Leadership
“When the singer is gone, let the song go on.”
- Art Garfunkel, All I know
Please hover over the challenge cycle graphic below and click on the challenge button to start the leadership process.
This quote from Art Garfunkel summarizes the future of Leadership in schools. If improvement initiatives like professional learning communities are to be sustained, the leadership structure of the organization must pay close attention to “growing” future cohorts of leaders. School organizations must intentionally and purposefully create the capacity among staff for sustaining leadership in the schools.
In her work on effective leadership and school change and improvement, Hord (1997)* points out that “as an organizational arrangement, the professional learning community is seen as a powerful staff development approach and a potent strategy for school change and improvement.”(p.1)
In order to create professional learning communities to ensure continuity of direction we need to answer these questions regarding leadership:
- What leadership skills are needed for a new collaborative culture?
- How can a principal be a strong instructional leader and empower others to make decisions?
- What structures and processes need to be in place?
- How can a principal develop a shared vision and collective commitment?
- How does a principal embed collaboration into the daily life of the school?
- What is management versus leadership?
- What is the shared vision (Believing that schools are for Students’ Learning) and how is the vision kept alive? (Short and long term)
- How is a culture of change created, supported, and embraced?
- What is a collaborative team structure and how does it become part of the culture?
*Hord, S. (1997). Issues about Change Professional Learning communities: What are they and why are they Important? Austin, Texas: Southwest Educational Development Laboratory