Leadership Matters

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Leadership Matters

• Professor Peter Earley
• London Centre for Leadership in Learning,
  Institute of Education, University of London

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Outline

• Concepts of leadership
• Perspectives or theories of leadership
• Leadership styles effective leaders
• School improvement and leadership
• Recent developments e.g. NCSL

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1. Conceptions of leadership

• 4 key factors and features associated with
  leadership
• the relationship between leadership, power and
  authority
• leadership is about groups, and the interaction
  of people in groups
• a sense of purpose and confidence that is
  engendered in followers
• the followers are influenced towards goal or task
  achievement (Fidler, 1997).

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A definition

• Leadership is a process of influence leading to
  the achievement of desired purposes. Successful
  leaders develop a vision for their schools based
  on their personal and professional values. They
  articulate this vision at every opportunity and
  influence their staff and other stakeholders to
  share the vision. The philosophy, structures and
  activities of the school are geared towards the
  achievement of this shared vision' (Bush and
  Glover, 2003, p8).

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Leadership

• Leadership is about direction setting and
  inspiring others to make the journey to a new and
  improved state in a school
• (Davies, 2005)

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Leadership

• School leaders articulate a definition of the
  organisations moral purpose. The values that
  underpin this moral purpose are linked to the
  vision, considering where we want to be and what
  sort of organisation we want to be in the future
  (Davies and Davies, 2006)

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Leadership needs to be demonstrated at all levels
in an organisation and not just at the top of the
organisational apex.

• If your organisation has only one leader then
  it is almost certainly short of leadership
  (Eggan, 1993)
• There are many leaders, not just one.
  Leadership is distributed. It resides not solely
  in the individual at the top, but in every
  person at every level who, in one way or another,
  acts as a leader to a group of followers
  wherever in the organisation that person is,
  whether shop steward, team head or CEO
  (Goleman et al, 2002, pp
  xiii-xiv).

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Leadership, management or administration?

• Leadership - formative, proactive and
  problem-solving, values, vision and mission
• Management - the execution, planning, organising
  and deploying of resources, or making things
  happen (the implementation of school policies
  and the efficient and effective maintenance of
  the schools current activities, Bush and
  Glover, 2003, p10)
• Administration operational matters.

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• Organisations which are over-managed but
  under-led eventually lose any sense of spirit or
  purpose. Poorly managed organisations with strong
  charismatic leaders may soar temporarily only to
  crash shortly thereafterThe challenges of
  modern organisations require the objective
  perspective of the manager as well as the
  brilliant flashes of vision and commitment that
  wise leadership provides (Bolman and Deal, 1997).

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6 approaches or modelsof school leadership

• Transformational
• Moral
• Participative
• Managerial
• Contingent
• Instructional (learning-centred)
• (Leithwood et al, 1999)

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Learning-centred leadership

• Head as lead learner
• Learning is paramount (pupils, adults)
• Operating through
• Modelling
• Monitoring
• Dialogue (Southworth, 2005)

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2. Perspectives or theories of leadership

• Types of explanation of how leaders lead include
• Trait theory (leadership as an attribute of
  personality)
• Style theory (leadership as management style)
• Contingency theory (leadership as the conjunction
  of the person and the situation)
• Power/influence theory (a function of power and
  how it is exercised)
• Trait theory (effective leadership as superior
  performance).

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3. Leadership styles and effective leaders

• Ineffective leaders demonstrate the following
• Personal qualities
• Lacking dynamism and failing to inspire
• Being insufficiently forceful
• Failing to be at ease with others
• Inability to accept any form of questioning or
  perceived criticism

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Managerial qualities

• Being insufficiently decisive
• Failing to delegate sufficiently or leaving staff
  too much to their own concerns
• Failing to unite the staff, and to build a sense
  of a community
• Failing to communicate effectively
• Lacking proficiency in managing fellow
  professionals
• Failing to display interest in and concern for
  staff, or to praise and celebrate their
  achievements
• Being disorganised and insufficiently thorough,
  especially as regards administration.
  
  (Bolam et al, 1993).

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• How leaders enact leadership or leadership
  styles are important as they impact on how people
  feel and are motivated to perform at higher
  levels.
• Effective leaders use a range of styles
• according to the demands of the situation.

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According to research by Hay-McBer there are 6
leadership styles

• Coercive (main objective immediate compliance)
• Authoritative (providing long term direction and
  vision for staff)
• Affiliative (creating harmony among staff and
  between leaders and staff)
• Democratic (building commitment among staff and
  generating new ideas)
• Pacesetting (accomplishing tasks to high
  standards of excellence)
• Coaching (main objective long term professional
  development of staff).

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Highly effective leaders

• Awareness of environment
• Positive and optimistic
• Certain traits e.g. desire to be the best
  willingness to take risks no blame culture
  surround themselves with good people self
  evaluative and self awareness new ideas.

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Highly effective leaders

• Are modest
• Self-effacing
• Good listeners
• Strong commitment to professional development
• Like people, relate well enjoy seeing them grow
  (releasing intellectual capital - Bennis)
• Emotional intelligence lots of it!

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• Emotional intelligence - critically important
  to
• effective leadership and superior performance.
• According to Daniel Goleman (1998) the higher
• an individual rises in an organisation the more
• important emotional intelligence (EQ) becomes.

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5 domains of EQ

• self-awareness (ability to recognise own
  emotions, strengths/weaknesses, a sense of
  self-worth/confidence)
• self-regulation (ability to control your emotions
  rather than allowing them to control you)
• motivation (strength of will needed to meet
  goals, drive to improve, initiative, etc)
• empathy
• social skills.

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• The first 3 domains relate to an individuals
  emotions, whilst empathy and social skills refer
  to other peoples emotions, the ability to
  recognise them and to nurture relationships or
  inspire others. Goleman (1998) claims EQ is (at
  least) twice as important as IQ or technical
  skills.

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3 motivational competences typify outstanding
performance

• achievement drive (striving to improve or meet a
  standard of excellence)
• commitment (embracing the vision and goals)
• initiative and optimism (mobilising people to
  seize opportunities and allowing them to take
  setbacks and obstacles in their stride).
• Hay-McBer - star performers versus average
  performers? Stars have EQ competences.

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• Also claim that leaders can obtain 30 extra from
  their people if they are able to light their
  blue touch paper. This discretionary effort is
  affected by the climate that is personally felt -
  up to 70 of that climate is created by the team
  leader by way they behave, etc. If leaders and
  not only those at the top of the organisational
  apex but all those with a leadership role can
  ignite that touch paper then it is possible to
  obtain that extra performance from team members.
• It is stated that for leaders (at all levels) EQ
  is 90 of what separates star performers from
  others.

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4. Successful school leadership and school
improvement

• Leadership has significant effects on student
  learning, second only to the effects of the
  quality of curriculum and teachers instruction
• Currently, heads and teacher leaders provide
  most of the leadership in schools, but other
  potential sources of leadership exist

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Successful school leadership and school
improvement

• A core set of leadership practices form the
  basics of successful leadership and are
  valuable in almost all educational contexts
  (these basics are setting directions,
  developing people, developing the organisation)
• Successful school leaders respond productively to
  challenges and opportunities created by the
  accountability-oriented policy context in which
  they work
• Successful school leaders respond productively to
  the opportunities and challenges of educating
  diverse groups of students
• (Leithwood Riehl, 2003, pp2-7 cited in NCSL,
  2003).

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Three new metaphors are needed for the school
leader

• As educator focusing on teaching and learning
• As community builder working with parents and
  members of the school community, with
  professional staff and young people and
• As moral steward investing heavily in defining
  values (Murphy, 2002, p187).

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5. Developing school leaders and leadership
capacity

• Recent developments in England include
• The National College for School Leadership (2000)
• The National Professional Qualification for Heads
  (NPQH) aspiring heads
• Headteacher Support Programme - new heads in
  first two years in post
• Head for the Future (formerly LPSH) 4 day
  programme for heads in post for 4 years
• Other College programmes e.g. Leading from the
  Middle, Leadership Pathways, Advanced Leaders

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Conclusion

• Leaders are people who lead through developing
  new skills, capabilities and understandings. And
  they come from many places within the
  organisation (Senge, 1990)
• Modern notions of leadership, including
  distributed leadership, rely heavily on
  leadership, alongside effective management, being
  successfully demonstrated at the apex of the
  organisation.
• Leading and managing schools in the 21st Century
  will require a recognition that both leadership
  and management are crucial - and that all the
  resources available to the school need to be
  developed.

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Leadership Matters

• Professor Peter Earley
• London Centre for Leadership in Learning,
  Institute of Education, University of London