True educational leadership has the leader focused on moving the organization, whether it be a classroom, school, district, university department or program toward improvement. True leaders can not accept the condition of stasis for their organization(s). Intelligent leadership then is the ability of the leader to understand their organizational resources - people, time, money, facilities and equipment and consider what improvement might make a difference. The intelligent leader's task is to develop the organizational culture that will support this improvement. Therefore, the key question is, "How does an intelligent leader develop the culture for continuous improvement? There are a number of books and other publications available that outline the continual improvement process for business and you might want to check them out. However, in education we know that all organizational culture is determined by the dialogue and process the leader in place uses to do his/her job. How does the leader talk about improvement? Is it in a Command ("Do what I say"), Collaborate ("How will we do this together), Consensus ("How can we all support this process?) or Convenience ("Do as you like") process? The leadership process determines the organizational culture - What leadership process will you use?
3 comments:
All of them!
It seems as though you are talking RIGHT TO ME! This is my dissertation problem isn't it!!!?? (Sorry for all the caps, I can't hold back the excitement).
At various points and with various constituents, each of these modes will need to be utilized. Some need a command to get them off their rear end or provide the security to know where the responsibility lies. Collaboration is necessary to get buy-in and shared responsibility. It draws on the strength of each member of the group. It's like a salad. If one person doesn't bring their key ingredient, the salad (product) doesn't come out the precise way it should. Consensus is needed for those that can't make up their own minds. And convenience is for those who think they can do it better their own way or are watching the clock until retirement. Fortunately and unfortunately, we have people that represent each of these areas.
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