Understand that only rarely is a strong leader developed from a mediocre one
The first recommendation is not a specific action per se, but a willingness to accept a simple truth. Though it contravenes one of education’s most sacredly held beliefs about learning the simple truth is that a strong leader is not created by the company from scratch (if that were possible, the payoffs would be incalculable), but rather developed due to the inherent capabilities that allow him or her to benefit from the effects of training, support, and experience. In other words, a strong leader must be “found” before he or she can be trained.
According to many articles dealing with school leadership, the school leader position is characterized by such varied and unpredictable factors that no amount of training will ever satisfy everything. Leaders can be scalded for being either too attentive or too lacking in interest, too strict or too loose with rules, too empathetic or too critical with evaluations, and so on. And yet, some leaders can prevail under such dramatically turbulent environments because they possess the adaptability, proaction, and interpersonal intelligence to reconcile these snags.
Several articles in my literature review were authored by such caliber of leaders trying to offer useful advice to others in their position. Aside from one article which discussed implementing specific business strategies (Hallinger and Snidvongs), the others (Borba; Guskey; Lukaszewski; Marshall; and Sorenson) focused more on attitude adjustments and adopting new perspectives. While such advice would be effective on those who only require a small push in the right direction, it would be useless on those who are not capable leaders to begin with. Good leadership is almost always acknowledged as a mindset rather than a set of defined standards of good practice. The latter can be trained, the former cannot.
Another factor pointing to the realization that school leaders are not trained to be successful is the sheer weight of evidence provided by Steven F. Wilson. He documents several cases where large amounts of money and resources are invested into developing strong leaders with little success (239). The best leaders were always the ones who demonstrated promise during the early stages of their career before any major training even began (240).
The main point to take from all this is to spend a majority of time and resources on improving recruitment. More importantly however is that by accepting the fact that leaders are not as malleable as companies want them to be, training can become more focused and evaluations more accurate and effective. Remember again that we are talking about truly strong leaders – the types who can single-handedly make noticeable jumps in school performance. Such leaders do not just hatch from the shell of an ordinary individual and yet companies determined to develop excellent leadership continually waste significant resources because they are convinced by the fallacy that given enough training, things will eventually improve.
Establish a realistic leadership profile and stick to it
If asked to describe the ideal school leader, most people would do well to just read a list of positive character qualities: confident, authoritative, optimistic, passionate, can challenge oneself, self-aware, enterprising, supportive, loyal, outcome focused, can sustain changes, can build teams, can spread out tasks, committed, etc…
The first step to a successful recruitment is to know exactly what kind of leader is desired, which could involve little more than sketching out a list of requirements and traits. The difficulty however, is in setting the bar somewhere between requirements high enough to be met by the truly qualified but not so high that a leader is unattainable. Establishing a set of qualifications and requirements that go beyond the conceivable is difficult to avoid when you consider the large variety of tasks leaders have to accomplish, but doing so not only inhibits a careful and conscious sense of decision making, it also means every candidate chosen is accepted as an amiss. Such profiles are inevitably characterized by paradoxical requirements that can only lead to settling for less.
Alternatively, a profile that is realistic and achievable, i.e. one that thoughtfully measures the advantages against the limitations of potential candidates can result in a clearer discernment for the general qualities that are aligned with the company’s priorities. Establishing such profiles will make screening easier and allow interviewers to focus on questions that can elicit better responses. However, it is absolutely essential that whatever profile the company decides on be compromised as little as possible when making a final decision. Selecting an unsuitable candidate will have immediate unfavorable effects on the school’s performance and reputation.
Sticking to the originally desired profile is also important during evaluations. The profile acts as a set of criteria in which performances are measured against. Wavering will only result in lowered standards.
Do not underestimate the value of instructional leadership
I mentioned above that a profile for an excellent leader is inevitably characterized by paradoxical requirements. One of the paradoxes discussed at length in this practicum is the choice between instructional leadership and business management because very rarely does a leader come with the skills and expertise in both. Because SUIS is founded and run mainly on business principles, it seems appropriate to want leaders who are administratively adept first. And yet over and over, every article on effective leadership lists academic instructional ability as the most critical skill to possess (including the Wilson book on business and schools). Not only is this trait absolutely necessary for monitoring and improving student achievement, but it is the main contributor to making strong and binding relationships with teachers.
If I had to make one criticism about how SUIS manages its school leaders, it would be this. The company seems to underestimate the importance of instructional leadership. The principal’s job description treats academic achievement as a task rather than a strategy; and it is not listed as a major obligation for the leader to interact directly with the school’s teachers. This view is further supported by the interview questions found in the AISH interview handbook which only broadly addresses instructional leadership rather than focus in on the finer details that would reflect the leader’s competence in raising students’ standards. Finally, the SUIS principal evaluation although involving teaching and learning to a large extent, does not devote enough effort to the dynamic relationships with teachers, which is what takes up a significant portion of the school leader’s job and is crucial to the success of academic programs.
SUIS is established by an organizational culture which thrives on instruction, data, and results. It needs leaders who possess not only experience as senior educators, but those willing to be consumed with "instructional quality and the data by which to manage it" (Wilson 350). Leaders must be fluent in instructional programs so that they could coherently cite test results in support of whether said programs were gaining traction and aid those teachers who require assistance. And while SUIS is correct to want to emphasize business and financial capabilities in their leaders, the school simply cannot succeed financially if its leaders’ instructional guidance is unable to keep academic results high.
Have a systematic procedure in place for keeping track of job satisfaction
SUIS’s mission-driven culture and mandatory “East meets West” occupancy agreement means that there are prescribed limits to the amount of flexibility the school leader is permitted in the work environment; and yet SUIS needs leaders who are resourceful and proactive enough to fill in blanks and multitask without supervision. Conflicts of interest are sure to arise when charismatic and outspoken leaders are required to meet challenging objectives while restrained to certain company policies. Special measures must be made to keep leaders strongly committed to their job without coming at the expense of the company’s design and protocols.
We already know that SUIS employs a separate department for administering and analyzing evaluations. School leaders are given their first evaluation after six months and then subsequent ones each year after. These evaluations thoroughly cover almost every aspect of the leader’s job, but rather than focus solely on level of performance, evaluations would do well to also gather data on assessing the leader’s level of job satisfaction. Job satisfaction is very likely related to job commitment, so it would be wise to track these attitudes early. By including it in a performance evaluation, SUIS will know whether a particular freedom or power has been rightfully earned.
The limited flexibility permitted by SUIS also means the head office will have to be readily available to offer support and issue new challenges to the school leader in order to preserve commitment. For instance, work exhaustion and frustration are feelings that seriously affect job satisfaction so evaluations should strive to detect them before they become problematic. In these cases, the company should apply support passively such as help in reprioritizing objectives and distributing tasks to other available staff so that school leaders still feel they are in control when the challenge is overcome. Leaders are more likely to commit if the head office offers support and shows understanding without applying too much direct control.
It feels highly audacious to make recommendations on an issue as complicated and formidable as school leadership to a company I only had e-mail contact with for the last seven months. Although the subject of this practicum surrounds the policies and actions made by Shanghai United International Schools, none of the research was conducted onsite at the company’s headquarters or any of its branches. Instead, inferences were drawn through what could be gathered from websites, company documents (accessed with permission), and lengthy e-mail correspondences with the director of the international stream.
Perhaps if given more time or another opportunity, this practicum would include interviews and surveys with some of SUIS’s senior educators and entrepreneurs in order to elicit the valuable insights that come from years of first-hand experience in hiring and working with school leaders. Until then I have only the assistance of a thoroughly conducted literature review to extend the depth of my arguments. Part of the advantages in conducting a literature review is that valid insights can be deduced by the reoccurrence of similar ideas made by several different authors. When these ideas do not correspond to the raw data provided by SUIS, it makes them worth looking into. The main intent of this practicum has from the beginning been little more than to extend some possibly overlooked ideas about increasing exceptional leadership to the SUIS head office.
When I began this practicum in September 2009, I was fully aware of the difficult and expensive conundrum that school leadership created for education companies. I knew that successful school leadership is an issue far too complicated for the pages of this practicum and there is more ground to be covered in areas such as psychology, and business theory. This understanding motivated me to avoid ideas that were too hypothetical and explore ones more grounded in reality. Overall, I feel I have delivered a project that honestly explores a complicated and sometimes controversial subject. School leadership will always be an important area of education theory and practice. This practicum has given me the opportunity to develop a firm foundation on it.
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