The Key to Emerging Successfully as a Leader

Felicity Mandile25 June 2010

Commodore on the ParkMt Gambier

“It has become increasingly clear that leadership at all levels of the system is the key lever for reform, especially leaders who focus on capacity building and develop other leaders who can carry on.” (Michael Fullan, 2001)

Dr Douglas Reeves

• Understanding Networks for Change• The Journey of Renewal• The Benefits of Collaboration• Educational Leadership

• What meaning did you get from this presentation?• How is this personally relevant to you?

• What has this reinforced for you?

National Teaching Awards 2009

The Australian Awards for Teaching Excellence honour truly exceptional teachers, principals, support staff and school communities, working creatively and tirelessly to make a difference to the lives and opportunities of young people.

Maggie Beer

In the verdant fields of the Barossa valley Maggie and husband Colin have carved out a niche market for gourmet food and wine.

From their beginnings in 1973, Maggie now runs Maggie Beer’s Farm House, a 7-day-a-week outlet selling her full product range, including wines from the couple’s 25 years of grape growing.

Her products sell on the national and international market and Maggie has become renowned for her work in facilitating the exchange of ideas and information between food growers, producers and consumers.

Geoff HardyTo produce high quality wines it is essential that the people involved in the production are not only skilled, but also dedicated.

At Kuitpo Vineyards a fantastic team ensures grapes are of the highest quality so that this superiority can be followed through into the final wine.

Geoff Hardy has been involved in the planting of about 3000 hectares of vines and consulted to over 200 different vineyards in Australia, France and Italy. His extensive knowledge of viticulture and wine production ensures the creation of outstanding wines.

Geoff won Wine Selectors Inaugural Australian Viticulturalist of the Year in 2005.

Hillary ClintonBill Clinton was elected President of the United States in 1992. As First Lady, Hillary Clinton became an advocate of health care reform and worked on many issues relating to children and families.

She led bipartisan efforts to improve adoption and foster care systems, reduce teen pregnancy, and provide health care to millions of children through the Children's Health Insurance Program.

She traveled to more than 80 countries as a representative and champion of human rights, democracy and civil society.

In her famous speech in Beijing in 1995 - she declared that "human rights are women's rights, and women's rights are human rights“.

Michael Jordan

“A phenomenal athlete with a unique combination of fundamental soundness, grace, speed, power, artistry, improvisational ability and an unquenchable competitive desire, Jordan single-handedly redefined the NBA superstar.”http://www.nba.com/history/players/jordan_summary.html

Roger Federer

World Ranking: 2 Grand Slam Titles: 16Tournament Titles: 62

Skills

• A skill is the learned capacity to carry out pre-determined results often with the minimum outlay of time, energy, or both. Skills can often be divided into domain-general and domain-specific skills. ...en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skills

• Skill - ability to produce solutions in some problem domain; "the skill of a well-trained boxer”. wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn

• Skill is a measure of a worker's expertise, specialization, wages, and supervisory capacity. Skilled workers are generally more trained, higher paid, and have more responsibilities than unskilled workers.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skill_(labor)

Knowledge

• cognition: the psychological result of perception and learning and reasoningwordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn

• Knowledge is defined by the Oxford English Dictionary as (i) expertise, and skills acquired by a person through experience or education; the theoretical or practical understanding of a subject; (ii) what is known in a particular field or in total; facts and information; or (iii) awareness or familiarity gained by experience of a fact or situation.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knowledge

Behaviour• behaviour: the action or reaction of something (as a machine or

substance) under specified circumstances; "the behavior of small particles can be studied in experiments"

• demeanor: (behavioural attributes) the way a person behaves toward other people

• behaviour: (psychology) the aggregate of the responses or reactions or movements made by an organism in any situation

• behaviour: manner of acting or controlling yourselfwordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn

• Behaviour refers to the actions or reactions of an object or organism, usually in relation to the environment. Behaviour can be conscious or subconscious, overt or covert, and voluntary or involuntary.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behaviour

Leading Self

• Being self-aware and continuing to focus on who they need to be

• Facing uncertainty with resilience • Having the courage to do things that come from expanded

vision• Fostering a sense of ownership and responsibility• Experiencing the day-to-day as authentic learning

experiences• Desiring authenticity and trustworthiness• Having clear values and modelling these expectations

Leading Others• Achieving the shared moral purpose through supportive relationships built on trust• Creating environments where safety and encouragement foster risk-taking• Respecting individuals by building honest and caring relationships• Teamwork• Assisting a shared level of responsibility for all students and the adults’ own performance

growth• Building collective capability• Celebrating diversity and insist on inclusiveness• Generating new knowledge and new practices to encourage excellence in pedagogy• Connecting the past to the future and creating whole communities of learners• Creating structures and using data to guide improvements and collaboration• Facilitating learning-focused conversations by providing protocols and structures• Maximising quality time for focused conversations• Recognising that self-critical analysis and honest, timely feedback to others builds

strengths

Leading the Organisation• Shifting the focus to priorities that focus on student learning• Collaborating to share accountability and implementing strategies learned through practice

and research• Focusing on results and celebrating achievements• Building a learning culture open to innovation and change• Testing and collaborating so that creativity and imagination can flourish• Welcoming parents and community to be a part of the school• Making connections well beyond the school and building that sense of community• Being savvy with political skills such as negotiation and communication• Rising to the challenge to be an advocate for those they serve • Finding creative ways to influence, build a vision and set directions• Managing the pace of the day-today while keeping an eye on the big picture• Looking for ways to judge and ask questions as the problem solver and problem seeker• Reflecting on actions by monitoring and modifying practices and beliefs

What makes a great leader of an education organisation?

Robinson (2006) points to essential questions for educational leaders that are adapted to provide a focus for the ACEL programs. These are:

• How best do we work with and influence others to ensure all students achieve

success?

• What do leaders need to know and do to make a difference to teaching and learning?

• What is the relationship between teaching, learning and leadership?

•The design of The ACEL Leadership Capability Framework © takes into account the significant learnings from over 100 system-embedded leadership capability frameworks spanning education, health, defence, public administration and law from around the world.•It is validated by Professors Andy Hargreaves and Alma Harris and Emeritus Professor Patrick Duignan.•Learnings have been gathered from the Centre for Creative Leadership, the Harvard Principals Centre, The London Centre for Leadership and Learning at the University of London.•In Australia learnings have been gathered from Emeritus Professors Hedley Beare and Frank Crowther, national and state Principal and Teacher Associations, and the Australian Institute of Management.

It has taken over two years and in excess of 800 hours to weave the ideas together into what is now known as The ACEL Leadership Capability Framework and Learning Maps©

Challenging the Notions of Leadership

ACEL challenges some widely embraced notions of leadership, including the notion that school leadership equals:•principalship•that leadership is a set of skills•that leadership equals a list of jobs that must be done by someone acting alone

Leadership:

• is an influence relationship.

• centres on organisational process rather than on positional authority.

• development for understanding and the ability to apply that understanding in creative and innovative ways requires a shift in thinking.

The three leadership fundamentals about which leadership theorists and researchers speak are purpose, context and human agency. These three fundamental elements are not only at the heart of effective organisational leadership, they lie at the centre of leadership for learning.

In the case of school leaders, there is a clear moral purpose which should drive them; and that purpose is the improvement of student’s live through learning.In the case of school leaders, there is a clear moral purpose which should drive them; and that purpose is the improvement of student’s live through learning.

Leadership never takes place in a vacuum. It is always located somewhere and is influenced by its context. This is why one of the most important sets of skills a school leader needs is the ability to ‘read’ the context in which he or she is working.

Leadership never takes place in a vacuum. It is always located somewhere and is influenced by its context. This is why one of the most important sets of skills a school leader needs is the ability to ‘read’ the context in which he or she is working.

Leaders cannot work alone in schools. They can only achieve the school’s moral purpose through human agency. This requires relational trust built from rich conversations and effective communication, a change of thinking from individual to shared views of leadership and a shift from defining leadership as position to viewing it as a collective, distributed activity.

Leaders cannot work alone in schools. They can only achieve the school’s moral purpose through human agency. This requires relational trust built from rich conversations and effective communication, a change of thinking from individual to shared views of leadership and a shift from defining leadership as position to viewing it as a collective, distributed activity.

21Adapted from DEMPSTER, N. (2009) Leadership for Learning: A Framework synthesizing recent research, edventures, Paper 13, ACE

What is the ACEL Leadership Capability Framework©?

• The ACEL Leadership Capability Framework is organised into three leadership growth areas:

• Leads Self for Learning• Leads Others for Learning• Leads the Organisation for Learning • The 11 leadership capabilities are broken down

into 33 key elements

How do I work with the elements?

The 33 elements are then broken up into 92 descriptors and these descriptors form the basis of the learning maps.

The ACEL Leadership Capability Learning Maps© recognise that leaders in education systems and schools work and learn within spheres of influence. These spheres of influence overlap and vary in size, but they provide a stage of development for each leadership growth area and descriptor in action.

ACEL Leadership Capability Framework©

• C = 4 I do this consistently in a range of situations and I am recognised for my capacity in this area

• A = 3 I know and can apply this most of the time• S = 2 I know and apply this practice sometimes

and would like to strengthen this area• L = 1 I don’t do this, but recognise this as an area

that needs to be developed and would like to learn more about it