Putting it All Together

1
Putting it All Together

• Chapter 20

2
Reframing Leadership

• Challenges rarely arrive neat and packaged
• The Leaders responsibility
• What is going on?
• What are my options?

3
Kennedy High School

• Newest of 6 high schools in city
• New principal July 15
• Four House system (300 students, 18 faculty each)
• Connected by core facilities
• Racial mix
• Closed twice in 3 years due to violence
• Declining test scores

4
Principal King

• Military
• Tough reputation
• Effective teacher
• Administrative success
• Hand selected
• Succeeded by intellectual broken man

5
Current State of Affairs

• Controversy over open/closed doors
• Housemasters felt infringed upon
• Petition against one housemaster
• Poor performance
• High drop-out, absences
• Black white ratio 21 no Latinos

6
The First Faculty Meeting

• Polite, friendly
• One spoke up
• No one tackles tough issues until they explode
• Relationships are a mess
• No open communication

7
What is a Leader to Do?

• Go to the balcony with friends
• Examine the situation one frame at a time
• Ask two simple questions
• From this perspective, what is going on?
• What options does this viewpoint suggest?

8
Structural Issues

• Tendency to blame people
• Whats the real problem?
• Two key components of structure
• Integration
• Coordination
• Which is weak in this case?
• Goals, roles, responsibilities vaguely defined

9
Mistakes Dealing With Structure

• Force discussion
• Failure to do homework
• No clear goal for conversation
• No ground rules

10
Human Resource Issues

• No one feels safe (Maslows lowest)
• No ones needs are being met
• Look out for yourself or be done in
• Win/lose environment
• No open discussion
• People attack each other
• All feel powerless

11
Mistakes Dealing With Human Resource Issues

• Assume components make happy employees
• Good pay
• Job enrichment/enlargement
• Group skills
• Staff development

12
Political Issues

• Enduring differences
• Close doors/bring guards vs. open doors,
  eliminate guards
• Race (no Latino administrators)
• Scarce resources
• House turf
• Down teachers 10
• Conflict
• Houses department chairs
• Power

13
Mistakes from Political Perspective

• Tackle political issues openly
• Analyze political map
• Allies
• Fence Sitters
• Opponents

14
Symbolic Issues

• Lack of history and shared culture, rituals,
  traditions
• Nothing to bond individuals or create common
  ground
• No common spirit

15
Symbolic Mistakes

• Underestimating the importance of symbolism
• Find shared meaning
• Create rituals

16
Comprehensive Approach

• Build people (structural)
• Betsy Dula
• Build allies (political)
• Chauncey
• Recapture dream that launched school (symbolic)
• Figure out inter-relationships (structure)

17
Lessons Learned

• Even good people cant function well without
  clear structure (structure)
• Involve people develop relationships (human
  resource)
• Build supportive allies (political)
• People fight hard over things about which they
  care deeply (symbolic)

18
Leadership Skills Necessary for Reframing

• Skill in field
• Knowledge
• Intuition
• Wisdom
• Faith in Christ