To Implement or not to Implement, that is the Question….

This week’s readings focus on competencies a strategic leader can implement to improve their practice. The following blog articulates some ways to inspire strategic leadership praxis in my organization.

Integrate leader and manager roles!
Lepsinger (2010) purports “It appears that organizations that are better at execution have leaders who can look to the future and prepare the business to adapt to changes in the environment as well as skillfully attend to the granular issues of implementation” (p. 205). How will I implement this into my vice principal role? One thing I have started to do, as I read through the course literature, is note guiding questions about strategic thinking for the high school. I then add them to our team agendas (collaboration times as well as staff meetings), one question per meeting, to help us to hear the hopes and dreams of our colleagues for our school as well as focus on specific criteria we need to address to move forward. We have grown by 50% in two years, having almost reached our capacity in terms of the number of classrooms. We must be strategic in how we use our resources, space, and how to refine our programs. It’s an exciting time but we are also tired because the growth has us all working harder than ever. Staff members are in new positions this year as we expand programs. Our small hallway is bursting with teenagers. These factors equate to more interpersonal issues, parent communication, and teacher needs. As the leader, I must both attend to the increased needs but also cast vision forward to refine our program to sustain growth as well as our sanities!

Act Systemically!
Hughes, Colarelli-Beatty, and Dinwoodie (2014) encourage leaders to ask “To what extent do I understand the political nature of the organization and work appropriately within it?” This is a competency I need to develop as I learn to lead in my school. As a new administrator, there are dynamics I am not aware of. There is a history behind decisions that pre-date my employment at the school. I ‘step on people’s toes’ because I do not understand the political nature, and while I have been given grace because I am new, I must delve deeper when collaborative and strategic discussions are being had. To do this, I need to ask questions and enter conversations humbly. James 1:19 encourages us to be quick to listen and slow to speak.

Business Perspective
Hughes et al., (2014) encourage leaders to “understand the perspective of different areas in the business and have a firm grip of external conditions affecting the organization” (p. 268). This is not a competency which I feel is at the top of my list to implement at the moment. As the vice-principal, I am not intimately aware of financial decisions in the organization. My role is internally facing with running programs, and external facing with dealing with parents. The budgetary areas are not in my portfolio of responsibilities. I am aware there are budgets and financial considerations but my role is to present a rationale for spending, not to determine how much or approve spending.

Read and do (or throw out)!

The three most important principles come from the first chapter of the first book I read in this course. It is aptly named “What is Strategic Leadership?” (Hughes et al., 2014, p. vii). This chapter set the tone for the entire course for me, and possibly because I was just starting a new administrative position in my organization, I was already pondering the question “What should I be doing around here?” as I read the text. During most of the interactions with the strategic leadership team (SLT) in my school year thus far, I have come back to these three principles:

Strategy is a learning process
“Conceiving of strategy as a learning process requires a specific mind-set … that views successful strategy as operating in an ongoing state of formulation, implementation, reassessment, and revision ( Hughes et al., 2014, p. 23). The SLT in my organization, as noted in Blog 3.1, has new members and is thus learning to work together. With a new Lead Principal establishing direction and finding his own style of leadership, there is a hunger on the SLT to assess the current organizational practices. Questions we are asking are:  What works? What isn’t working? What are the patterns? What past decisions created the situation to occur? What do we want to see by this time next year? Five years from now? What do we need to do now to get where we want to be in the future?

Mission, vision, and values are drivers of strategy
“Organizational mission, vision, and values are important aspirational components that create meaning and purpose… they create a lens through which internal and external conditions are understood and evaluated” (Hughes et al., 2014, p. 25). This principle has guided many conversations in the past three months since I started the new administrator role. What is our organizational identity? What do we stand for? What is our reputation in the community? How do the adults in the organization create the learning environment that is transformational in the way we express our MVV? How does practice “A” match our MVV, and is there a better way? Does our MVV really negate practice “B”?

Identifying and prioritizing drivers
This competency was probably the most confusing to me but has also had the biggest impact. Hughes et al. (2014) describe drivers as:

• the things that determine sustainable, competitive advantage; they allow differentiation from competition
• the potential areas of investment that will have a significant impact on an organization
• levels to pull; areas they will excel
• the things an organization must choose, which can be challenging and cause conflict
• the things that clarify what will and will not be done by an organization
• the things that help to prevent overload of employees and personal agendas
• the things leaders must be continuously in the discovery of them
• unifying concepts that foster clear direction and alignment

I have learned in this course that I am a naturally strategic thinker. In my new role, I have spent the past few months watching, listening, and asking questions. I am looking for patterns, motivations, and hindrances. I also observe myself: what distracts me? What frustrates me? What do I wish I could change? What gives me joy in this position?

Just last week, I approached my principal with the question, “Now that we have increased our enrollment in the high school by 50%, what’s next? How do we sustain this? How do we deal with the constraints of too little space, stressed out teachers, and limited technology resources? What is our strategic plan… because the status quo in the high school will not work?”

Thus, the conversation of drivers is coming. As we are challenged to define our organizational drivers, it will impact the decisions we make for the future. I’m excited because it will help to relieve the “irritant” I feel right now, knowing things that cannot stay the same. I also wonder if I might lose some of my current staff because we may not make choices everyone wants to see as the high school goes forward. I am thankful to have a voice in this leadership opportunity, though!

The three least important principles from the course resources were from Galbraith (2014).  While the book was full of models, figures, and tables, I did not ever feel like it applied to my organizational context. For example, Figure 1.1 (p. 9) illustrates “Types of Interdependence.” While I understand the concept of organizational units affecting one another, the figure is completely greek to me. How would this apply to an educational context?  The author promotes the “Star Model” (p. 15) and describes it as a “holistic way of thinking about an organization as consisting of a structure, information decision processes, reward systems, and people” and that “different strategies lead to the different structures for implementing them” (p. 17). This principle that factors are controlled by leadership and you start with one part which will affect another is too obvious for me that I wonder if I’m missing something. Sorry, but not inspirational in the least.  Lastly, the principle of “Integrating Roles” (p. 99), where “disagreement and the inability to resolve it effectively can slow the company responses and turn the focus inward rather than on customer” is banal and tacit to me. As you will read in the next section, I feel like I’m missing something in this textbook.

As you have probably guessed, the least effective course text material, in my opinion, is Galbraith (2014).  However, you might be surprised Urgerer et al., (2014) to be a close second!

I found Galbraith (2014) boring because it was too technically focused on business aspects as opposed to being able to glean ideas for education settings. Most schools are structured similarly, so there are not a lot of opportunities to change the organizational structure as explored by Galbraith. There are many models and processes, but it all went over my head because it was not applicable to my work or my personal life. I wonder if the business stream cohort found this text helpful?

Ungerer et al., (2014) was a good source of information, when I could actually read it! I found the online aspect of it hampering because I do not scroll well (I get vertigo), and I like to be able to write all over my books. Yes, I could print some of it, but then I became confused about what I didn’t print, and how many pages I had left to print. Cutting and pasting was slow. In general, I struggled with this online text and often put it off to the last to read. If it were in print, I would have been very pleased with it. Due to the dis-functionality of it, it was one of the least effective text materials in this course for me 🙁

Healthcare & Education cohort, I want to thank you for the commitment to excellence you all have shown as we grappled with the concepts of this class. I learned a lot from you all! Blessings as you pursue your course work.

Stella

References:                                                                                                       

Galbraith, J. (2014). Designing organizations.  San Fransisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Hughes R., Colarelli-Beatty K. & Dinwoodie, D. (2014). Becoming a strategic leader. San  Francisco: Jossey-Bass Second Edition.

Lepsinger, R. (2010). Closing the execution gap. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

The Holy Bible: New International Version. (2009). Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.

Ungerer, M., Ungerer, G, & Herholdt, J. (2016). Navigating strategic possibilities: Strategy formulation and execution practices to flourish. Randburg: KR Publishing.