Original post found here:
https//create.twu.ca/stellapetersldrs501/2018/11/22/stellas-strategic-competencies-blog-8-1/
Thank you for continuing to provide insights into the educational world, Stella, which reveals the intricate nature of relational decisions in every day functioning. As I read through your post a few times, I wondered how an administrator achieves balance between the need for strategic decisions for growth and the need to build up staff members who are the conduits for delivering the program requirements.
Your own growth as an administrator is evident through your readiness to immediately implement aspects of strategic leadership studied each week! As teachers, we know the best way to incorporate innovative practices is to immediately use one new strategy the next class day. If we lay it aside, we will most likely carry on in our current practice. The steps addicts go through to change their entrenched habits (Lepsinger, 2010, pp. 141-145) is akin to educators reinventing their teaching practices. Changing pedagogical perspectives is asking people to change themselves—thoughts, communications with parents, contributions to staff initiatives, personal practice—to align more closely with their reorganized MVV focus. What scaffolding rubric do you provide for your staff to see concrete alignment with new goals in their own practice as well as in departmental changes?
Growth is exciting and painful at times. You talk about the 50%growth in your school these past two years and how it is exciting yet tiring for everyone (Peters, 2018, para.1). Do you have a goal for your growth? What measures do you have in place to determine when your increase has matched your capacity for delivery of quality education? Some schools in which I worked, the administration continued to accept registrations beyond the capacity for the school’s physical functioning according to the District Building Plan; the school has doubled its enrollment due to population drift and new housing developments. There are still only the few washrooms there were when half as many students needed to use them. There are high needs in our school and we no longer have meeting rooms for itinerant counselors, the Child and Youth Care Worker, the Speech and Language consultants, the Health Nurse who comes to assess our students with Health categories, the OT/PTs, or quiet spaces for highly anxious or sever behaviour meltdowns. We’re hopping!! While growth in numbers might look good in a numerical, how do we now deliver quality education? As you mentioned, “we must be strategic in how we use our resources, space, an how to refine our programs” (Peters, 2018, para. 1). When is enough, enough?
Your astute observation regarding acting systemically in your workplace, Stella (Peters, 2018, para. 2). Without knowing the backstory of an organization, it is easy to dismiss the hard work that has gone on before by long-serving staff members. This can create resistance even when strategic planning is sound and necessary. The pre-existing conditions can skew the results of progressive thinking, even in seemingly simple decisions. Listening is a necessary TSL skill to learn more about the people affected by decisions. “Transformational leadership can help followers and colleagues smooth the tensions of disengagement, disidentification with the old situation, disenchantment with the new arrangements, and disorientation without anchors to the past or the future” (Bass & Riggio, 2006, p. 71). What is an appropriate timeline for observation and consultation for a new administrator before instituting changes? How do you develop measures by which you determine when to move past the resistance to the new goal or consider the resistance a sign that the decision may not be pertinent in the moment?
Being in a position of leadership, Stella, you can provide actionable intelligence for how strategic leaders operate in education systems which are cumbersome to navigate. I appreciate your openness and detailed insights into the day-to-day realities of requiring change from yourself as well as your followers. God bless your efforts to serve as a faithful leader!
References
Bass, B. & Riggio, R. (2006). Transformational leadership. New York, NY: Psychology Press.
Lepsinger, R. (2010). Closing the execution gap: How great leaders and their companies get results. San Francisco, CA: John Wiley & Sons.
Peters, S. (November 22, 2018). Stella’s strategic competencies || Blog 8.1. [Blog post] Retrieved from
https//create.twu.ca/stellapetersldrs501/2018/11/22/stellas-strategic-competencies-blog-8-1/