TRIBAL LEADERSHIPBy: The Journeymen

April 2015

High Point University

Educational Leadership Doctoral Candidates

How Tribal Leadership Informs a Cultural Leadership Approach in Leading a School District

Focus Points:

What is a tribe?Tribal LeadershipStages of TribeTribe Stage QuestionnaireMoving Your TribeMeasuring SuccessValues, Noble Cause, and Strategy of the Tribe

WHAT IS A TRIBE?

➢ A tribe is any group of about 20 to 150 people who know one another

➢ Tribal culture exists in stages – stages 1-5

➢ Every tribe has a dominant culture

➢ Tribes emerge from the language people use to describe themselves, their jobs, and others.

WHAT IS TRIBAL LEADERSHIP?

•Tribal Leadership focuses on language and behavior within a culture.

•Each cultural stage has its own way of speaking, types of behavior, and structures of relationships.

•Tribal Leaders do two things: (1) listen for which cultures exist in their tribes and (2) upgrade their tribes using specific leverage points.

❏ Organize a group of like-minded educators who want to create and expand learning capacities in young learners (p146)

❏ Ignore organizational boundaries and use tribal antennae to discover building leaders to re-create and re-develop the learning environment (p147)

❏ Establish the tribe’s noble cause in the school by asking what is the school shooting for? (p181)

❏ Inquire of teachers and support personnel the Big Four Questions: What is working well? What’s not working? What can we do to make the things that are not working to work? (p.181).

❏ The aim is to produce coordinated action and coupled with passionate resolve

Primary Academic Counseling & Discipline Contact:

Principal Academics: 12th Discipline: 12th (9th, 10th, 11th: Appeals)

AP Academics: 10th, 11th Discipline: 10th, 11th

AP Academics: 9th Discipline: 9th & All Buses

Counseling Assignments:

A – K Counselor A

L – Z Counselor B

STAGES OF TRIBES

Signs of Stage One. (2% of all work cultures)

✓ Many people are socially alienated, never talking to anyone.

✓ When the group gathers together: isolated gangs - operate by their own rules, absolute loyalty

✓ Life has given them a bad deal, so it’s ok to do whatever it takes to survive.

✓ May be acts of violence, fistfights, or extreme verbal abuse.

STAGES OF TRIBESSigns of Stage Two. (25% of all work cultures)

❑ People talk as though they are disconnected from organizational concerns

❑ seeming to not care about what’s going on

❑ groups that encourage passive-aggressive

❑ From an administration viewpoint: an endless well of unmet needs, gripes, disappointments, and repressed anger.

❑ watch “The Office” or walk in the DMV.

❑ Most often seen in human resources, procurement, and accounting.

Signs of Stage Three. (49% of all work cultures)

❖ Knowledge is power, better informed

❖ Have to win, and for them winning is personal

❖ They’ll individually outwork and outthink their competitors

❖ Resist sharing information except when it’s necessary

❖ Fundamental nature is “I’m great.”

❖ Move to late Stage Three comes through tragedy or maturity, it often manifests itself by a desire to give back

STAGES OF TRIBES

STAGES OF TRIBES

Signs of Stage Four. (22% of all work cultures)

o Before - “I’m great” and now - “we’re great” is huge, Grand Canyon huge.

o The rule: the bigger the foe, the more powerful the tribe.

o See themselves as a tribe, with a common purpose.

o Shared core values and hold one another accountable.

o Information moves freely throughout the group.

Signs of Stage Five. (2% of all work cultures)

• “Life is great.”

• Mood is “innocent wonderment”

• People in this culture can find a way to work with almost anyone

• Almost no fear, no stress, or no workplace conflict.

• People talk as though the world is watching them, which may well be the case, as their results are making history.

STAGES OF TRIBES

Beginning of the year Faculty Meeting Daily attendance reports Verify status of “no shows”

Attendance follow ups first 30 days of school working with Social Worker and Student Advocate

Field trip forms and reports Fundraiser forms Volunteer Forms and background checks

Communication with families and students regarding beginning of the year information.

Plan Fire and Lockdown Drills Share annual enrollment meeting date received from the district

Share any community sponsored lunches provided to teachers at the beginning of the year.

Communicate the importance of Parent Portal sign-up for all parents and students.

School Improvement Team Meeting to finalize the SIP Monitor schedule changes and effects on class size

Teacher Growth Plans must be completed and approved Teacher orientation for evaluations within

the first 10 days teachers return to work. Teachers must complete self-assessment

Review financial records & budgets Plan for funding allotments

STAGES OF TRIBES

Most professionals usually cap out at Stage 3. Attorneys, accountants, physicians, brokers, salespeople, professors, and even the clergy are evaluated by what they know and do, and these measuring points are the hallmarks of Stage Three.

Children usually start school at Stage 2 on that first day of kindergarten: disconnected, trapped, and wanting to go home. In short, their lives stink. As they make friends, paint with those huge brushes, and learn the ABCs, they feel accomplished and rise to Stage 3, saying that they’re pretty great. Most formal education, by design, keeps people at Stage 3 all the way through graduate school.

The “OH NO!” Effect

People give themselves a two-stage bonus. People at Stage One think they’re at Three. People at Two think they’re at Four. How can you tell if you’re in Stage Two or Four?

What STAGE is your TRIBE?

http://www.triballeadership.net/book

9 Stage

OneSurvey results in this range show

signs of Stage One. Most people

talk as though they are alienated

from organizational concerns.

When they cluster together, they

form isolated gangs that operate by

their own rules, often based on

absolute loyalty to the group. There

are many people who socially

alienated, never talking to anyone.

15 Stage

FourSurvey results in this range show

signs of Stage Four, which means

people probably regard you as a

Tribal Leader. Teams are the

norm, focused around shared

values and a common purpose.

Information moves freely

throughout the group. People’s

relationships are built on shared

values.

Moving Your Tribe

Tribal Leadership focuses on two things, and only two things:

1) the words people use and the types of relationships they form.

Moving Your Tribe

2) Not changing their beliefs, attitudes, motivation, or ideas—or anything else that isn’t directly observable.

Administrative Duties and Responsibilities 2014-2015

Academic Awards Academic Counseling Activity Buses AP Assignments

Announcements AP Testing Athletics Attendance

Baccalaureate Beautification Budget Buses

Classroom Assignments Clubs Credit Recovery-APEX Department Chairs

Department Meetings Department-Air Force JROTC Department-Counselors Department-CTE

Department-Cultural Arts Department-English Department-History Department-Intervention Center

Department-ISS Department-Math Department-Science Discipline - School

Discipline-Buses Dress Code Drivers License Verification / Waivers PEP

Early Graduation Early Release Evaluations (Certified / Classified) Testing

Facilities (Custodial / Grounds / Maintenance) Facility Use Scheduling Failure Lists-At Risk

Field Trip Approval Fundraisers / Class Sponsorships Graduation Homecoming

Homeroom “Scheduling” Keys Lead Teacher Lockers

Lunch Supervision Master Calendar Updates Media Center Mentor Assignments

Office Staff Open House Events Parking Paychecks

Teaching Assignments Probationary Licensed Teachers Professional Development Plan Prom

Registration-student scheduling Schedule Changes School Fee Waivers School Improvement Plan

School Improvement Team School Resource Officer Senior Recognition Senior Scholarships

Staff Development Staffing – Bus Drivers / Cafeteria / Custodial Staffing – Instructional (Certified)

Staffing – Classified Student Advocate Student Council Student Handbook

Substitutes Supervision: After-School Events Supervision: Assigning Supervision of Students

Supervision: Instructional Teacher Handbook Textbooks Transition Plan-Rising 9th Graders

Tutorial

Change the language in the tribe, and you have changed the tribe itself.

Each person in this tribe is on a journey through the stages, and the tribe

makes that journey long or short. Your job as Tribal Leader is to expedite this

journey for each person, so that a new group forms at Stage Four.

Earn their TRUST!

★ Principals might set outcome strategies to produce a burning strategic problem (high rate of discipline referrals, high rate of minority male suspensions, teacher absenteeism, student truancy, low performing scores (state exams, local exams, classroom exams), etc.

★ Attacking these strategic problems from a “present state of success that morphs into an even bigger victory over time (p.217) Language such as “it will be great when we achieve the school of excellence award in 2016.” Or “we have already won this fight and this is how the victory presently looks (p217)

Stage 3 Success: Individuals’ behavior expresses a “lone warrior” ethos, and

collectively, the culture becomes the “wild, wild west.”

The person will exhibit the lone warrior spirit of Stage Three, often comparing

themself with their coworkers and using disparaging language like “What’s wrong

with them?” and “If they tried, they’d succeed.”

***They will work less, and yet get more done.***

Values and Noble Cause

Once Tribal Leaders recognize shared values, they begin talking about them with people in the tribe.

The basis of all “we’re great” relationships are values and a noble cause.

Can you see the forest for the trees?

Can you move on . . . . . . . . . . without your BFF?

➢ Principals can couple teachers or support personnel with one another on the basis of a common project and shared values – triading (p205)

Strategy of the Tribe

Central theme: you are only as smart and capable as your tribe, and that by upgrading your tribe, you multiply the results of your efforts.

A great question to ask: “What triads will fix this problem?” The “black belt” answer (most useful in Stage 4 cultures) is “What triads will help us spot and fix problems so big we can’t even think of them?”

Q AND A ???

http://www.culturesync.net/tribal-leadership-book/

http://www.ted.com/talks/david_logan_on_tribal_leadership

Logan, D., King, J. P., & Fischer-Wright, H. (2008). Tribal leadership: Leveraging

natural groups to build a thriving organization. New York: Collins.

RESOURCES