Leadership and The Self-Organizing School David F. Bower

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Leadership and The Self-Organizing School

• David F. Bower, Ed.D.
• Complexity Science and Educational Research
  Conference
• October 2004
• bowerd_at_ohio.edu

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Abstract
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Background

• Questions about my school
• Questions about my role as leader
• Questions about new theories of organization
• From holonomy to chaos theory to
  self-organization to my study

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Problem statement

• What do we know about successful schools that
  have sustained reform efforts over time? How can
  a study of such schools inform our work of school
  improvement? How can current organizational
  theories become a lens to help us focus on
  successful practices?

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Purpose

• The purpose of this research is to study the
  dynamics of self-organization in a school.

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Research questions

• 1. What characterizes self-organization and
  renewal within a school?
• 2. How do self-organization and renewal sustain
  reform and improvement?
• 3. How does leadership support and sustain the
  dynamics of self-organization, renewal, and
  improvement?

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Definition of terms

• Self-organization
• Reform and improvement
• Renewal
• Leadership

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Limitations

• School history and demographics
• Study of one school in depth
• Researcher as participant

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Conceptual Framework

• From core to process level to emergence level
• Core influences processes processes influence
  emergence
• Sustained and emerging changes can influence core

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Conceptual framework
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Literature review

• Part One
• Educational Reform
• Organizational change
• Chaos and complexity
• Self-organization
• Part Two
• Leadership

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Purpose of literature review

• Set research study in context of educational
  reform, organizational change, and new
  organizational theories
• Self-organization offers a new approach to
  sustaining reform and improvement by organizing
  from the inside out

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Methods and Procedures

• Qualitative research and phenomenology
• Research design
• Context of study
• Data collection methods
• Data analysis
• Population and participants

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Research Design

• First round of open-ended questions
• Document and history review
• Second round of semi-structured questions
• Transcription
• Categories and themes
• Focus group questions
• Final analysis

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Research Methods

• Constant comparative method
• Comparison of interview data with historical data
  and with topics from literature review
• Journal notes from researcher

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Context, Population, and Participants

• One school Roosevelt Middle School
• Population includes 47 certified teaching and
  non-teaching staff
• 21 staff members participated
• All participation was voluntary
• Researcher was also a participant

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Historical Background

• History of Roosevelt Middle School
• First interviews (open-ended) 2000-2001
• Records summary
• The garden metaphor
• Emerging patterns

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Emerging Patterns

• Topics of leadership, freedom and autonomy,
  relationships, ecology (location, size,
  community) emerge from the data
• Emerging topics lead to further research questions

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Data Findings and Analysis

• Second interviews (semi-structured) 2001-2002
• Research questions
• 1. What characterizes self-organization within a
  school?
• 2. How do self-organization and renewal sustain
  reform and improvement?
• 3. How does leadership support and sustain the
  dynamics of self-organization, renewal, and
  improvement?

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What characterizes self-organization and renewal
within a school?

• Focus
• Student focus Internalized focus Principles and
  Philosophy
• Interaction
• Relationships and Teams Communication and
  Feedback Conversation
• Emergence
• Renewal Creativity Personal Engagement
• Summary Developing patterns

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How do self-organization and renewal sustain
reform and improvement?

• Sense Making
• Collective and Individual Sense-Making
• Sustaining conditions
• Freedom Safe/Supportive Environment Ownership
• Summary Developing patterns

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How does leadership support and sustain the
dynamics of self-organization, renewal, and
improvement?

• Individual leadership Principal
• Principal as buffer/filter Leadership Support
• Collective leadership Principal and teachers
• Shared leadership Inside/Out organization
• Putting it together The story of a school
  retreat
• Summary Developing patterns

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Focus Group Interviews

• Three focus group sessions May 2002
• Voluntary participants
• Methodology
• Seven focus questions transcribe taped
  interviews analyze for patterns correlate to
  prior interviews
• Summary Confirming patterns

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Discussion of Data

• Review of problem
• Look at interaction of parts
• Study change that originates from within
• Examine renewal, sustained change, and
  self-organization
• Link data to literature

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First research question

• What characterizes self-organization and renewal
  within a school?
• Focus
• Interaction
• Emergence
• What characterizes self-organization and renewal
  is what emerges from within.

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Focus

• Core principles create a foundation for work
  work emerges from within and organizes around
  focus boundaries are open
• Generative cultures have no boundaries (Chawla
  and Renesch, 1995).

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Interaction

• Teamed relationships support communication and
  conversation
• Focus is student-centered
• Genuine accountability
• contrasting the effectiveness of ten
  individuals acting alone with that of the same
  ten people acting in concert (Marion, 1999).

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Emergence

• Renewal, creativity, personal engagement come
  from within
• Co-creation links change to renewal (people
  support what they create)
• Edge of chaos or bounded instability avoids
  complacency, stability, and routine
• edge of chaos(Pascale, 2000).
• Ecotone edges where differences come together
  are the richest of habitats (Krall, 1999).

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Second research question

• How do self-organization and renewal sustain
  reform and improvement?
• Sense making
• Sustaining conditions
• Self-organization and renewal sustain reform and
  renewal indirectly and are related to emergence.

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Sense making

• Individual and collective sense-making reduces
  isolation, supports sense of fit, and fosters
  internalization of purpose
• Holonomy the interaction of individual and
  collective
• integrative and self-assertive tendencies of
  holons (Capra, 1982).

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Sustaining conditions

• Safety and freedom support risk-taking and
  creativity
• Ownership emerges from shared leadership and
  internalized focus on principles
• Autonomy freedom coherence through
  self-organization (Wheatley,1992)

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Third research question

• How does leadership support and sustain the
  dynamics of of self-organization, renewal, and
  improvement?
• Leadership supports these dynamics by shifting
  the concept of leadership from individual to
  collective. Attention to processes and
  relationships supports this shift.

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Individual leadershipPrincipal

• Buffer/filter listen supportfocus
• Balance process and content
• All managers can do is to establish the
  conditions that enable groups of people to
  learn (Stacey, 1992)

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Collective leadership Principal and teachers

• Collective leadership is based upon sound
  relationships
• Leadership must be redefined
• Leading from inside/out is collective and
  creative process
• If self-management is our goal, then leadership
  will have to be reinvented in a fashion that
  places followership first (Sergiovanni, 1992).

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What I have learned about leadership in a
self-organizing school

• Shift focus to relationships and to interaction
  of the parts
• Support the processes
• Be patient while results emerge
• Communicate values and leadership philosophy
  clearly
• Balance direction with improvisation

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What leaders can do

• Move organizations to edge of chaos or bounded
  instability
• Remember that the whole determines the behavior
  of the parts
• Keep the focus clear complexity will emerge

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Unanticipated findings

• Teams cannot support interaction,
  internalization, or emergence if relationships
  are dysfunctional
• Public nature of teaching can intimidate as
  isolation ends
• An independent/autonomous school may lack ability
  to integrate and to balance self-assertion with
  integration.

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Further research

• Serendipity and synchronicity may exist with
  self-organization. Do we have the lens to see
  these phenomena?
• Applying principles of self-organization to
  district-level work
• Can self-organizing schools sustain their work?

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Conclusion

• Education from Latin roots ex meaning out and
  ducere meaning lead
• If education is about leading out, then it is
  about what emerges from within
• Self-organization, emergence, and leadership
  support this dynamic

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References

• Chawla, S. Renesch, J. (Eds). (1995).
  Learning organizations Developing cultures for
  tomorrows workplace. Portland, Oregon
  Productivity Press.
• Capra, F. (1982). The turning point Science,
  society, and the rising culture. NY Bantam
  Books.
• Marion, R. (1999). The edge of organization.
  Thousand Oaks, CA Sage Publications.
• Pascale, R.T., Milleman, M., Gioja, L. (2000).
  Surfing the edge of chaos The laws of nature and
  the new laws of business. New York Crown
  Business.
• Krall, F.R. (1994). Ecotone Wayfaring on the
  margins. Albany, New York State University of
  New York Press.
• Wheatley, M. J. (1992). Leadership and the new
  science. San Francisco, CA Berrett-Koehler
  Publishers, Inc.
• Stacey, R. (1992). Managing the unknowable
  Strategic boundaries between order and chaos in
  organizations. San Francisco Jossey-Bass
  Publishers.
• Sergiovanni, T. J. (1992). Moral leadership
  Getting to the heart of school improvement. San
  Francisco, CA Jossey-Bass Publishers.

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About the Author

• David F. Bower is an assistant professor of
  teacher education in the College of Education at
  Ohio University. His primary program affiliation
  is Middle Childhood Education.
• Dr. Bower joined the faculty at Ohio University
  in the fall of 2003. He completed his Doctor of
  Education in Educational Leadership at the
  University of New Mexico in May 2003. He
  received his Master of Arts degree in Educational
  Administration from UNM in 1996. He also holds a
  BA degree in English, Theater Arts, and Education
  from Grove City College in Pennsylvania.
• Dr. Bower was a high school English and drama
  teacher for twenty years prior to his work as a
  middle school administrator. He is a former
  principal of Roosevelt Middle School in
  Albuquerque, NM.
• Dr. Bower has presented at a variety of
  conferences including the Coalition of Essential
  Schools Fall Forum, the NM Administrators
  Conference on Education, and the South Australian
  Middle Schooling Conference.
• Research interests include teacher preparation,
  quality, and leadership chaos and complexity
  theory as applied to schools and organizations
  and middle childhood education.