Leadership

A Relevant and Realistic Role for Principals

Lloyd E. Mc Cleary, Gary M. Crow, L. Joseph Matthews

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• Print ISBN:
  9781883001247
• eBook ISBN:
  9781317921196
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

With case studies on such topics as implementing a technology program and modifying a schedule, this book shows why principals must play a leadership role.

1

PRINCIPAL LEADERSHIP: EVERYTHING OR NOTHING

Writings and discussions about principals as leaders tend to identify two extremes. On one extreme, principals are encouraged to be charismatic leaders and sole agents for improving the school’s instructional program. This instructional leadership role often assumes a larger than life “lone ranger” or “pied piper” quality. Principals as leaders are expected to construct a vision for the school and inspire others to accept and implement it; they envision and create, singlehandedly, a more effective school.

At the other extreme, principals are admonished to take a less creative approach to leadership, one in which they become facilitators of others’ leadership. In this role, principals are expected to be conveners or parliamentarians, bringing teachers, parents, and the community together to decide the vision of the school; they are to be fundraisers, providing resources that enable teachers and other groups to create a more effective school. Although these responsibilities are surely valuable to the school, many principals question whether they involve a significant leadership role.

Neither of these extremes alone—everything or nothing—constitutes a realistic or relevant leadership role for principals. Realistically, leadership in schools cannot be limited to the action of a single individual. For schools to change in substantive ways, leadership must include more than one person and frequently be exercised by those without formal administrative titles. Relevantly, principals can and should inspire others to follow their lead in making schools effective environments for students and adults.

This book is about the leadership of principals. Its purpose is to provide a perspective for defining the principal’s leadership role that is both realistic and relevant and to apply that perspective to three areas of school leadership: culture, vision, and change.

This first chapter lays the groundwork for a discussion of this perspective of the principal’s leadership role. We begin by asking why leadership is important for principals and then move to a discussion of how principals know about leadership. These two topics will inform the reader of some of the authors’ assumptions about leadership that form the basis for the framework that follows in Chapter 2.

WHY IS LEADERSHIP IMPORTANT FOR PRINCIPALS?

Some readers will find it strange to ask this question, since they may argue that leadership has been an important topic for principals for decades. However, the origin of the principalship and its practice until recently have not always emphasized a leadership role for principals. The earliest reason for principals had little to do with leadership and more to do with unlocking the doors and managing the daily routines. Indeed the managerial function of the principalship rather than any leadership qualities has received most of the attention (Beck and Murphy, 1993). Principals were assumed to be more like business executives, using good management and social science research to run schools effectively and efficiently.

In the early 1980s, with the effective schools movement, principals moved to an “instructional leadership” role. Instead of simply managing the operation of the school, principals were expected to inspire and influence students, teachers, and occasionally parents and community members to focus on the instructional environment.

The topic of leadership has grown in importance for contemporary principals and prospective principals because of three sources of leadership: external sources; internal sources; and the principal’s own leadership.

LEADERSHIP FROM EXTERNAL SOURCES

New principals quickly discover that school leadership is practiced by individuals and groups outside the school. The principal does not have a monopoly on the practice of leadership.

Other administrators in the school system, in particular board members, the superintendent, and other district officials, exercise leadership by influencing district agendas; recruiting, selecting, and evaluating principals; attending to and rewarding particular administrative behaviors; and focusing community involvement. Schools are nested in districts and therefore are both nurtured and constrained by them. Although site based management in some cases has increased the autonomy of principals and teachers, it has hardly replaced district administrators’ leadership and authority.

Government agencies can also provide leadership. For example, state governments have taken a stronger leadership role in education in the past decade (Odden, 1995). Governors, state legislators, and state educational officials exert leadership by focusing public attention on particular features of school effectiveness, by directing the use of public monies for specific instructional uses, and by intensifying the monitoring of school outcomes.

Parents and other community groups also exercise leadership that affects the practice of principal leadership. Parents influence curriculum options, choose schools and occasionally teachers, and provide scarce resources. Other community groups also exercise leadership in schools. Political interest groups, e.g., taxpayer associations and religious organizations, exercise leadership by influencing public opinion to limit public monies to schools, and by staging protests over instructional strategies and curriculum approaches.

Principals work within a context in which leadership is exercised by various external sources. These external leadership sources make it clear that principals are not the sole leaders of schools. However, principals need to recognize leadership coming from these sources and attempt to influence them for the benefit of their schools.

LEADERSHIP FROM INTERNAL SOURCES

Besides the external sources of leadership in schools, teachers, counselors, and students can and should provide leadership. Recent reforms, such as site-based management and restructuring, emphasize stronger leadership roles for these individuals inside the school. These reforms emphasize what has been the case for some time—teachers, counselors, students and others exercise leadership outside of formal role designations. Because of their proximity to students and their potential, if not actual, expertise in curriculum and instruction, teachers are in the most obvious and most effective place to exercise instructional leadership.

Students also play a leadership role in schools. One has only to compare the numbers of students versus staff to understand this group’s potential for leadership. Student leadership’s potential for good or bad is tremendous and frequently overlooked. The norms and values of leaders within the student body influence the academic and personal behavior of other students.

A realistic leadership role for principals acknowledges the leadership provided by teachers, students, and others. Otherwise, principal leadership in key areas such as culture, vision, and change is unlikely to be effective. The leadership role of principals includes the development of the leadership potential of teachers and students. School leadership is a more potent source for improvement if the leadership of others is developed and used.

PRINCIPAL LEADERSHIP

The topic of leadership is also important because principals need to understand their own leadership practice and development. Knowing how to influence individuals’ actions and how to develop others’ leadership potential is a significant endeavor. For example, recognizing the limits of formal position as a leadership source is important for principals. As with the junior high administrator discussed in the following illustration, principals can develop the reflective skills to recognize and assess the ways that their experience, intentions, values, and formal training influence their practices (Hart and Bredeson, 1996). They can then identify the leadership that can actually attack a problem or condition. Such reflection increases their potential for effective leadership.

With the help of this book and simple observations and discussions, current and prospective principals can consider their leadership role in realistic and relevant ways—to reflect on what influences and constrains their own leadership and in what ways they can exercise leadership in contemporary schools. Each chapter will conclude with a vignette comparing the leadership reflections of two principals. As we describe a perspective for principal leadership and apply it to three areas of leadership practice, we will use the vignette to ground our discussion and present questions and activities for reflection.

ILLUSTRATION

One principal’s first attempt to correct a tardiness problem was to strengthen a policy that she perceived as weak. Mary Cannella, principal of Cloud Crest Middle School, set up a new tardiness policy and with her assistant spent considerable time in the halls trying to enforce it. At first it seemed to help, but Mary found it exhausting and time consuming to be constantly enforcing the tardy rule. The enforcement of the rule fell on the assistant principal and soon tardiness was back to where it was before the new policy.

After considerable reflection, Mary realized that if the leadership for this policy was confined to her, it would never be effective. Without the support and ownership of the teachers, two administrators walking the halls to enforce a tardy rule was not going to work. She began with discussions with student leaders, teacher leaders, and ancillary personnel such as custodians. In this collaborative strategy, larger problems such as student motivation and instructional practices emerged.

HOW DO WE KNOW ABOUT LEADERSHIP?

If leadership is important for school principals, how do they learn about it? In this section, we identify two major sources of knowledge about leadership: its practice and its literature. Both sources are basic to the framework used in the remainder of this book.

LEADERSHIP IN PRACTICE

Principals do not construct their conceptions of leadership in a vacuum. The general society, other principals, the organizations in which they work, and their own experiences influence the ways school administrators understand leadership and develop their own leadership roles.

SOCIETY

How principals imagine what leadership consists of and what leaders are supposed to do is affected by the images they see around them. These images are especially influential in the case of political and military leaders. General Schwarzhopf, who gains media attention by being thrown into the spotlight during a military operation, affects the conception that individual citizens have of how leaders act, how their followers act, and how they influence individuals to accomplish goals. We are impressed with leaders who are larger than life, and we consciously or unconsciously try to imitate the characteristics they exemplify and, in a sense, model for us.

Besides political and military heroes, society influences conceptions of leadership through ideas and images arising in other occupations. For example, business management has been a dominant source of influence on images of educational leadership. Callahan (1962) chronicles the ways in which scientific management had a significant impact on the conduct of educational administrators through business heroes such as Andrew Carnegie, J.P. Morgan, and John Rockefeller. Tyack and Hansot (1982) chart school administration history from the nineteenth century evangelical missionary to the twentieth century scientific manager. It is easy to see parallels between leadership images conceived by business management and those emphasized by preparation and training programs in educational administration, e.g., chief executive officer or facilitator of shared decision making. Not long after business executives became infatuated with Japanese styles of group decision making and work structures, school principals were encouraged to use management teams, focus groups, quality circles, and to become facilitators of shared decision making.

OTHER PRINCIPALS

The general society is only one source for understanding leadership. Principals enter the position with countless hours of observation of other principals. Lortie (1975) estimates that by the time an individual becomes a teacher she has spent 13,000 hours of observation of other teachers—primarily as a student. Although students observe principals far less than teachers, they leave high school with contact with school administrators that exceeds their contact with those in most other professions. With the addition of the time as a teacher, new principals begin their careers as administrators with a significant number and variety of leadership role images. It is certainly a much longer exposure period, although shorter training time than exists for most professions, including law and medicine. Thus, it is not surprising that Greenfield (1977) found that veteran principals were the most significant influence on the socialization of new principals. It is also not surprising to find that this heavy dose of influence by veterans tends to filter out conceptions of leadership considered outrageous or radical by most principals. Preparation programs also contribute to leadership images but far less than this experience with other principals. Recent changes in administrator preparation programs in which clinical components, such as internships, are emphasized may increase the influence of ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Foreword
• About the Authors
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• 1. Principal Leadership: Everything or Nothing
• 2. A Framework for Principal Leadership
• 3. Leadership and School Culture: Creating, Maintaining, and Changing
• 4. Influencing a Collective Vision
• 5. Leadership for School Improvement: Influencing an Environment for Change
• 6. A Leadership Role for Principals: Realistic and Relevant
• References