Middle Leadership Workshop

: Nov. 14, 2009

Fieldworks

Mark J. Pam Harper, Howard Marshall

Started with a terrible slide: lots of words of outcomes

The why, what, how, when

Teaching leadership skills to kids. Can start age 5

Senior leaders vs middle leader: has to do with scope of accountability

Reflection is a key part of learning: 

sticky note: one side: a trait you have that is good for leadership

other side: what you need to be better at. 

Outcome of successful leadership:

Happiness: climate-how does it feel to work somewhere?

Provide a growth in students and teachers

Shared belief, vision and direction 

Strong sense of community

Positive school

Change: best practice

MOST IMPORTANT: positive impact on learning

What is your leadership job title? 

teacher librarian

restitution guru

environmental nut

Effective leaders: Vision, strategic issues, transformation, ends, people

Doing the right things: moral dimension, path making, complex -org. goes somewhere

Paul Buckley

Geoff Smith

Obama

Mandela

Monica G

Oprah

Effective Manager: implementation, operational, transaction, means, systems

Doing things right: value management, path following, clarity (transparency) org keeps going

Gordon Brown

Steve Jobs

Niall Nelson

Branson

Bill Gates

Warren Buffet

Both are important: different and complementary, each with its own function and characteristic activities and both are necessary for success.

Coordination: Doing things, path tidying, consistency
H. Gardner: Changing and transforming the mind the of people

NEED both leadership and management

Reflections: 

Where do you spend most of your time and effort?

Do you feel that you have the balance about right?

What do you bring to the role?

Michael Fullan: iceberg model-what you see, know, skill, what we don’t see (underwater) is attitudes, values, motives, beliefs, self-image. 

Goldman: EQ: key to leadership

self-awareness

Self management

social awareness

Relationship management: putting self in other shoes.

Manage perception: How do you manage the perception of what people think about your?

That you care about students and learning.

situational leadership: works one place but not another.

Praise: Who says to the leaders that you are doing a great job? 

Why should school ML in the 21st century be different from that in the 20th century?

Paradigm shift: Learning is more important than teaching

Distributed Leadership

What are the formal leadership roles in your schools?

Proteaus: greek god who could reform into different shapes and that is what the diagram of leadership may look like.

sustainable leadership spreads. It sustains as well as depends on the leadership of others.

Book about distributed leadership: University of Chicago:  Spillany, James

What do we know about distributed leadership in school?

What are the key messages from your experience?

Shared agreement of what is distributed leadership. Increase capacity of leadership. Can’t distribute accountability but responsibility.

Sharing jobs is delegating the jobs is not distribution. 

more about vision, belief.

Problems with distributed leadership

Collective accountability not individual delegation of tasks

lack of will to change

poor sense of team ship

little ability or desire to influence

leader not able to let go

Informal leaders: Have influence what is going on.

Where does this place. 

Personalized power

position of authority

influence

modeling

high trust

commitment

be professional

listen

a culture of learning

Attending a workshop on Middle Leadership in schools. Activity: Your team are the owners of a brand new school which will open next year with a full capacity of students (ages 4 to 18, 1000 students).
What leadership and management structures will you put into place at your new school.
What will the roles/positions within your structure be called?
How will it work and what are the reasons for your decisions?

Team name: Student` First

Consider leadership

Present ideas and thinking

Your presentation must last no longer than 4 minutes

no powerpoint presentations

you will be observed working as a team

Making it work as a team...

Did we have a plan?

Who was the leader in the team?

Team players?

Group and individual perspective?

Commitment?

Efficient v effective?

Reflective and review?

Also...

Learnt behavior of team members. What are your strengths?

Knowing what it feels like to be part of a successful team.

Managing meetings?

Pet PEEVES:

• Before: Late
• During: authority of decision making, roles?, a decision rather than the issue, no agenda, off task, monopolize the conversation, 
• After: Shoot the messenger, point of the meeting,

Before:

Each person has the responsibility for the success of the meeting.

Do we actually need to meet?

Purpose of the meeting: what is going to change/get better as a result of this meeting? (what does this have to do with student learning.

Norms needed

more...

Who, when, where, how long and what for?

Agendas: inform, discuss, decide...

Meeting preparation

Locate the power within the group

See the mind map handout of electronic agenda

During:

Decision making process:

Who is making this decision

What is the process for making this decision?

After:

Minutes

Action points

Next steps for direction of group

Evaluation of the process

BIG Question: What percentage of you meeting is about learning? What impact did/will your meeting have on learning?

Collins: Hedgehog is learning. Focus

How to do it>>>IN article given called HOW TO ORGANISE LEARNING-FOCUSED MEETINGS

HOW WILL THIS IMPROVE LEARNING?

IS THIS THE BEST US OF OUR TIME TO IMPROVE LEARNING?

IS OUR DECISION ABOUT THIS LIKELY TO IMPACT ON LEARNING IN ANY WAY?

TO BE CONTINUED