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Bringing it All Together: Leadership and Change

Six Leadership and Change Concepts

West Virginia 21st Century

Leadership for 21st Century SchoolsNovember 13, 2009

Jerry Valentine

Professor of School Leadership

Director, Middle Level Leadership Center

University of Missouri

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Where is your team (school)? Confident Charlie…

In Baseball terms it’s:

• A walk, a double…bottom of the ninth… home team wins!

• High Fives for everyone!

• We celebrate our victory!

In Schooling it’s:

• I Get it…it makes good sense

• We are all on the same page

• We can do that in our school!

Confident Charlie

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Where is your team (school)? Distraught Daryl…

In Baseball it’s:

• Breaking the neighbor’s window or striking out to end the game

• Watching the other team celebrate

In Schooling it’s:

• Another confusing explanation that will never help my school.

• My faculty will never understand

• We can’t possibly do that in our school.

Distraught Daryl

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Reflection after each change/leadership concept

on the continuum from Charlie to Daryl?

It makes sense…we understand it and address it

at my school…we are on base all the time

It makes sense…but this is a constant challenge at my

school…I don’t know if we can get on base, much less score

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Leadership Matters

• Chuck’s presentation confirmed unequivocally that…

Leadership Matters to school and student success!

Leadership for Second-Order Change is essential!

• So, let’s look at “Leadership FOR Change”

Let’s begin with this concept:

“If you are not improving, you are declining”

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Why We Must Change: TheKnowledge-Implementation Gap

Society Changes Constantly & Education Needs to Adapt

Expert Knowledge of Best Educational Practices

Our Knowledge of Best Educational Practices

Our Implementation if We Maintain Knowledge of BEP

Our Implementation w/ Moderate Knowledge of BEP

Our Implementation with No New Knowledge No New Knowledge, Low Effort

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Where is your team (school)? Knowledge-Implementation Gap

Confident Charlie Distraught Daryl

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Lewin’s Freeze/Unfreeze/Transition/Refreeze

Model of Change

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Mountain Stream Ice Flow: Freezes, Thaws, Reshapes, Refreezes with the Environmental Factors of

Sun-Shade-Current Flow-Water Depth

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Freeze-Unfreeze-Transition-Refreeze Explanation

• Freeze is our current state—the way we are…• Unfreeze is the time we spend realizing and

accepting that we need to change.• Transition is the actual implementation of the

change• Refreezing is stabilizing the organization so the

new change can be internalized and maintained until it needs to be changed

• Learning organizations are in a continuous cycle of change from freeze to unfreeze to transition to refreezing just as the mountain stream transitions in the fall or spring

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Same Concept, Different Visual

Current State Unfreeze Transition Freeze

Lewin’s Stages of Change:

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Continuous Change…

Continuous change is a condition of life in schools…

We cannot afford to refreeze and stay frozen!

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Where is your team (school)? Freeze-Unfreeze-Transition-Refreeze Cycle

Confident Charlie Distraught Daryl

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Comfort-Discomfort-Comfort Cycle:Staff Anxiety During 2nd Order Change

Comfort with

current conditions

Realization of needed change

Realization of urgency for change

Engagement & Problem Solving

Optimism with Decision to Change

Frustrations of implementing the change

Persistence

Comfort w/ on-going change

TIME

Sta

ff A

nxi

ety

Hig

h

L

ow

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Where is your team (school)? Comfort-Discomfort-Comfort Cycle

Confident Charlie Distraught Daryl

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2nd Order Changeand Rationalizations Against It

• 2nd Order Change requires a significant departure from the norm and often means a shift in status or power. – Comment: Why change. The way we have always done it works!– Which really means: I don’t want to change that much. And I

resent those young teachers with their new ideas.• 2nd Order Change is a threat to personal values, beliefs,

and abilities.– Comment: That will be a lot of work. Why change that much? I

just don’t believe it’s the right thing to do.– Which really means: I do not believe most kids can learn even if

we make the change. We will never get “those kids” to learn.• 2nd Order Change is a slow, evolving process over time.

– Comment: This takes too much time and I have too many things to do now. Besides, I plan to retire real soon.

– Which really means: I don’t want to work that hard at this stage in my career. I am considering retirement, maybe in the next several years.

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2nd Order Changeand Rationalizations Against It

• 2nd Order Change addresses complex problems requiring new, thoughtful, and often creative comprehensive solutions.– Comment: This new change may be too hard for all of our

faculty to learn how to do. It will fail if we don’t all do it well. – Which really means: Some of us may have trouble doing this. I

don’t think I will be able to do it. • 2nd Order Change supports double-loop and

organizational learning which means building a culture of continuous study, problem-solving, implementation, evaluation.– Comment: I don’t understand why we need to become a

learning organization. We have always been able to refine what we do and make it work.

– Which really means: I am not good at creative thinking and problem solving. I don’t understand organizational learning. I am not really sure I can do higher-order thinking. I never come up with good ideas.

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Three Perspectives of Leadership for Continuous Change

• Authoritative (Decide then Inform)• Participative (Ask individuals and

groups for input. Involve then Decide)

• Collaborative (Engage everyone meaningfully. Reach a consensus, make a covenant, develop collective commitment)

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Authoritative, Participative, or Collaborative?

Principal

Teacher Teacher Teacher

Authoritative

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Authoritative: Increase Pressure,Decrease Resistance to Make Change

• Increase the force/pressure to make the change

By increasing incentives, power, authority, negotiate (transactional)

Decrease the forces that create resistance to the change

By decreasing fear, anxiety, impediments, negotiate (transactional)

• If resistance was low, leaders did not worry about resistance and just increased force/pressure to make change;

• If resistance was high, leaders increased force/pressure to make change while trying to decrease resistance to change

• Basically…change was MANDATED!

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Authoritative, Participative, or Collaborative?

Principal

TeacherTeacher

Teacher

TeacherTeacher Teacher

TeacherTeacher

Participative

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Authoritative, Participative, or Collaborative?

Principal

Teacher

Teacher

TeacherTeacher

Teacher Teacher

Teacher

Collaborative

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Where is your team (school)? Authoritative-Participative-Collaborative

Confident Charlie Distraught Daryl

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Traditional Faculty “Discussions”

Principal Talks

Teachers Listen

(sometimes)

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A Model of Faculty Collaborative Conversations for Change

Whole

Group

Whole

Group

Small Groups

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Collaborative Conversations

Collective Efficacy

Collective Commitment

Collective Support

Relationships/Trust

Collective Change

Collaborative Conversations Change Cycle

Collective Success

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The Significance of Collaborative

ConversationsCollaborative

ConversationsCollaborative

Actions

Professional Relationships

Trust EfficacyCommitment

Professional Community

Organizational Learning

School Change

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Where is your team (school)? Collaborative Conversations

Confident Charlie Distraught Daryl

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The Design Team (for Change)Provides Leadership

• Develop and maintain a teacher-leader team that leads the faculty and champions continuous improvement

• If the Team’s Name reflected their tasks, they might be called: – The Design Team– The School Improvement Team– The Think-Tank Team– The Capacity Building Team

• Members of the Team should be respected, quality, teacher leaders who care and want to make a difference across the whole school

• Painter et al. Engaging Teachers in the School Improvement Process, 1999.

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The Design Team (for Change)Provides Leadership

• The principal should participate as a member of the Team

• The Team’s responsibility it to be on the edge of knowledge and needed change and support the development of a culture for change across the school.

• The principal (and usually outside support) help guide the work of the team and build capacity of the team to analyze, problem-solve, and design for change

• Painter et al. Engaging Teachers in the School Improvement Process, 1999.

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Where is your team (school)? The Design Team

Confident Charlie Distraught Daryl

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Purposeful Community

• A purposeful community is one with the collective efficacy and capability to develop and use assets to accomplish goals that matter to all community members through agreed-upon processes.

• Marzano, Waters, McNulty 2005

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Staff Capacity

Assume that lack of personal and group capacity is the problem….

and work on it continuously.

• Fullan, 2005

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The Big Picture of Meaningful School Change through Transformational and

Distributive Leadership• Build Commitment for change through Meaningful

Involvement

• The Teacher makes the difference…Develop Individuals, Teams, and Whole Faculty (what happens in the classroom makes the difference… what happens outside the classroom enables what happens in the classroom)

• Redesign the Organization, Internalize Continuous Change Processes into a Collaborative Culture (Second-Order)

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Final Thought…

Continuous Collaborative Conversations are the

centerpiece for second-order, meaningful, continuous school

change!

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Where is your team (school)?

Confident Charlie Distraught Daryl

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References and Recommended Readings

• Berliner, David (2005). Our Impoverished View of Educational Reform. Teachers College Record, August>

• Cotton, Kathleen (2003). Principals and Student Achievement: What the Research Says, ASCD.

• Danielson, Charlotte (2003). Enhancing Student Achievement: A Framework for School Improvement, ASCD.

• DuFour, Richard, et al. (2004). Whatever It Takes, National Education Service.

• DuFour, Richard, et al., Eds. (2005). On Common Ground: The Power of Professional Learning Communities, National Education Service.

• Fullan, Michael (2003). The Moral Imperative of School Leadership, Ontario Principals Council/Corwin Press.

• Fullan, Michael, et al. (2006). Breakthrough, Corwin Press.• Fullan, Michael (2006). Turnaround Leadership, Jossey-Bass.• Hargreaves, A. and Fink, D. (2006). Sustainable Leadership. Jossey-

Bass.

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Recommended Readings• Hopkins, David, et al. (1994). School Improvement in an Era of Change,

Teachers College Press.• Kanter, R. (2004). Confidence: How Winning and Losing Streaks Begin and

End. Corwin Press. • Lambert, Linda (2003). Leadership Capacity for School Improvement, ASCD.• Leithwood, Kenneth et al. Eds. (2000). Organizational Learning in Schools,

Swets & Zeitlinger Publishing.• Leithwood, Kenneth, et al. (2001). Making Schools Smarter: A System for

Monitoring School and District Progress, Corwin Press.• Leithwood, Kenneth, et al., Eds. (2006). Teaching for Deep Understanding:

What Every Educator Should Know, Corwin Press.• Leithwood, Kenneth. (2005) Teacher Working Conditions that Matter.

Toronto: Elementary Teacher Federation of Ontario. • Marzano, Robert, et al. (2001). Classroom Instruction that Works: Research

Based Strategies for Increasing Student Achievement, ASCD.• Marzano, Robert (2003). What Works in Schools: Translating Research into

Action, ASCD.

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Recommended Readings

• Marzano, Robert (2005). School Leadership that Works: From Research to Results ASCD/McREL.

• Nye, B., Konstantopoulos, S., & Hedges, L. (2004) How Large are the Teacher Effects! Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, #26.

• Painter, Bryan, et al. (1999). Engaging Teachers in the School Improvement Process, NASSP/Middle Level Leadership Center, University of Missouri.

• Painter, Bryan, et al. (2000). The Use of Teams in the School Improvement Process, NASSP/Middle Level Leadership Center, University of Missouri.

• Pheffer, J. & Sutton, R. (2000) The Knowing-Doing Gap, Harvard Business School Press.

• Quinn, David, et al. (1999). Using Data for School Improvement, NASSP/Middle Level Leadership Center, University of Missouri.

• Reeves, Douglas (2006). The Learning Leader: How to Focus School Improvement for Better Schools, ASCD.

• Tschannen-Moran, Megan (2004). Trust Matters: Leadership for Successful Schools, Jossey-Bass.

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Recommended Readings• Valentine, Jerry (2001) Frameworks for School Improvement: A

Synthesis of Essential Concepts, International Confederation of Principals Recommended Web Reading or Queensland Elementary Journal 2002, or Middle Level Leadership Center, University of Missouri.

• Valentine, Jerry, et al. (2004). Leadership for Highly Successful Middle Level Schools, NASSP.

• Valentine, Jerry, et al. (2006). Project ASSIST: A Comprehensive, Systemic Change Initiative for Middle Level Schools, Paper presented at American Educational Research Association Annual Conference, San Francisco, April. (Available from author or at Middle Level Leadership Center web site).

• Wheatley, Margaret (2005). Finding Our Way: Leadership for an Uncertain Time, San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler.

• York-Barr, Jennifer, et al. (2006). Reflective Practice to Improve Schools: An Action guide for Educators, Corwin Press.

Jerry Valentine, Middle Level Leadership Center, 211 Hill Hall, University of Missouri (573) 882-0944 ValentineJ@missouri.edu www.MLLC.org