A Strengths-Based Approach to School Leadership: How a What’s Right With Me Paradigm Engages The School Community

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A Strengths-Based Approach to School
Leadership How a Whats Right With Me Paradigm
Engages The School Community

• Teri Marcos, Ed.D., Chair
• Department of Educational Leadership
• Azusa Pacific University

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Strengths Philosophy

• Individuals gain more when they build on their
  talents, than when they make comparable efforts
  to improve their areas of weakness.
• --Clifton Harter, 2003, p. 112

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Writing Challenge

• Write your name 5 times

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What Was the Difference?

• Could you write with your non-dominant hand?
• With practice, could you get better at this?
• Could you write as WELL or as FAST or as EASILY
  as with your dominant hand?

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The Strengths Perspective

• You start seeing people in terms of who they are
  rather than in terms of who they arent
• --Chip Anderson, 2000

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What Are Strengths?

• Talent Knowledge Skills Strength
• --Clifton Harter, 2003
• Ways of seeing the world and interacting with it
  that enable excellence.

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The Highest Achievers

• Spend most of their time in their areas of
  strength
• Use their strengths to overcome obstacles
• Invent ways of capitalizing on their strengths in
  new situations

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The Focus Changes

• FROM
• Problems
• Attendance
• Preparation
• Putting into the student
• Average

• TO
• Possibilities
• Engagement
• Motivation
• Drawing out from the student
• Excellence

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The Global Language of Data

• Data cognitively drive the current global
  language we speak in education.
• Strengths-based training affectively rooted in
  the field of social work, psychiatry, and
  business, draw on the strengths of individuals as
  an effective replacement of commonly accepted
  deficit models which ask whats wrong with me
  to a whats right with me approach.

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Whats Right With Me?

• This question offers a powerful counter to the
  largely data-driven landscape of public education
  in America.
• Becoming more aware of ones strengths can build
  excellence in future achievements, relationships,
  and other life experiences (Clifton and
  Anderson, 2004).

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What is a Strength?

• In their book, StrengthsQuest, Clifton and
  Anderson define a strength as the ability to
  provide consistent, near-perfect performance in a
  given activity.
• The Gallup organizations Clifton StrengthsFinder
  Inventory was prescribed within this research as
  a personal lens through which school leaders
  viewed their strengths.

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The Standardized Language of American School
Leadership Practice

• Competent American school leaders are required to
  provide consistent, near-perfect performance
  within the six contructs of their duties, as
  defined by the Interstate School Leadership
  Licensure Consortium (ISLLC) National Standards
  for Educational Leadership.
• These are

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ISLLC Standards

• Facilitating the development, articulation,
  implementation, and stewardship of a vision of
  learning that is shared and supported by the
  school community. (Visionary Leadership).
• Advocating, nurturing and sustaining a school
  culture and instructional program conducive to
  student learning and staff professional growth.
  (Professional Culture).

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Cont

• Ensuring management of the organization,
  operations, and resources for a safe, efficient,
  and effective learning environment (Efficient
  Management of Operations).
• Collaborating with families and community
  members, responding to diverse community
  interests and needs, and mobilizing community
  resources (Responsiveness to Community).

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Cont

• Modeling a personal code of ethics and developing
  professional leadership capacity (Ethical
  Leadership).
• Responding to, and influencing the larger
  political, social economic, legal, and cultural
  context (Politically and Culturally Sensitive
  Understanding).

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Know Thyself

• Globally, we are experiencing exponential growth
  in new knowledge, new fields of scholarly
  practice, and new technologies that facilitate
  our creation of, access to, and distribution of
  information.
• School leaders must know thyself (Glickman,
  2004) in such a world to effectively lead others.

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The Language of Identity

• Knowing thyself through identity is crucial to
  learning and to leading.
• 1,500 individuals were surveyed in 1988 (by
  Kouzes and Posner) to determine what values
  (personal traits or characteristics) they admire
  in their superiors.
• Findings followers admired leaders who were
  honest, competent, forward-looking and inspiring.

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The Language of Strengths

• The findings of Kouzes and Posner showed that
  followers hold dear the relationship of the
  personal values of decision makers to the values
  of their organization.
• Values are communicated in everything a school
  leader does, writes, and speaks. This second set
  of skills includes the ability to be empathetic,
  to listen attentively, to pay attention to
  another and to value others.

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Strengths

• Strengths are naturally occurring patterns of
  thought, feeling, or behavior which can be
  productively applied.
• Strengths are among the most real and most
  authentic aspects of a personhood
• (Clifton and Anderson, 2004).

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34 SignatureThemes
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Strengths and School Leadership

• As school leaders identified their own top five
  strengths, they began to recognize the strengths
  of others.

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Method

• Objective This research examined the perceptions
  of K-12 public and private school leaders on the
  effects their top five identified strengths had
  on their leadership skills within the American
  school setting.
• Sample 75 American school leaders were randomly
  selected to respond to a questionnaire regarding
  their perspectives on the effects of their top
  five identified strengths on their leadership
  skills within the American school learning
  environment.
• Instrument Three sections Demographics, Four
  element Likert Scale, qualitative section to
  gather school leaders perceptions of the effects
  of their strengths within their leadership role
  at their school.
• Procedure School leaders were sampled through
  public mailings, and APUs masters degree
  program in educational leadership.

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Reliability

• StrengthsFinder Inventory
• Used with over 4 million people in 17 languages
  over 100,000 college students
• Previous Gallup studies 17-month test-retest
  reliability across all populations ranges from
  .60 to .80
• College student validity study
• 3-month test-retest reliability among college
  students ranges from .70 to .76

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Three Primary Findings

• 70 of all respondents identified Achiever and/or
  Learner as their top or second strength.
• Overall leadership capacity increased
• Building Communities of Practice was enhanced
• Increased understanding of group dynamics

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Overall Leadership Capacity Increased

• 99 of respondents agreed or somewhat agreed that
  an increase in their overall leadership capacity
  was positively attributed to knowing their
  strengths.
• 80 agreed or somewhat agreed that leading
  change, and decision making capacity (90) were
  each impacted significantly through knowing their
  strengths.

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Building Communities of Practice

• 93 agreed or somewhat agreed that building
  community was enhanced through knowing their
  strengths in the following areas
• Valuing others strengths (91)
• Team building (91)
• Valuing diversity (96)
• Parent contact (93)
• Increased adaptability (89)

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Group Dynamics

• 88 of respondents identified an increase in the
  understanding of group dynamics. Sub-categories
  within group dynamics emerged as
• Improved professional relationships (91)
• Facilitation of meetings (83)
• Student discipline (93)
• Communication with students (96)
• Communication with staff (99)

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Conclusions

• As knowledge increasingly relates to feeling it
  continues to appreciably affect behavior.
• In our data driven society, school leaders,
  teachers, and designers of curriculum and
  assessment need to recognize that motivation and
  engagement are at the heart of all learning.
• This can be accomplished well through a
  strengths-based approach.

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Recommendations

• A renewed vision of the importance of balance
  through each of the three learning modalities of
  cognitive, affective, and psychomotor must be
  raised.
• Educators need to well espouse each of the three
  domains of learning and leading, and do our very
  best to employ the use of the affective domain in
  teaching students.
• It is recommended school leaders become empowered
  by knowing their strengths to pursue excellence
  for their organizations.

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Summary

• Affectively, strengths-based models fit well into
  the area of knowledge for training school
  leaders, teachers, and students.
• Participants in this study said I know my
  unique strengths now I use my strengths
  everyday, and I observe others and can identify
  their strengths I now understand why and how
  I can be successful.