JHU / ISTE 2010

"leadership requires a vision. Without a vision to challenge followers with, there's no possibility of a principal being a leader"

The relationship between the teachers' and administrators' vision is important.

Administrators' vision tends to encompass the whole system or as described by Manasse (1986) their vision is an organizational vision. Teachers' vision appear to focus primarily on the individual or personal actions for school change

vision is "based on personal or personalized professional values"

"visionary leadership demands a clear sense of personal and organizational values"

The first value Aplin identified was that the instructional programs were "the highest priority of the system and decisions were assessed as to whether they enhanced or threatened it"

The second value this superintendent had was "equity in person relationships and instructional decisions

"Practices of delegation, teaming, flexibility of process and incremental planning with extensive communication" (p. 11) was the third valu

"The fourth value held was the need to retain a high level of local control

.The fifth value disclosed was his belief that the quality of decision is improved if there has been free and honest disclosure among interested parties"

"the specific value that each superintendent seemed to exemplify was simply 'the children come first'"

This loyalty includes a keen understanding of the community's values as well as consistent participation in community activities.

while there was little difference between the activities of effective and ineffective principals, the meanings they attributed to their activities were significantly different.

They found that personal background factors, such as type of education, and organizational factors, such as school size, were more important than values.

"Principals in the high-SES effective schools expected an academic emphasis and task orientations in classrooms but encouraged teachers to implement a broad curriculum. Their counterparts in the low-SES effective schools implemented a more narrowly defined curriculum and allocated more time for basic skill instruction"

"The primary rewards for most teachers come from students' academic accomplishments -- from feeling certain about their own capacity to affect student development"

Hallinger and Murphy (1986) reported that even when the low wealth schools were achieving, teachers' expectations were lower than those for students at wealthier schools; they believed they had minimal parental support and therefore assigned less homework and stressed the basic curriculum.

Differences in curricular and instructional practices suggest that the manner in which staff implement curriculum and instruction is filtered through their perceptions, beliefs and expectations concerning student ability and community background

Effective superintendents believe that students come first; effective principals believe in meeting the instructional needs of the students. Teachers value working with students and believe that they have an impact on their achievement. They have the shared belief that students' learning is of primary importance. The literature revealed that these individuals' also shared a common value. They valued the human resources -- the contributions, talents, and efforts -- of others in their organization.

We never effectively control people with these systems, but we certainly stop a lot of good work from getting done.

creating systems of relationships where all members of the system benefit from their connections.

People organize together to accomplish more, not less

Whenever we look at organizations as machines and deny the great self-organizing capacity in our midst, we, as leaders, attempt to change these systems from the outside in

Most of us know that as people drive to work they're wondering how they can get something done for the organization despite the organization

They are tinkering in their local environments, based on their intimate experience with conditions there and their tinkering shows up as effective innovation

solutions cannot be imposed; they have to remain local.

If people are clear about the purpose and true values of their organization, their individual tinkering will result in system wide coherence.

Clarity about who we are as a group creates freedom for individual contributions.

If conformity is the goal, it will kill local initiative.

People develop new levels of trust for one another that show up as more cooperation and more forgiveness

But you can't direct people into perfection; you can only engage them enough so that they want to do perfect work.

They need information, access to one another, resources, trust, and follow-through

Ultimately, we have to rely not on the procedure manuals, but on people’s brains and their commitment to doing the right thing.

the higher you are in the organization, the more change is required of you personally

Commitment and loyalty are essential in human relationships. So how can we pretend we don't need them at work?

Employability in lieu of mutual commitment is a cop-out.