For most principals, particularly in public schools, a flexible environment is often considered a necessity in order to get the job done. In their study on the “shelf life” of school principals, Peter Earley and Dick Weindling found that job flexibility is an inseparable aspect of the principal position due to unforeseeable variables and shifting goals. They write that today’s school leaders must “manage major multiple initiatives which originate externally, while at the same time, attempt to integrate themselves and shape the culture of the school.” (76). Similarly, in a study on linking leadership to student learning, Kenneth Leithwood and Doris Jantzi found that leaders with high levels of belief in how malleable their working environments are, have much effect in mandating higher learning standards within their schools (502).
Although SUIS does provide some degree of malleability in the school design, mandatory directives such as the “East Meets West” occupancy agreement and the goal of scalability means there must be limits to how much flexibility school leaders are permitted. This balancing act is not an unexplored issue but a dilemma faced by practically all for-profit institutions. Steven F. Wilson, former CEO of the now defunct Advantage schools writes about seeking out potential school leaders.
One set of requirements argues for hiring “self-starters” – enterprising leaders who are confident in their judgment and accustomed to exercising it. […] Principals must function like entrepreneurs, rapidly hiring dozens of staff members, […] appeasing impatient parents, and generally lurching from one crisis to the next. The other set of requirements calls for loyal, diligent managers who take pride in the care with which they implement the company’s school design and protocols. The first type of candidate might bristle at being told what to do or how to do it; the second might flounder in an unstructured environment where each day brings new problems for which there are no ready solutions. (241)
Like many privately run schools, the obvious consequences of working under a design that is both rigid and flexible is that it requires school leaders to balance characteristics that often run against one another, making scalability even less plausible. In order to maintain a systematized method of school leadership, SUIS must draw a line in the sand somewhere.
The principal’s job description demonstrates an attempt to convert these inherent contradictions into something more coherent. By listing several tasks and requirements but providing no details about how to accomplish them (something that would be difficult and inefficient for SUIS to do), job flexibility is neutralized by an ample amount of job description. In other words the school relies on the leader to carry out tasks using one's own resourcefulness but it specifies exactly what it wants achieved leaving little room for deviation. How well this strategy works is an entirely different issue, but at the very least it illuminates part of the answer to the question I am asking which (in case you forgot) is what kind of leader do SUIS schools need to ensure success?
SUIS needs leaders who are cleverly resourceful and yet respect and believe enough in the validity of the school design to want to follow it as outlined, a characteristic no more easier to find than anything originally hypothesized. But pessimism aside, such a quality is realistic and SUIS could implement procedures that would better seek out these types of leaders. For instance, the pressure is now on for SUIS to sell a convincing and credible design that would attract this caliber of leader to the school – a topic that will be discussed in a later section.
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