WSU Leadership Part I August

Leadership is . . .

gsharratt@wsu.edu

• When you think of the word leadership, what three words or phrases come to your mind?

• At your table, share your three words or phrases. Why did you select these three?

• Who, as a leader, influenced your thinking on these three words or phrases?

Leadership is . .

“It’s just one darn thing after another!”

Leadership . . . In the essentials . . .

unity.In the non-essentials . . .

freedom.In all things . . .

clarity.

COLLABORATION IS KEY!

“Every collaborationhelps you grow.”

Brian Eno, musician

Even if we have a collaborative environment – are we leading “smart:”?

The Center for Educational Effectiveness

A school is . . .

“a building that has four walls - with the

future inside.”Lon Watters

“Children are the living messages we send to a time

we will not see.”

Neil Postman

The future . . .

Questions?

“Public schools are a public trust.”

Linda Darling-Hammond

“A community is known

by the schools it keeps.”

Shaker Heights School District

Great Schools Consist of . . .

“Great teachers doing

great teaching.”

McKinsey & Company (2007)

Manson School District

Leaders build capacity,

not dependency.

Capacity Building . . .

involves the collective ability – dispositions, skills, knowledge, motivation and resources – to

act together to bring about expected change.

If you want to change people’s behavior, “You need to create a

community around them, where these new beliefs could be practical,

expressed and nurtured” (p. 173).

Fullan (2005)

“Your bottom line is

your front line.

It all comes from people”

Casey Stengel, manager of the New York Yankees, commented after winning the 1958 World Series,

“I couldn’t have done it without my

players.”

Casey Stengel – The secret of leadership . . .

“is keeping those who dislike me away from

those who are still undecided.”

Bobbing for Superintendents

“Leadership Matters!”

It matters a great deal in leading a learning culture where staff and students improve in practice and

performance.

“Large National Study Strongly Links Educational Leadership to Student Achievement.”

“The rubber hits the road in the classrooms; that’s where the learning happens.

Leadership is important because is sets the conditions and the expectations in the

school that there will be excellent instruction and there will be a culture of ongoing learning for the educators and for the

students in the school.”

The Wallace Foundation, July 201029

“The role of leader is to “mobilize people to

tackle tough problems.”

Heifetz (1994)

Leadership

“If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, and

become more, you are a leader.”

John Quincy Adams

School Leadership

What is the purpose of leadership?

What is the purpose of leadership?

“The improvement of instructional practice and performance.”

(Elmore, 2006)

What is improvement?

Improvement is increases in quality and performance

over time.

Richard Elmore, June 2006 Conference paper, OECD, (p. 6.)

Leadership Accountability

The necessary condition for success of school leaders in the future will be their capacity to improve the quality of instructional practice.

Richard Elmore, June 2006 Conference paper, OECD, (p. 6.)

Practice must be based on atheory of action.

A theory of action is a set of logically connected statements that connect the actions of leaders with their consequences for quality and performance in the organization.

They must be stated in order to be shared, and they have to be evaluated against evidence of their success in order to be judged.

(Chris Argyris and Donald Schon, 1978)

Leadership . . .

Good leaders change organizations.

Great leaders change people.

Leadership is . . .

Management view:

“Doing things right.”

Leadership View:

“Doing right things.”

Leadership is . . .

“Doing right things right.”

Kenneth Leithwood, 2004

Leading with the “Right Work”

“The right work at both the school level and the district level is to do

something that impacts the classroom.”

Waters & Marzano (2006)

Leaders of Learning

As a leader, what are the “right things” you must do to improve learning?.

What evidence do you have that you are doing the “right things – right?”

Leadership

Have you changed your three words or phrases or have they been reinforced through your table discussions?

What words or phrases would you add to your thoughts regarding the role of school leadership?