leaders know the value of learning to look in two directions at the same time.
The era of standardized testing that the No Child Left Behind Act (2002) ushered in is an example of looking in just one direction—of implementing a solution in a system and seeing a dozen other problems pop up as unintended consequences. The Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development (ASCD) worked to call attention to this one-way thinking by launching its Whole Child Initiative in 2007, stating, “Each child, in each school, in each of our communities deserves to be healthy, safe, engaged, supported, and challenged. That’s what a whole-child approach to learning, teaching, and community engagement really is” (ASCD, 2014, p. 9).
But leading a whole-child school, one that truly embraces meeting these varied needs, means you’re constantly making trade-offs, doesn’t it? Time for academics or time for recess and responsive classrooms and antibullying initiatives and extra tutoring and … the list goes on. Add in the efficiencies of top-down leadership versus the richness of shared leadership, the need for teachers to do the work and prepare to do the work, the role of the school and the role of families and communities … the lists of these interdependencies go on and on, too, don’t they?
Again, you’re leading a complex system in a VUCA world.
About This Book
If you’re looking for a practical guide to school leadership, this is it. But you may not recognize it as such right away because it doesn’t have a definitive list of what you need to do to succeed. Why not? Because lists are linear, and you aren’t leading a linear organization.
Instead of a list of characteristics or responsibilities or essential tasks—although I mention many of these in this book—I’m offering tools for identifying where you should focus given who you are, who you are leading, and what you are trying to accomplish, all within a framework that helps you see when competing priorities are at play. It’s a framework that will help you set aside the human tendency to think in terms of either–or and instead embrace the necessity of both–and thinking in which you can recognize the tension between two competing, yet interdependent, priorities and understand how to benefit from the valuable contributions of both.
This book is designed around twelve such interdependencies, or as I call them, the Twelve Lenses of Leadership, to help you identify when you’re at risk of engaging in either–or thinking instead of both–and thinking. The following are the lenses you will learn about.
1. Leadership and listening
2. Breadth and depth
3. Community and individual
4. Reality and vision
5. Continuity and change
6. Short term and long term
7. Logic and values
8. Outcomes and people
9. Power to and power with
10. Clarity and flexibility
11. Predictability and possibility
12. Goal orientation and engagement
Each of these lenses comes from research on effective leaders (Coyle, 2018; Kouzes & Pozner, 2010), but recognize that choosing one lens to focus on still requires you to be savvy about how it intertwines with other lenses. Priorities inherent in each lens are interdependent with things that might not even seem important in the moment but will come to be so.
With this book, I will help you to recognize how to engage both–and thinking to accomplish the following.
♦ Improve your ability to create an environment where collaborative teacher efficacy exists in an atmosphere of trust—the number-one predictor of student achievement (DeWitt, 2017).
♦ Hone your skills at inspiring and empowering others for the long haul of change.
♦ Ensure that you, the other adults in the building, and the students, are energized, efficient, empowered, and engaged for the tough, tough work of becoming thinking, creative contributors.
Go back to my question of, “Were you ever a child?” Think for a moment about the kind of school you would like to attend if you were seven, or eleven, or sixteen years old again. What would keep you engaged, foster your curiosity, encourage you to persevere, help you learn to ask good questions, and trust that your efforts will bring about results? Are you seeing the answers to these questions reflected in the schools around you?
A vision of such a school, supported by research on what truly works, should be the most motivating force for a school leader. Leadership expert Margaret Wheatley (2017) states:
What are the values, intentions, principles for behavior that describe who we want to be? Once established, are these common knowledge, known by all? As we work together, do we refer to our identity to make decisions? How do we respond when something goes wrong? Do we each feel accountable for maintaining the integrity of this identity? … Only the leader is in the position to see the whole of the organization. No matter how willing people might be, everyone is overwhelmed and consumed with their own work. Sane leadership is developing the capacity to observe what’s going on in the whole system and then either reflect that back or bring people together to consider where we are now. (pp. 232–233)
Because a leader is the one person best positioned to see the whole of a learning community, I designed these pages to help you see that whole, even as you set goals for yourself and for other parts of it. To get the most out of Holistic Leadership, Thriving Schools, please don’t just read these pages. Instead, commit to the following process.
♦ Work on real goals for your development: Chapter 1 highlights the five essential components of effective leadership development and offers guidance for choosing the right kinds of goals and priorities using the Twelve Lenses of Leadership. It is the first step toward focusing your priorities.
♦ Learn to think in terms of both and and: Chapter 2 explains both–and thinking as it relates to the concept of polarities and how each of the leadership lenses in this book illustrates a basic interdependency between two seemingly competing poles.
♦ Develop your understanding of emotional intelligence: Chapter 3 explains the top-five truths about critical soft skills and then helps you to discover which of these are most important to you as they relate to the Twelve Lenses of Leadership.
♦ Understand the leadership lenses that are most critical to you: Chapters 4–15 each explain a specific leadership lens. Depending on the school you’re leading, your goals for the short term and long term, and your focus for leadership development, you will use specific chapters to build your understanding of the leadership lenses and develop your leadership abilities.
♦ Try the full Priority Focus™ process: Chapter 16 outlines a process, including reflection activities, for setting
