School leadership was challenging when it was a technical challenge—a largely understood task of optimizing the old age cohort standards-based model. With
an improving opportunity set brought about by new tools and new school models, the job is increasingly adaptive—one that requires a good deal of “design
planning” (Horn, Staker, 2014). This profound change suggests a new way to prepare and develop school leaders.
Last month Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO) and the National Policy Board for Educational Administration
(NPBEA) released an updated set of standards for EdLeaders. The release claims, “The standards detail
the leadership skills and knowledge effective district and school leaders need in order to influence teaching and student learning.”
The updated standards may be a competent standard for managing for a defined instructional environment but they incompletely address the design opportunity
that is our best shot at significant outcome improvement. The updated standards appear to presume that it is good enough to make the old model a little
better; they don’t reflect new models or the associate change management required. It does not appear that anyone working on innovative school models were
involved in drafting the standards.
New Leaders and the Bush Institute recently released Great Principals at Scale, “A framework of conditions that can help
districts enable great school leadership.” Like the CCSSO standards, this frame well describes the technical job of running an aligned instructional system
but doesn’t address creating a new one.
Change leadership. Leadership coach Lyle Kirtman suggests a broader focus, “Our
educational leaders need to broaden, not narrow, their leadership competencies to be successful in today’s world.” Kirtman’s book, Leadership and Teams, outlines 7
leadership competencies starting with challenging the status quo--challenging common practices and traditions, taking risk, and looking for innovations to
get results. While the other competencies are similar to the CCSSO/NPBEA standards, Kirtman’s competencies have stronger emphasis on communications and
building external networks and partnerships.
Michael Fullan and Maria Langworthy recently suggested that there
are, “Three forces converging to break open prodigious learning possibilities":
New pedagogies springs from the new learning partnerships that emerge between and among students and teachers when digital tools and resources
become pervasive. -
Change leadership merges top-down, bottom-up and sideways energies to generate change that is faster and easier than anything seen in past efforts
at reform. -
New system economics makes the powerful learning tools and resources that accelerate the first two forces more affordable for all.
The authors acknowledge these forces are nascent but they are rapidly expanding and together act as a, “Positive contagion that becomes unstoppable given
the right conditions.” These new learning environments promote, “The learning, creating and ‘doing’ dispositions that young people need to thrive now and
in their futures.” Fullan and Langworthy suggest, “Iterative cycles of directional vision, letting go, and reining in,” when operating under conditions of
dynamic change. They stress the importance of creating a directional vision and building a culture that invites change and the capacity that makes it more
organic. (See Fullan’s video library for examples)
Fullan and Langworthy’s conclusion signals a departure from the technocratic leadership:
The new change leadership - represents a huge challenge, but signs indicate that it is as attractive to people as it is daunting. The traditional school is being broken open and new forces for learning are almost spontaneously erupting. And we find more and more leaders - students, teachers and administrators alike - who recognise and embrace the new possibilities. Right now, at the early stages of these dynamic developments there is a great deal of ambiguity and uncertainty as to where things might and should go. This is normal at times of upheaval. The good news is that things are converging to create the distinct possibility that a critical mass of radically new learning practices are emerging. There is a good chance that these developments could turn out to be the new norm one day soon. Leadership at all levels has never been more critical. The best news is that leaders who want to make a difference now have an opportunity to have a huge impact.
If that sounds promising but organic, Andy Calkins, who directs the Next Generation Learning Challenges, describes these new environments as blended, personalized and
competency-based. Profiles of NGLC grantees provides a detailed picture
of the design opportunity.
Implications. Can every principal coach like Doug Lemov and disrupt like
? Like specialists in medicine, educational leadership will become more specialized and preparation will become linked to specific school models and
situations (i.e., startup or turnaround). But even with more specialization, all EdLeaders need to balance execution and innovation:
Execution: Managing repeatable processes that deliver solid instruction in every class every day (as described by CCSSO/NPBEA and Bush/New Leaders
Innovation: New tools and approaches seeking step function improvement (as described by Fullan and Longworthy)
Adding innovation to the agenda, as Kirtman suggests, starts with asking good questions. It requires EdLeaders to be design thinkers, conversation leaders,
Design thinking. While process management is process-centric, design thinking is student centered. It’s starts with desired outcomes and is open to
a variety of solutions. IDEO‘s Sandy Speicher said design thinking, “Means to connect with the lives of
students.” Because design thinking relies on borrowing innovations from other fields, a stint in consulting can be very useful. In addition to
problem analysis and presentation skills, consulting provides preparation in group problem solving, ideation, design, and planning. IDEO’s Tim
Brown suggests that takes insight, observation, and empathy.
Conversation leaders. As community builders, EdLeaders must be great listeners, conversation leaders, organizers, and campaign leaders. They need
to be well versed in political psychology, campaign strategy, communications, and social media. Leading community service projects and campaigns
can be invaluable experiences for aspiring educational leaders. Learning to cultivate a positive social media presence is a must. Marketing to
parents is important in portfolio districts. Conversation leaders build intimacy, interactivity, inclusion, and intentionality. EdLeaders share a
directional vision and shape a series of temporary agreements that provide clarity around next steps.
Policy advocates. Creating next gen learning environments often requires carving out the opportunity to do things differently. Doing it at scale
requires new local and state policies that extend opportunity and equity. As conversation leaders, EdLeaders should also create opportunities to
describe the context that would be support productive learning environments.
Education leadership is incredibly demanding. It also requires a high degree of personal effectiveness--strong planning skills, sound judgement, effective
communication, and empathy. The ability to take feedback and use it to improve is critical. Reading and coursework can be useful, but practice under the
tutelage of a mentor or coach is often best.
New Leaders created the Urban Excellence Framework which has “personal leadership” as
its foundation (page 63). It includes: Belief-Based, Goal-Driven Leadership, Culturally Competent Leadership, Interpersonal Leadership, Adaptive
Leadership, and Resilient Leadership. Principals must, “Strike a balance between being very firm about non-negotiables - and demonstrating genuine
engagement with other, humility, and relationship-building.”
As noted last year, it is a tall task to prepare EdLeaders
that can flex from Lemov to Christensen, explain like Clinton and campaign like Axelrod. Specialization and model-specific development pathways are part of
the answer. As the number of next gen models proliferates, teaching and leadership roles are beginning to vary considerably from model to model. As a
result, it will become increasingly important to make a large percentage of teacher and leader preparation models specific. Like students, educators will
increasingly benefit from learning that is blended, personalized, and competency-based.
This is the first of three posts on principal preparation and development. If you have thoughts about what principals should know and be able to do and how
they should be prepared, please leave a comment we’d love to hear from you.
The opinions expressed in Vander Ark on Innovation are strictly those of the author(s) and do not reflect the opinions or endorsement of Editorial Projects in Education, or any of its publications.