Your Education Leadership Handbook

Jim McGrath, Anthony Coles

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2014
• Print ISBN: 9781138414518
• eBook ISBN: 9781317860501
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

Your Education Management & Leadership Handbook should be essential reading for anyone managing or aspiring to lead in education, whether in the primary, secondary or post-compulsory sector.

Written in the form of a fictional case study, the book charts the progress of a teacher and their academic tutor, introducing key concepts, theories and debates in educational leadership, whilst applying them to real work-based situations. Whether you are a student, middle manager or leader in education, this handbook will provide you with the skills and knowledge necessary to discuss a wide range of leadership theories; analyse and understand events in their workplace; identify and develop your own leadership style; and understand how to apply theory to your own practice

Tutorial 1

Managerialism and control

Aim of tutorial

To help you understand the macro-environmental pressures that affect all managers and staff in the education sector.

Contents

• Bureau-professionalism

• The advent of managerialism

• Value for money (VFM)

• Managerialism

• Performativity

Note: As stated in the Introduction, the term ‘principal’ has been used throughout this book instead of head teacher or head mistress.

Nat’s reflection

22 September

I’m not sure if I’ve done the right thing. Instead of spending my annual training allowance on a couple of conferences where I could enjoy a few days away from the problems of work I’ve ‘bought’ ten one-hour tutorials with Dr Martin Vinick at the local university. As I explained to him when we met, I have a lot of experience of management and leadership in both the private and public sectors. I’ve also undertaken numerous management development courses and even sat a few management examinations. But I’ve never had the time to critically evaluate the various theories and identify my own leadership style. Instead my leadership style has just grown and developed over the years without a lot of conscious thought. Now that I’m actively looking to become a principal, it’s time I consciously examined my leadership style.

Martin suggested that as I didn’t want or need a full course we should just meet for a series of one-to-one tutorials on the broad subject of education leadership. To get the most from the sessions Martin suggested that I should do a bit of reading before each session. For today’s meeting he asked me to Google ‘managerialism’ and see what I could find. He said that if at a later stage I decide to pursue my studies the tutorials and the reading would give me enough information to write a good assignment at postgraduate level. We’ll see.

He also suggested that I record each tutorial. That way I can reflect on what I have learnt and link any new learning to my previous experiences of leadership. Sounds reasonable to me.

Review of tutorial

When I arrived, Dr Vinick was thumbing through the latest edition of the British Educational Leadership, Management and Administration Society’s (BELMAS) journal, his near-black hair, surprising in a man who was at least 60, bobbing up and down as he skim-read the pages. Looking up he smiled and said, ‘Nice to see you. Would you like a cup of tea?’ His accent was unmistakably that of Yorkshire.

‘That would be great,’ I said and set up my recorder and unpacked my note pad as he made two teas and found a packet of biscuits that looked slightly the worse for wear.

‘OK,’ he said, ‘As I understand it you have studied management and leadership over the years first as part of your accounting exams and recently a national training course for principals.’

‘I’ve also done numerous management development and training courses over the years,’ I said.

‘Grand. So we can discuss these issues rather than me sit here and act as the all-wise guru dispensing words of wisdom. But I warn you, I won’t be doing all the talking and I expect you to disagree with me on various issues. Don’t hold back. I like a good argument. Deal?’

‘Deal,’ I said.

‘Good. I’d like to start by looking at the external environment within which education leadership is exercised. I asked you to Google ‘Managerialism’. What did you find out?’

For a moment I was taken aback by the question. I had thought he’d ease me into the session but he was clearly taking no prisoners. Collecting my thoughts I replied, ‘It was something that started in the 1980s and the idea was that public sector organisations, including schools, hospitals and the police, should be run and managed using techniques and practices that were common in the private sector.’

‘OK, that’s not bad. Let’s leave that for a minute. What do you think was the management culture in education prior to managerialism?’

‘Don’t look at me’, I said. ‘I only started secondary school in 1976.’

‘Don’t say that. It makes me feel so old,’ Martin said smiling.

‘Well, speaking to “old timers at work”,’ I said teasingly, ‘I’m told it was less hierarchical and more collegiate.’

‘It’s interesting how people embellish the past making it into some sort of golden age. The truth is that there was never a golden age of collegiality in schools, colleges or universities. People may have aspired to it but the idea that academics or teachers came together, discussed issues, and arrived at a decision that everyone agreed with is a fiction. There were always people jockeying for advancement in the organisation just as there were some teachers, administrators and leaders that exercised greater influence and control than others. But, very often, they did so covertly rather than overtly. If you want an example of what I mean read C.P. Snow’s The Masters.’

‘If collegiality didn’t exist, what did?’

‘It was called bureau-professionalism and it did contain an element of collegiality. Basically the attitudes, beliefs and values held by teachers and lecturers at the time were typified by an overriding concern for the students’ learning and well-being and a belief that lecturers and teachers should be seen as a source of expertise. As a professional educator, your loyalty was not to the organisation you worked for but to your subject, the colleagues you worked with, the maintenance of academic standards and your students. This logically led to the belief that because managers, such as departmental heads or principals, were socialised within a particular profession or discipline, they should share the same values as their more junior colleagues. Therefore the relationship between the leader and led should be one based upon mutual trust, a respect for professional autonomy and a belief that accountability should be to peers not managers.’

‘I don’t see a lot of that in my organisation. There tends to be a “them and us” split between managers and staff.’

‘We’ll come to that in a moment. The final elements of this bureau-professional settlement was a commitment to public service, with the needs and rights of students being paramount and a belief that the quality of provision should be assessed on the basis of inputs not outputs.’

‘Can you give me an example of these shared values in action?’ I asked.

‘Well, I worked at a school in the 80s where the teachers went on strike. I can’t remember what the strike was about but I do remember the principal and his deputy taking out cups of tea to the pickets. Effectively they were saying “Because of our position we can’t join you. But we support your fight”. That wouldn’t happen today.’

‘So there was a feeling that everyone shared the same values and were all working towards a single goal. What happened to change it?’

‘As with the idea of collegiality, bureau-professionalism was to some extent a fiction. A model that educationalists liked to think existed and certainly aspects of it did. But it was a model that many people disliked, including Margaret Thatcher, who became Prime Minister in 1979. Her ideology had its origins in the philosophies of “New Right” thinkers such as Milton Friedman. She was supported in her beliefs by her mentor Sir Keith Joseph and organisations like The Adam Smith Institute and the Centre for Policy Studies. Her argument was that from 1945 to 1979 education policy had been producerled, with the teachers’ unions, local education authorities and representatives of the Department for Education and Science forming what Ball called a “triangle of tension” that had excluded the concerns of consumers.’

‘I can see how she might have thought that the model was overly paternal. A sort of “We’re the experts, we know what’s best for you”.’

‘Exactly. Mrs Thatcher sought to change the situation by giving more power to the consumers and excluding the producer lobby from the policy-making process. She had been Education Secretary in the 1970s and Ball believes that she was fighting for traditional educational values against the various isms that had crept into education such as progressivism, comprehensivism, egalitarianism, multiculturalism, pluralism and relativism.’

‘So she decided to give greater prominence to the wishes of the consumer of education and hold the professionals to account?’

‘Yes. This approach was inspired by the theories of James Buchanan and the school of Public Choice Theory (PCT) which he helped found. PCT argued that the market should be used as an instrument of regulation and control within the public sector. There is a good article on this by Olssen and Peters explaining how PCT was developed and applied. It’s well worth reading.’

‘So it was this policy that has led to teaching staff becoming subject to the system of controls, inspections and accountability that we live with today?’

‘Basically, yes. Avis suggests that you can see just how all-pervasive the new approach has been by the extent to which the Labour Government in 1997 took on board the new educational settlement that developed between 1980 and 1997. He thinks that New Labour largely accepted the Conservatives’ interpretation of such issues as the relationship between education, competitiveness and globalisation and the use of managerialist techniques including external inspection, targeted funding and league tables to control the public services.’

Nat’s reflection

23 September

It’s interesting how we just accept the situation we find ourselves in and don’t question it. I’ve never really thought about the paradigm within which I operate as a teacher. I suppose I have just assumed that it has always been the way it is and it always will be. This is stupid really because along with death and taxes the one thing we can be certain of is change. The way schools are managed and led will change as different political parties come to power and emphasise different aspects of policy. Also, as society evolves, what are acceptable management practices will also change. After all, it’s not so long ago that it was quite acceptable to pay a woman less than a man for doing the same job.

I do try to be alert to the changes that are going on in education at both a local and national level because what is a new approach today will be next year’s must-implement initiative. But I should spend more time looking at what policy makers are talking about and t...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Introduction
• Acknowledgements
• Tutorial 1 Managerialism and control
• Tutorial 2 Organisational culture
• Tutorial 3 Management, leadership and power
• Tutorial 4 Trait and emotional intelligence theory
• Tutorial 5 Style, contingency and situational theory
• Tutorial 6 Leader member exchange (LMX) and transactional theory (TLX)
• Tutorial 7 Charismatic (CL) and transformational leadership (TL)
• Tutorial 8 Management gurus and the birth of distributed leadership
• Tutorial 9 Leading change and motivating followers
• Tutorial 10 Ethics and leadership
• Glossary of terms
• Bibliography
• Index