“SHARED LEADERSHIP – a PRACTICAL GUIDE TO HOW IT CAN BE ACHIEVED”

1. “SHARED LEADERSHIP – a PRACTICAL GUIDE TO HOW IT CAN BE ACHIEVED” Reverend Andrew Syme and Jennifer Davies

2. Imagine your dream school........ You have been appointed the inaugural Principal of a new school that is opening on a green field site. Your mission is to create a school that is an international exemplar for innovative and transformational teaching, learning and leadership. As well as leading the “core business” of curriculum, teaching and learning and pastoral care, you will also be: - leading the strategic direction and planning of the school • controlling a multi-million dollar budget • managing industrial relations; risk; facilities; legislative compliance; marketing and public relations; developing policy • connecting and serving the community (students, parents, staff and the broader external community) • building networks and alliances with other schools nationally and internationally • building the leadership capacity of your staff • growing and sustaining yourself

3. In a nutshell, explain your leadership strategy. What approaches might you employ? • What will be your anticipated leadership challenges (+ve and – ve) with your chosen approach?

4. What approaches to leading your school will you employ? • authoritarian leadership • distributed • (Leithwood and Jantzi 2004; Harris, 2009; Spillane, 2006) • situated leadership • (Kirkham, 2005; Louis and Riley, 2000) • relational leadership for change • (Duignan & Gurr,2007; Dyer, 2001 Louis and Riley, 2000) • contemplative-reflexive leadership • (Degenhardt and Duignan, 2010) • adaptive leadership • (Heifetz , 2004) • shared leadership • (Copeland and Knapp,2007; Fullan and Hargreaves, 1998; Harris, 2008; Leithwood, Harris and Hopkins, 2008; Sackney and Mitchell, 2001) transformational (Bass, 1985,1997; Leithwood & Jantzi, 2000b; Silins & Mulford, 2002) instructional (Elmore,2000; Hallinger, 2000;Robinson 2007; Spillane, Halverson, and Diamond :2000) • parallel leadership • (Crowther, Hann &McMaster, 2001) • ethical and authentic leadership • (Duignan 2006, Starrat, 2004) • values based contingency • (Day, Harris & Hadfield, 2001) • charismatic • (House, 1976)

5. Why shared leadership? The principal leader is carrying an exponential workload.Leading education in this context, together managing curricula and assessment, the public accountability of national testing data, site-based management, student and parental pastoral issues, organisational policy making and the shifting emphasis in education from individual to collective responsibility, is a formidable task(Fullan, cited in O’Donoghue and Clarke 2010, Leading Learning: process, themes and issues in international contexts). ‘Educational leaders today are subjected to external and internal pressures, challenges and expectations that make demands on their time, expertise, energies and emotional wellbeing.’ (Duignan 2012, p6)

6. What does a shared perspective on school leadership mean? Shared leadership is “a dynamic, interactive influence process among individuals in groups for which the objective is to lead one another to the achievement of group or organisational goals or both. It involves peer influence and at other times involves upward or downward hierarchical influence” (Pearce & Conger, 2003b, p1). Effective school leadership may not reside exclusively in formal positions but instead be shared across a range of individuals in the school, emphasising leadership as a distributed phenomenon (The OECD report: Improving School Leadership, 2008).

7. Implications for school leadership In a knowledge-intensive enterprise like teaching and learning, there is no way a single leader can perform all of the complex tasks without extensively distributing the responsibility for leadership among roles in the organisation (Elmore, 2000) In a world of amazing complexity, traditional pyramid type structures demand too much of too few and not enough of everyone else....... If we want to build truly adaptable organisations, we have to syndicate the work of leadership more broadly(Hamel, 2013). School leadership that is shared is the precondition of all preconditions for school improvement (Zbar, Kimber and Marshall, 2010). To turn around schools, principals need to share decision making (Wallace Foundation Report 2011)

8. Story – Entering the School

9. Story – Entering the School

10. Leader Authority Leader Is the source of authority Independently/unilaterally sets policy and procedures Individually directs the completion of tasks Limited flow of information downward Norms of compliance Rigidly defined roles Lack of Innovation All roads lead to Rome The continuum of leadership

11. Leader Authority Mission Authority The leader is the source of authority has power of authority without reference strategic direction primarily from leader limited flow of information norms of compliance rigidly defined roles lack of innovation all roads lead to Rome • the centre determines the direction …the anointed leader, eg Principal, has the ultimate accountability to ensure direction from the centre is enacted • keeping the vision clear in everyone’s mind – ensuring purpose and values are realised • reframing the leaders job from that of problem solver to that of developer of problem solvers • fostering reflection and strategic thinking, slowing down to move the action forward; getting onto the balcony • roles and responsibilities reflect broad based skilful participation in the work of leadership • giving the work back to the people; road building; engaging in co-creating From Values and Beliefs about Learning to Principles and Practice Julia Atkin

12. Peter Senge “Most organisations serve those in power rather than the mission” “Those in positions of authority are not the source of authority” “The source of legitimate power in the organisation is its guiding ideas”

13. The challenges of sharing leadership • ‘top-down’ management structures mitigate against teachers attaining autonomy and taking on leadership roles within the school • success can be influenced by a number of interpersonal factors, such as relationships with other teachers and school management • colleagues can be hostile to shared leadership because of factors such as inertia, over-cautiousness and insecurity (Harris, 2005).

14. The challenges of sharing leadership • egalitarian norms of teaching can dissuade teachers from taking leadership roles (Poekert, 2011) • requires those in formal leadership positions to relinquish power and authority to others (Muijis and Harris, 2007) - Paradoxically, principals willing to share authority do not diminish their own. (Karen Seashore-Louis in the Wallace Foundation report 2011) • levels of trust (Hargreaves and Fullan 2012)

15. Data Gathering 1. Survey the community

16. Data Gathering 2. Review student data 3. Listening lunch 4. Review Mission, Vision and Values

17. Formative Practice 5. Focus on core business

18. 6. Strategic Plan

19. Strategic Plan

20. 7. Strategic Plan – Individual projects

21. Strategic Plan – Individual projects

22. 8. Delegated Authority – Council

23. Delegated Authority – School Executive

24. Delegated Authority – School Executive

25. So what are the preconditions for shared leadership? • “The leader plus aspect and the practice aspect” (Spillane, 2006) • A compelling vision, mission and values for learning: the source of authority • Planful alignment (Leithwood; Harris, 2009) • Coordinated and aligned goals, actions, measures • Clearly articulated delegated authorities • Accountability expectations (Elmore, 2004) 4. Trust “Trust in people remains important, but trust in the process supersedes it. Trust the process and most of the time you will end up trusting the people too”. (Hargreaves and Fullan 2012)

27. Contact Details Reverend Andrew Syme Principal Caulfield Grammar School 217 Glen Eira Road, East St. Kilda VIC 3183  Phone +61 3 9524 6262 Mobile +61408983090Web www.caulfieldgs.vic.edu.au Email andrewsyme@caulfieldgs.vic.edu.au Jennifer Davies, Leadership Consultant at the Leadership Centre, The Association of Independent Schools of New South Wales Level 12, 99 York Street, Sydney NSW 2000 Phone (02) 9299 2845 Mobile +61424209744 Web www.aisnsw.edu.au Email jdavies@aisnsw.edu.au

28. References • Duignan, P. 2012. “Educational leadership: together creating ethical learning environments.”.Melbourne: Cambridge University Press • Elmore, R F. 2000. “Building a new structure for school leadership.”Washington, DC: Albert Shanker Institute. • Elmore, R. 2004. “School reform from the inside out: Policy, practice, and performance.” Cambridge, MA: Harvard Education Press. • Mulford, W. 2008. "Successful School Principalship, Evaluation and Accountability.” Leading & Managing no.14 (2):19-44 • Fink, D. 2011. “Thesuccession challenge: Warm bodies or leaders of learning? “ in J. MacBeath & T. Townsend, (Eds.). Springer International Handbook on Leadership for Learning. (pp.769- 786). Dordrecht: Springer. • O’Donoghue, T and S Clarke . 2010. “Leading Learning: process, themes and issues in international contexts.” • Hamel, G. 2013. “Leaders Everywhere: A conversation with Gary Hamel. “McKinsey & Company (May). • Hargreaves, A & M Fullan. 2012 ‘Investing in Capability and Commitment’, Ch. 4 in Professional Capital, Teachers College Press. • Harris, A. 2009 . “Distributed Leadership: What We Know’” Ch. 1 in Harris, A. (ed.) 2009, Distributed Leadership: Different Perspectives, Springer, UK. • Harris, A. 2009. “Distributed knowledge and knowledge creation.” In K. Leithwood, B.Mascall & T. Strauss (Eds.), Distributed leadership according to the evidence (pp. 253-266). New York, NY: Routledge. • Leithwood, K., Day, C., Sammons, P., Harris, A., & D Hopkins. 2006. “Successful school leadership: What it is and how it influences pupil learning.” London, UK: DfES. Available at http://www.dfes.gov.uk/research/data/uploadfiles/RR800.pdf • Leithwood, K., Mascall, B. And T Strauss (Eds.) 2009. “Distributed leadership according to the evidence.” New York, NY: Routledge. • ORGANISATION FOR ECONOMIC COOPERATION & DEVELOPMENT (OECD). (2008) Improving School Leadership (Paris: OECD) • Muijs, D and A Harris. 2007. "Teacher Leadership in (In)action." Educational Management Administration & Leadership no. 35 (1):111 -134. • Pearce, CJ & C Conger. 2003. Shared leadership: Reframing the hows and whys of leadership. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. • Poekert, PE. 2012. "Teacher leadership and professional development: examining the links between two concepts central to school improvement." Professional Development in Education no. 38 (2):169-188. • Pont, B , D Nusche, and D Hopkins. 2008. Improving School Leadership. OECD. • Senge, P. 1998. "The Practice of Innovation." Leader to Leader (Summer):16-22. • Spillane, JP. 2006. Distributed leadership. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. • Wallace Foundation. 2013. "The School Principal as Leader: Guiding Schools to Better Teaching and Learning.“ Perspective (January). • Zbar, V, R Kimber, and G Marshall. 2010. "Getting the pre-conditions for school improvement in place: How to make it happen." Centre for Strategic Excellence: Seminar Series 193 (May).