Workshop 3: Professional learning communities: A substitute for leadership

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Workshop 3 Professional learning communities A
substitute for leadership

• Dr. Albert Boerema
• PL/CZ/SK Administrators Conference Katowice,
  Poland
• February 5-7, 2014

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From last time

• Supervision activities are essential.
• Supervision activities are difficult, even gut
  wrenching.
• Supervision does not make schools better.
• We need a different approach to make schools and
  educational programs better.

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Agenda

• Images and metaphors that support or inhibit the
  development of communities.
• The role of school culture
• Substitutes for leadership
• Servant leadership as stewardship

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Leadership space
Reliability and predictability through shared
goals and purposes
Reliability and predictability through standard
operating procedures, policies, regulations
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Reliability through . . .

• Direct supervision
• Standardize the work through control of materials
  and instructional technique
• Standardization of the output by requiring set
  level of achievement

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Reliability through . . .

• Professional socialization and shared goals
• Purposing and shared values (communities of
  practice)
• Collegiality and interdependence

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• Collegiality and interdependence
• Purposing and shared values
• Professional socialization
• Standardize output through required ends
• Standardize output through tools/methods
• Direct supervision

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Digression on ill-structured tasks

• Well-structured problem yields a right answer
  through the application of an appropriate
  algorithm
• Ill-structured problem (sometimes called an
  "ill-defined" problem or a "messy" problem)
  doesn't yield a particular, certain answer.
• A well-structured problem requires a right answer
• An ill-structured problem requires a claim and a
  justifying argument

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• When it comes to the bottom line, most
  successful principals will tell you that getting
  the culture right and paying attention to how
  parents, teachers, and students define and
  experience meaning are two widely accepted rules
  for creating effective schools. (Sergiovanni, The
  Principalship, 6thedition, p. 132).

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Leadership and Organizational culture

• Leadership is the art of articulating,
  representing and leveraging basic cultural
  assumptions in a way that evokes a desired group
  response over time.
• Smith The Merlin Factor

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A culture anecdote

• High school community groups or How to get
  everyone angry at you with one memo

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Your experiences

• Describe a time when you, as a leader, imposed
  your values or beliefs on others and recall for
  us what happened.

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Why is it important to think about organizational
culture?

• Conventional wisdom leaders exert rational,
  positive control over the organization they lead
  and its people.
• But, organizational culture controls the behavior
  of members as much or more than the formal rules
  and structures.

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Why is it important to think about organizational
culture?

• Many organizational behaviors and decisions are
  in effect predetermined by the patterns of basic
  assumptions that are held by members of the
  organization.

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• Organizational culture shapes how groups
  understand and carry out their mission.
• Culture is created communally.
• Leaders play a significant role in shaping
  culture.

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• Because of the loosely-coupled nature of schools,
  one of the most important ways that leaders can
  help a group move toward accomplishing their
  mission is through shaping organizational culture.

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• Organizational culture is highly complex. One
  cannot understand it, or grasp it in its
  entirety.
• The best we can do is understand aspects of it
  and how certain aspects of organizational culture
  effect life in the organization.

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Organizational culture

• the way we do things around here
• the norms of behaviors and shared values among a
  group of people
• a pattern of shared basic assumptions that the
  group learned as it solved its problems of
  external adaptation and internal integration,
  that has worked well enough to be considered
  valid and, therefore, to be taught to new
  members

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Levels of cultural expression

• artifacts
• espoused values
• underlying assumptions

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Artifacts

• The way culture is expressed in an organization
  use of space, language, myths and stories,
  ceremonies

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Espoused values

• the elements of organizational culture that are
  stated, and usually, consciously held.
• Values are the things the group cares about.

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Underlying Assumptions

• Largely unarticulated, unexpressed, and taken for
  granted, yet they powerfully shape what happens
  in the organization

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• Underlying assumptions
• Values
• Centers
• Metaphors
• Worldview
• Mind map
• Commitment framework

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Centers are . . .

• repositories of values, sentiments and
  beliefs that provide the needed cement for
  uniting people in a common cause. Centers govern
  the school values and provide norms that guide
  behavior and give meaning to school community
  life. They answer questions like What is this
  school about? What is our image of learners?
  How do we work together as colleagues?
  (Sergiovanni, 1992)

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Exploring assumptions

• Describe a behavioral regularity
• Outline the underlying, non-negotiable assumption
  that drives the behavior

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What can school leaders do?

• Change takes time-slower is faster
• Provide opportunities for school community
  members to surface their underlying beliefs about
  schools, change and quality

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Leaders and school culture

• Conversations should include participation of the
  wider community of stakeholdersparents,
  students, and representatives of community groups
  
• Principals need to create opportunities for
  teachers to do collaborative work

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Leaders and school culture

• Keep the vision discussion at the top of the
  agenda
• Make decisions based on student growth rather
  than organizational efficiency
• Ask whether performance issues are systemic
  problems instead of human problems

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• Two images for thinking about leading
• Substitutes for direct leadership
• Servant leadership as stewardship

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Substitutes for leadership

• Formal organization
• Extrinsic coordination
• Rules and regulations
• Supervision
• Regular monitoring

• Community metaphor
• Intrinsic coordination
• Communally developed norms
• Professional commitments
• Collegiality

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Substitutes for leadership

• Developing communal norms
• Professional commitments
• Collegiality

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Collegiality

• Parallel play
• Adversarial relationships
• Congenial relationships
• Collegial relationships

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Leadership space
Developing norms Professional commitments Collegia
lity
Reliability and predictability through shared
goals and purposes
Reliability and predictability through standard
operating procedures, policies, regulations
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Servant leadership

• What can leaders do to move from the command and
  control style of leadership to a servant
  leadership style or leadership as stewardship
  approach?

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• Command and control

• Servant leadership

• Setting goals
• Organizing the work
• Outlining performance standards
• Assigning people to work
• Directing and monitoring the work
• Evaluating

• Leadership by outrage
• Purposing
• Empowerment
• Using a female style

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• Outrage

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Processing time

• Who are the least privileged in your school
  setting?
• How has the school specifically attended to their
  needs?
• What changes could be made in this area?

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Purposing

• Clarity, consensus, and commitment around the
  basic purposes
• Transform the school from a mere organization
  into a covenantal community

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Empowerment

• Responsibility to the community
• Empowerment linked to enablement

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• Power over
• emphasizes control
• Rule-bound

• Power to
• Source of energy for shared goals
• Goal bound
• Uses influence

Power is not a zero-sum game
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Female Style

• Male style individual relationships, individual
  achievement, power as a source for controlling
  events and people, independence, authority.
• Female style successful relationships,
  affiliation, power, as the means to achieve
  shared goals, connectedness, authenticity.
• Men goals / Woman connections

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Female style

• Relationships with others are central to all
  actions of women leaders
• Teaching and learning are the major foci of woman
  administrators
• Building community is an essential part of woman
  administrators style

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Leadership space
Purposing Empowerment Using a female style
Outrage
Setting goals Organizing the work Outlining
performance standards Assigning people to
work Directing and monitoring the work Evaluating
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Processing time

• What three things are you taking away that will
  help you change your practice?
• Share what you are taking away with someone near
  you.