate a new order of things.”
https://hbr.org/2008/07/choosing-strategies-for-change
Because change can be difficult for people and processes that do not want to be changed, leaders find their being responsible for change to be a precarious employment position. For this reason alone, leaders are often tentative in initiating significant change early in their tenure before they have developed sustainable working relationships.
From beginning to end, a change process takes up to eight years to realize the results that were intended by those initiating the change. Eight years!
Pick your theory and model for implementing organizational change. I have looked at each. They all take time.
MAJOR APPROACHES & MODELS OF CHANGE MANAGEMENT
1) Lewin’s Change Management Model.
2) McKinsey 7 S Model.
3) Kotter’s change management theory.
4) Nudge Theory.
5) ADKAR model.
6) Bridges’ Transition Model.
7) Kübler-Ross Five Stage Model.
https://www.cleverism.com/major-approaches-models-of-change-management/
Change in education is slightly different than change in other human industries. The research on change is largely informed by research organizations where the results of change can be observed within a short period of time. Research has concentrated on business, especially health care. When change is directed at instructional practices, curricular reform, and teacher professional development and the critical outcomes of interest are measures by school and/or student performance, it takes evaluation over four to five years to observe meaningful performance differences and to correlate the movement to the implemented change.
Consider changing a reading program in elementary schools. If the goal is to improve reading proficiency by the end of third grade, a change starting this year in Kindergarten will take four academic years to demonstrate comparable data to the proficiency data of the prior program. If the change is an instructional model, implementing Danielson’s Frameworks of Teaching for example, it will take three to four years for a teacher to eliminate a prior model and thoroughly implement the new. This makes the timeline of planning, preparation for change, implementation of change strategies, regression of old strategies and practice of new new strategies, and evaluation of results stretch to eight years.
For most school leaders, given the average six years of tenure, the necessary six to eight years of time runs out before they can affect a significant change in their schools.
To Do
The “do no harm” approach: Follow the Hippocratic Oath for medical doctors and “do no harm”. Lead and manage your schools so that they are as strong on your last day as they were on your first day. This is the approach taken by most superintendents.
The “do some good” approach: Each school year presents opportunities for small changes and small improvements that can be achieved without the turmoil of organizational change. Changing a bell schedule requires staff and students to adjust their usual routines, but it can realize a reprioritization of time. A bell schedule change process from first discussion to accepted practice may take an academic year. Changes to school operations, such as new security systems, monitored entrances and exits, and visitor badge wear constitute very valid and worthwhile changes that require changes in behavior. These should be implemented without causing much organizational turmoil. Changing a school mascot or reducing school programs may seem easier to accomplish than they really are. Some small change opportunities can become professional graveyards.
The “do great things” approach: Time, opportunity, convergence of personalities, and money present singular opportunities for a superintendent to affect major and significant change. This convergence makes all the difference between dreamers and doers. When a school leader is at the junction of these factors and has the personal leadership skills and drive to make things happen, great things can happen. A superintendent may have one opportunity in a career to to build a significant new school. The economics and politics of successful school mergers and closings are dicey, but can be accomplished. Installing curricular reform, such as K-12 reading/ELA or K-12 math, big change initiatives requiring time, professional development, money, and planning and argumentation can be achieved. For the superintendent and school board, these types of changes spend a great deal of relationships capital, but they succeed everyone wins. Some succeed wonderfully while others succumb to the weight of the effort and cost. Perhaps all superintendents dream of doing great things then find they are subject to time, place and circumstances.
The Big Duh!
Your legacy is yours to create.
Most school leaders do not think of the legacy they will leave in their current position until it is time for their departure. Then, it is retrospective and reconstructive work.
Some school leaders consider legacy opportunities, the ways in which they can affect major improvements in their schools, all the time. When they have a schools-first not a my-reputation-first mindset and when they are at the convergence of the “do great things” factors, these leaders can cause their schools to emerge from change with outstanding improvements.
Where are you in your legacy work?