Learning to Lead the System

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• Learning to Lead the System?

Eastern Leadership Centre 7 December 2006 Jane
Creasy and Simon East National College for School
Leadership
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• The choice between localism and central control
  is a false one. Successful reform will require
  greater adaptive capacity at every level
• Tom Bentley and James Wilsdon, 2003

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So how does the system lead from within? And
what do we need to learn?

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Today's essential life and work skills include
innovation, creative thinking, complex
problem-solving, imagining what the future holds
and, above all, the ability to cope with choice,
uncertainty and the unknown. CAPE UK
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The Leadership task-Shifts in the System-What
do leaders see?

• Standards
• Excellence and equity
• Inclusion and well-being
• A focus on the child and family (Every Child
  Matters)
• Workforce reform and Growing Tomorrows Leaders
• Recruitment and quality, Remodelling
• The Succession challenge
• Personalisation
• A commitment to student, parent, community voice
• Excellence and Enjoyment
• Collaboration and networking
• Leading beyond single team or organisation

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Schools exist in a distinctive social context,
which has a direct impact on what happens inside
the school. School leadership should commit to
working with the internal and external school
community to secure equity and entitlement.
Headteachers should work collaboratively at both
strategic and operational levels with parents and
carers and across multiple agencies for the well
being of all children. Headteachers share
responsibility for leadership of the wider
educational system and should be aware that
school improvement and community development are
interdependent. Headteacher National Standards
September 04
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Implications Leaders need..

• An understanding of the policy environment
• An understanding of the community context
• Data literacy
• Budget and workforce management skills
• An external, as well as internal focus
• Team-based, collaborative skills
• Learning and reflection Time on the balcony as
  well as the dance floor

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Implications

• The Adaptive Challenge Ronald Heifetz, 2003
• Problems for which the solution lies outside the
  current way of operating
• Demand learning
• Shift responsibility to stakeholders
• Need to distinguish between whats expendable and
  whats precious
• Demand experimentation
• Take time
• Return to values

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Why did it take Moses 40 Years to lead the
people out of Israel?

• To change a system, first change yourself

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In the long history of humankind those who
learned to collaborate and improvise most
effectively have prevailed Charles Darwin
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New models of headship are emerging

• system leadership through specific roles
• executive heads
• leadership of federations
• National Leaders of Education (NLEs)
• academies, trusts
• SIPs
• Leadership Programmes tutors
• System leadership through collaboration
• Leading 14-19 collaboratives
• community leadership
• multi-agency leaders

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New models System Leadership

• System leadership involves a shift in mindset
  for school leaders, emphasising what they share
  with others over how they differ. Where they can,
  system leaders eschew us and them relationships
  and model a commitment to the learning of every
  child.
• Tom Bentley and John Craig, DEMOS, 2005

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Case Study

• Simon East

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The four leadership challenges

• The practical application of the Every Child
  Matters agenda and integrating it effectively
  with the standards agenda
• System leadership
• Succession planning developing and recruiting
  school leaders
• The challenge of leading a school in the 21st
  century relentlessness, complexity and
  accountability

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The Succession Challenge

• Challenge or Opportunity?
• Or Both?

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Advice to Secretary of State

• Urgent and significant
• Vacancies increasingly hard to fill
• Demographic challenge
• Perceptions
• Promotion timespan
• The school system
• Strategic response needed at all levels
• Local solutions for national challenge

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A TOP DOWN, ONE-SIZE-FITS-ALL SOLUTION WILL NOT
ADDRESS THE CHANGE THE ISSUE WILL NEED REGIONAL
OWNERSHIP WITH NATIONAL SUPPORT
Analyse and Design
National
Pivotal role to be played at regional level
Regional/ local
Enable/inform
Match peopleto opportunities knowledge sharing
School
Decide
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Local leadership and leadership development

• Learning from the work
• Practising collaboration
• Relationships, relationships, relationships
• Wrestling with tough trade-offs
• Seeding experimentation and nurturing learning
• Being clear about accountability

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Coaching and Mentoring

• Some principles
• a learning conversation
• a thoughtful relationship
• a learning agreement
• Self direction challenging and personal goals
• Experimentation, observation and reflection
• With acknowledgements to Centre for the Use of
  Research and Evidence in Education (CUREE).

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Engaging creatively

• Questioning and challenging
• Making connections and seeing relationships
• Envisaging what might be
• Exploring ideas, keeping options open
• Reflecting critically on ideas, actions and
  outcomes
• QCA 2002 Creativity Find it Promote it

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Of our greatest leaders, when their work is
done, the people will say, We did it
ourselves Old Chinese Proverb