Response to “Change Makers, Thoughts on Transformational Servant Leadership and Strategic Leadership”
I agree wholeheartedly with Sea Breeze’s response to, “What are the benefits of keeping servant leadership as a central focus in the use of the strategic leadership principles outlined in the principles of Strategic Leadership in the “Personal Learning and Leadership” Learning Activity, the tools outlined in the Hughes, Beatty and Dinwoodie text (pp. 52 – 103) and the various pre and week 1 reading materials in education?”
In my school, we are currently missing many of the strategic leadership principles as outlined by Hughes et al (2014). Although I don’t want it to seem as nothing is going well, I do believe there is a lot of room for improvement. Part of the problem in our school is that we have had 3 changes in leadership in the last 5 years. People have developed a resistance to change or try new things, making it difficult for the leader to implement new ideas.
“Strategic leaders need to help people navigate the change process, assisting in learning new skills and capabilities, working with others in different ways, and acknowledging and authentically managing emotions through that change.” (Hughes et al., 2014 P 53-54). Personally, I feel it is not only the responsibility of the leader to do this, but also the team of people. For instance, in our school, our new principal decided to bring in a guest speaker. Several members of the staff were annoyed, saw it as a waste of time and refused to participate, making it extremely awkward and uncomfortable for the speaker. What are your thoughts on this? How does a leader with new ideas implement them with a staff who is resistant to change and tired of hearing new ideas year after year?
I do appreciate your statement about working in an environment where we are surrounded by selflessness and acts of kindness. It would be a nice experience for all staff. The staff would be more excited to come to work and this would in turn improve the quality of education and attitudes of the students. Students may even develop a desire to show more kindness through their actions as well.
I believe that this is a long process. In my school, we have been through 3 administrators in the last 5 years, all of whom have not experienced success. One of the most difficult challenges is that the majority of the staff at our school have been working for several years. Many of them exhibit a laissez-faire attitude. They openly express that they don’t really care, think the changes are a waste of time and they are just working for their last few years until retirement.
In terms of implementing a TSL model in a non-Christian environment, I agree that it would pose many challenges for staff members and leaders. I would compare it to a situation that is currently happening in my school. The school needed a French immersion kindergarten teacher. We were unable to fill the position. For the time being, they have place a teacher who speaks no French in the classroom. As you can imagine, it is difficult for someone to teach in a language that they themselves do not speak. This is a similar situation. Although I don’t have the answer to this problem, I do believe that TSL would still be beneficial in teaching values, instilling virtuous behaviours and teaching students to be good citizens in the future. In the TWU Monograph (2018), characteristics of TSL are outlined. Characteristics of TSL include listening, empathy, healing, awareness, persuasion, conceptualization, foresight, stewardship, commitment to growth of the people, and building of community. (Imbenzi et al., 2013, p. 11-13) In my opinion, all of these would be beneficial in any setting, Christian or not.
References
Atha, D. L. (Ed.), Castellon, A., George, I., Laird, P., Mitchell, K., Page, D., Peregrym, D., Strong, H., Willaume, D., Wollf, R., Wu, T. (2018) MA leadership and MA in educational leadership monograph 2018. Unpublished manuscript. Trinity Western University: Langley BC.
Hughes, R. L., Beatty, K. C., & Dinwoodie, D. L. (2014). Becoming a strategic leader your role
Imbenzi, G., Williaume, D. & Page, D. (2013). Transformational servant leadership. Unpublished manuscript, Master of Arts in Leadership. Trinity Western University: Langley, Canada.