Response to Marcelo: MSSL ET1 – “El Equipo Directivo”

Thank you for taking the lead this week. Your post is excellent!

I appreciate you sharing your personal experience with your team. Hughes, Beatty and Dinwoodie (2014) tell us, “the experience and strategic expertise at the SLT level is essential for modeling the leadership mind-set and behaviors that we expect from people throughout the organization” (Hughes, Beatty & Dinwoodie, 2014, p. 212). In some cases, the experience and expertise is not possible because the people in the positions are inexperienced or the team as a whole does not have a variety of skill sets. In my school in northern Alberta, we often only have one applicant for a position. In the cities, they may be able to choose from a wider variety of applicants. Sometimes, a team has to work effectively without having the experience and expertise. Although this may pose challenges at times and cause conflict at times, it can also be a really excellent learning experience for all on the team by forcing them to learn new skills and deal more effectively with conflict-management. A crucial part of the team working together, no matter the experience and skill set is having a shared vision, and having clarity of that vision (Hughes, Beatty & Dinwoodie, 2014).

I find your comments about Paraguayan culture to be quite interesting and also very similar to the attitudes seen in education.

The enemy is out there – as stated earlier, we often look for scapegoats to take the blame and blame shift our responsibility to find others responsible for our failings and conversely for our success. Blame works both ways. Similarly, when we look for an enemy we can find one, but blaming them for outcomes limits our locus of control to things beyond our control affecting our organizational success. We may see challenges on the horizon, but the challenges are not the enemy. We are our own worst enemies and that enemy is usually from within. (Senge, p. 20, as cited in Atha, 2018).

I have only been a teacher for 5 years and I have often noticed this feeling of “the enemy is out there” (Atha, 2018). Many teachers feel frustrated with the lack of support from ‘out there.’ People complain about the lack of support in terms of funding from the government, budget allocations from our head office, unfair requests from the Alberta Teachers Association, and the list goes on. One specific example in my division is that people complain about the lack of EA’s (educational assistants) in the classroom. People feel that the ratio of high needs students to adults is unfair. In our most recent staff meeting, our principal informed us that our school actually has the highest number of adults per high needs students across the division. So our school doesn’t have much to complain about in this aspect. People often have a hard time embracing reality and being happy with the circumstances they have been given. Another example is in regards to classroom budgets. Some teachers complain that we do not have enough money to spend on our classrooms. Although it would be nice to have an endless amount of money to spend on the latest and greatest teaching schools, it is not possible to have it all and people don’t realize that.

I can relate to your experiences with formal groups as well. Currently in my school, we are having difficulties around this. The formal groups repeatedly consist of the same staff members. This poses a threat as these teachers are feeling like they are carrying the weight of the extra-curricular activity planning and as a result are feeling over worked and burnt out. It is not a requirement that people volunteer to be a part of these formal groups however, if people don’t volunteer, then the special events don’t happen. This is damaging to the quality of the school. I am curious to know your thoughts on this. Have you experienced a difficulty in getting people to participate in groups if the positions are voluntary? Did people agree with creating a group for the science fair? If not, how can we encourage more participation in voluntary groups?

References

Atha, D. (2018). Systems Thinking. Course Learning Notes. Retrieved from https://create.twu.ca/ldrs501/unit-3-learning-activities/

Galbraith, J. R. (2014) Designing Organizations: strategy, structure, and process at the business unit and enterprise levels. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Hughes, R., Beatty, K. & Dinwoodie, D. (2014). Becoming a strategic leader : your role in your organization’s enduring success. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Ulrich, D., & Smallwood, N. (2013). Leadership sustainability: Seven disciplines to achieve the changes great leaders know they must make. USA: McGraw Hill Education.

Zeeman, A. (2017). Senge’s Five Disciplines of Learning Organizations. Retrieved from ToolsHero: https://www.toolshero.com/management/five-disciplines-learning-organizations/