Reshaping School Leadership

Reshaping School Leadership

Leadership for the 21st century: Breaking the Bonds of Dependency
By: Michael Fullan

Reflection by George Atento

Two factors were identified in the article as contributing to dependency: overload and vulnerability. Although we cannot make a good comparison right now of how overload is to be classified as such, we may say that most school leaders, particularly principals here in the Philippines, are experiencing overload. For example, in public schools, they are also taking care of the canteen, and the beautification of the school. Some principals even handle financial management, student discipline, marketing, and still others. Most of them operate on little or no budget at all.

Indeed, as a newly hired principal of a basic education school, this particular article is very timely for me. As expected, I started out strong, since there was a change in responsibility for me. Idealism is written all over me. Reform the school! That was my mission. But I did not realize that “change” is something hard, almost revolutionary. Hence, in our discussion in class, I was prompted to react against too much emphasis on change. I felt the philosophical debate starting all over again: Parmenides on one end, holding Being to be true; Heraclitus on another, giving that lofty position to Change, or Becoming. I felt that I was again in the midst of the ancient question of motion and becoming, and was almost tempted to quote Aristotle’s “potency and act”, but I held my ground.

My experiences with my present school prompted me to be careful to “change”. The quotation from Evans made me laugh in utter recognizance: A leader needs to “innovate, but cannot spend much money, replace any personnel, or upset any constituency”. (Evans, 1995). Indeed, there are so many given, so many “Untouchables” that you wonder in the first place how it’s going to be done. While it is easy to create a utopian goal, you have to face diverse personalities, cultures, norms, beliefs and personal attitudes. And these are fixated by the gods of Olympus, mind you.

Fullan, in his book, What’s Worth Fighting Out There proposed four guidelines in 1998 regarding School Leadership:


RESPECT THOSE YOU WANT TO SILENCE

There is only one thing certain in leadership: resistance. In my case, it is quite strong. Here am I, a 34-year-old former banker, who has only four years of teaching behind and a huge flame in my heart that no one can see yet. And I am trying to tell teachers almost twice older than I am, with five times teaching-experience than I have that we can increase our enrolment four-fold and increase their salaries twice in the process. It was too much for them. Someone said that I was teaching them faster than they can learn.

There is resistance, and it must be silenced. And the key word is respect. What Maurer proposed is quite clear. You cannot start with the assumption that everything they say is wrong. If indeed, they are mistaken, there is still something true in what they say. If you must arrive at the truth, says St. Thomas Aquinas, you have to listen to all views: “If you must arrive at the truth, listen to even to the dull and ignorant, for they too have something to say”. Since we are new to the place, as we often are, or because we are busy looking at the finish line, we sometimes fail to see things that are evident to them: a small rock on the road perhaps. In a way, we become like a Progressivist, taking into consideration what they hold dear, in order to influence them. Indeed, as St. Paul said, “To the Jew, I became a Jew; to the Greek, a Greek”. If we must influence, we must respect. For Piaget, Freud, Erikson and a host of psychologists: we must assess their needs and attitudes. Hence, for me, over and above the courage to effect change, is the humility to listen to those who will experience the change we are proposing.

MOVE TOWARDS THE DANGER IN FORMING NEW ALLIANCES

Here we are reminded of the need to form a good relationship with the community. In order for schools to increase, the leader must take up the clientele’s needs and aspirations. We cannot talk about technology and science-enriched curriculum in a setting centered on cottage industries or garment factories. We must consider the community where we belong, and this is part of the goals of the school leader.

In the PAASCU questionnaire, community holds an important part. In fact, according to Palma (Curriculum Development System), we must consider the expectations of the community and the clientele, before we can make a final list of the Instructional Objectives (p.161ff) of the school. Hence, curriculum engineering is even a by-product of the community among many other factors.

MANAGE EMOTIONALLY AS WELL AS RATIONALLY

In this section, Fullan proposed to use our heart as well as our mind in dealing with people. The result of my Management, Supervisory and Attitudes toward Employees, which is part of the entrance examinations with DLSU, is quite revealing. My management attitude is “High”, while my supervisory attitude is “Average”. In contrast, my attitude towards employees is “Low”, with a p-value of only 12. I think that upon reaching the position of being the principal, I knew I had to change from being so friendly to people, to being firm and uncompromising. Perhaps, I was exacting from my staff the same things I exact from myself. Perhaps also, I am afraid that these people will start to take me for granted once I show friendliness towards them. Hence, I started very strong. My adminstrator even remarked that some teachers feel that they have not done anything right since the start of the school, ten years ago. Perhaps, they view me as unrealistically idealistic. I was dumbfounded. Here I am, faced with 200 days of school year, my first time as a principal, already failing as a leader. After all the motivational and leadership books since high school, here I am becoming too hard in my leadership styles. I believe that in order to succeed in influencing people, we must take into consideration the feelings of people: “Not too tightly or it might break, not too loosely or it might slip away”. (Amanda Gardner) People indeed fail not in theory, but in practice.

Napoleon Bonaparte knew this. He said, “There are no bad soldiers, only bad officers”. The great emperor, though barely 5 feet in height, conquered half the world, through his big heart. It is said that he even goes to his soldiers’ ranks and engages them in lively talks about their families and loved ones at home. They know them and their feelings; hence, they are ready to die for him.

Hence, from the strong beginning, I am now taking things to a stride. Rome wasn’t made in a day, my mother always tells me. Fullan mentioned about reculturing, not restructuring. You must help them reshape their cultures and norms, in order to progress. They won’t change from outside. As a leader, I must only convince them the reasonableness and even the necessity of changing. This, they must do from within.


FIGHT FOR LOST CAUSES

Hope against all hopes. Several times along the way, we will go home despaired and utterly confused. We will be beating our hearts and asking “What the h*** am I doing here? I don’t belong here”. (Creep, Radiohead) We must be optimistic, since there will be fits of indecision and despair, even insanity. Without someone to hope against all hopes, the organization fails. My teachers told me the first day of meeting with them: “Sir, we know we’re not bad teachers. Only, we don’t have a leader to tell us where to go”. I guess someone needs to tell us where to go. Or simply, where this or that path leads. That we can choose our own. For me, all these spell being goal-oriented. If a leader believes enough in his goals, and he is ready to face hell and high waters so that his goals will be fulfilled, everything will happen, and there is nothing impossible for him, for a man of faith.

Hence, for me, a leader ought to show his constituents the goals that he (or the organization) formulated. He or she must explain to them the reasonableness, the necessity and practicality of these goals. Then, when everything is agreed upon, he or she must be ready to see to it that these goals are fulfilled in the proper way, and at the proper time, through his constituents’ talents, creativity and self-programmed choices and plan of action.

FINAL WORD

Overload and vulnerability? Are these defeatable?

I do believe that there is hope! We can actually do something for the benefit of education at large. If we believe we can, and persist smartly (cf. Prof. Habulan) and hardly, we will make a difference. Then, our lives will be meaningful lives.

Submitted by: RAMON GEORGE ATENTO