Sharing the leadership:
Preparing ourselves for
distributed school leadership
Dr Philip SA Cummins
Dr Phil Cummins
Teaching and working in and with schools since 1988
Presenter, Thought Leader, Consultant, Author, Textbook Writer,
Syllabus Writer, PhD in Australian History
[email protected]
www.circle.org.au
Today’s Conversation
Distributed school leadership: “increasing the
capacity of all school leaders to make the crucial
decisions that allow them to facilitate better
outcomes for more learners in more schools.”
Philip SA Cummins, Autonomous schools in Australia:
Not ‘if’ but ‘how’, CSE, February 2012
1. 
2. 
3. 
4. 
The context – it’s coming!
The rationale – why is it a good idea?
The framework – what does it mean for us?
The details – what does it mean for me?
Part 1: The context – it’s coming!
Increasing capability
to make the crucial decisions
to facilitate better outcomes
for more learners in more schools
Are we ready to do this?
To make human civilization work well [with 21C] technologies
and exist at peace with Gaia, we need another revolution,
putting into place the desirable management, laws, controls,
protocols, methodologies and means of governance. This is a
complex and absolutely necessary transition – the 21st
Century Revolution...
Whether the revolution happens smoothly depends on the
education that is put in place and how widely it is acted
upon.
- James Martin, The meaning of the 21st century, 2006
Are we up to date or out of touch?
The world of schooling is in turmoil: it faces an education
dilemma. It is caught in the middle between industrial era
expectations and knowledge world realities, challenges and
opportunities ...
Currently, the vast majority of schools in Australia are still
basing their assumptions on the world as it was 30-40
years ago – that is, while teachers themselves might be more
child-centred … the paradigm in which they teach remains
unchanged.
- D Warner, Schooling for the knowledge era, 2006
Are we ready for change?
Without an appropriate vision, a transformation effort can easily dissolve
into a list of confusing, incompatible, and time-consuming projects that go
in the wrong direction or nowhere at all ...
Accepting a vision of the future can be a challenging intellectual and
emotional task ...
In an organisation with 100 employees, at least two dozen must go far
beyond the normal call of duty to produce significant change ...
Anchoring a set of practices in a culture is difficult enough when those
approaches are consistent with the core of the culture. When they aren’t,
the challenge can be much greater ...
- JP Kotter, Leading Change, 1996
Are we preparing our students for change?
Best practice schooling creates opportunities for individuals based on
their natural strengths and aptitudes. It has a culture that accepts and works
with young people so that their skills are acknowledged and they have the
disposition and skill to deal with the world as it is ...
Change needs to be central to all that young people experience in
school because through it young people will develop resiliency, adaptability
and personal flexibility to become not only people who can cope with
change but also agents of it ...
Schools need to deliberately create a culture of change where young
people can feel not only part of it, but also contribute to it.
- D Warner, Schooling for the knowledge era, 2006
Old School
Replication of the industrial factory model in a
public system
New School
Colour, space, light constructed through a
public/private alliance
Old Classroom
The 19th Century classroom –
the architecture of control
New Classroom
The contemporary learning
space – the architecture of
empowerment
Old Expectations
The discipline of the 3 Rs –
preparing most 14 year olds for the work force …
Old Expectations
… and an elite few to rule them.
New Expectations
Unlocking potential and capability –
preparing most 18 year olds for
tertiary study or training
Old Curriculum
Transmitting knowledge and skills
for compliance
in a rigid and structured industrial society
New Curriculum
Building understanding
for exercising judgment
in a fluid and dynamic information society
Old Leadership
The natural-born heroic individual:
autocratic, participative or laissez-faire?
New Leadership
Building authentic leadership in teams
through values and relationships:
transformation, sustainability and servanthood
Part 2: The rationale –
why is it a good idea?
Increasing capability
to make the crucial decisions
to facilitate better outcomes
for more learners in more schools
Are we really changing things?
Why do so much education and training, management
consulting, and business research and so many books and
articles produce so little change in what managers and
organizations actually do?
-  Jeffrey Pfeffer & Robert I Sutton, The Knowing-Doing Gap,
2000
Are we leading for change?
A leader… has to engage people in confronting the
challenge, adjusting their values, changing perspectives, and
learning new habits.
- RA Heifetz & DL Laurie, The work of leadership
Are our principals instructional leaders?
We heard from a school superintendant in Cincinnati: “The
world is changing. I need our principals to reconceive their
jobs. For twenty years they have been excellent plant
managers. They know how to coordinate a variety of
operations that make for a safe and efficient building. Now
they need to be leaders of instructional improvement.
They need to get closer to the ‘point of practice’, into
classrooms, watching what their teachers are doing, and they
need to figure out what their teachers need to better
promote their students’ learning. It’s a whole different job.”
- Robert Kegan & Lisa Laskow Lahey, Immunity to Change,
2009
Do we have a mandate to lead?
Leadership based on bureaucratic authority seeks compliance by relying
on hierarchical roles, rules, and systems expectations.
Leadership based on personal authority seeks compliance by applying
motivation theories that meet psychological needs, and by engaging in
other human relations practices.
By contrast, leadership based on moral authority relies on ideas,
values, and commitment. It seeks to develop a shared followership in
the school – a followership that compels parents and principals, teachers
and students to respond from within.
- TJ Sergiovanni, Leadership for the schoolhouse, How is it different? Why
is it important?, 2004
Do we use the right or wrong
drivers?
While accountability is important, capacity building has a much higher
chance of achieving the result; teamwork, rather than promotion of the
individual; pedagogy, rather than technology; and systemic, rather than
piecemeal reform.
- Michael Fullan, The wrong drivers?, 2011
Our educational leadership challenge
•  Complex educational environments place difficult,
challenging and contradictory demands on leaders
•  Long-term educational leadership success lies in clear
purpose and direction, strong values and organisational
belief which enhance team flexibility and
responsiveness.
•  Leaders in education must be adaptable and possess many
skills to meet challenges, including:
–  Finding new and better ways of doing things
–  Accepting greater levels of responsibility
–  Understanding the implicit need for decision-making by making
judgements, managing risk and allowing freedom of action by team
members
Why would we want distributed school
leadership?
The New Zealand experience since 1989 suggests that distributed school
leadership, practised across sectors and systems and regardless of
different ownership and governance structures, improves educational and
social outcomes across the community because:
•  Local control results in local responsibility
•  Local responsibility requires social capital, which must be invested into
a by that community
•  Values are derived from a community’s sense of principles and
character
•  Wisdom is required to apply virtues to particular contexts
•  Schooling significantly contributes to a person’s and, subsequently, a
community’s disposition
In other words, distributed school leadership works!
- Mark Treadwell & Philip SA Cummins, ‘The Autonomy of Schooling’,
CSM ideas, February 2012
Meanwhile, we we ponder all of this …
Across the English speaking world, especially England, the US and
Australia school choice has reached a tipping point where governments of
all political persuasions are embracing autonomy, diversity and parental
choice in education …
While lagging some years behind events overseas it is also the case that
Australian state and Commonwealth governments, at least in terms of
rhetoric, are embracing school choice by introducing programmes to
give government schools increased flexibility and autonomy …
In Western Australia, Victoria, NSW or Queensland, the reality is that
governments of both political persuasions are championing the
benefits of freeing schools from external constraint …
- Kevin Donnelly, The Australian and onlineopinion.com.au, January 2012
And also …
There’s no doubt Australia needs a high-quality schooling system …
It will take time.
It will take an understanding of the challenges for governments across
Australia implementing the report’s recommendations.
It will take an understanding that resources alone do not bring about
real change and that extensive reform is also required to the delivery
of schooling that addresses teacher practice and quality, school
autonomy and leadership among other areas.
Australia and its children, now and in the future deserve nothing less.
- David Gonski, The Age, 21 February 2012
Readiness for change
Reflecting on your capacity to help your school adjust to the
imperative for distributed school leadership:
•  What works?
•  What might be retained and nurtured?
•  What doesn’t work?
•  What might be done differently?
Part 3: The framework–
what does it mean for us?
Increasing capability
to make the crucial decisions
to facilitate better outcomes
for more learners in more schools
What does the world expect of us?
It isn’t that top leaders are less skilled or less experienced
than leaders of the past. Nor are the teams they lead. The
challenge is the change in roles of both leader and team
member, roles that have been reshaped in the cauldron of
intense competition and relentless change ...
Today ... it’s all about scope, speed and customer intimacy.
Leadership teams must consistently ensure that clients’ needs
are met, and do it right now.
- Ruth Wageman, Debra A Nunes, James A Burruss & J
Richard Hackman, Senior Leadership Teams, 2008
How are we different from other
leadership contexts?
•  Context and culture of leadership and learning focusing on
needs of students
•  Values and relationships influenced by parent/student
“customer” and filtered perceptions
•  Academic and other results influence perceptions
•  Resource limitations – “more for less”
•  Not for profit – financials are the means to the end
•  Value-added results measured part-way through students’
learning cycles
•  Bricks and mortar are peripheral but highly influential
•  The students are the brand
Education is not a factory
Wisdom and values cannot be communicated like knowledge
or facts. Educational experience can point young people in
the desired direction but a free response is an essential part
of any authentic personal change.
- M Crawford & G Rossiter, Reasons for living, education and
young people’s search for meaning, identity and spirituality,
2003
Building a culture of improvement
1.  Values and Relationships: School improvement
flows from values and is achieved through the
relationships of people in community.
2.  Culture-building: Schools can achieve best
possible outcomes for students by developing
cultures of leadership and learning that are
principled, authentic, transformational,
sustainable and service-oriented.
Building a culture of improvement
3.  Principles of change: Change should be
overseen according to principles that move from
ethos to excellence to embedding to example to
enterprise.
4.  School improvement outcomes: The success of
a school is best evaluated through examining its
student achievement, communications, school
initiatives, school reputation and, most
importantly, the health of relationships within and
external to its community.
A model for contemporary school leadership
Leadership that motivates,
influences and directs others to
achieve the team’s goals
willingly:
•  Authenticity: acknowledging
truth
Authen/city Service Excellence in values, rela/onships, learning and leadership at all levels in your school –  “For real”
Transforma/on •  Transformation: enabling
change
–  “For change”
•  Sustainability: nurturing the
team and protecting
resources
–  “For life”
Sustainability •  Service: serving others first
–  “For others”
Leadership culture
Reflecting on your capacity to help your school improve its
culture of leadership:
•  What works?
•  What might be retained and nurtured?
•  What doesn’t work?
•  What might be done differently?
Part 4: The details –
what does it mean for me?
Increasing capability
to make the crucial decisions
to facilitate better outcomes
for more learners in more schools
The school leader’s role
For leaders, therefore, the challenge of distributed leadership
is, in part, a process of becoming better instructional leaders
through the processes identified earlier for development of
their capacity, that is, initial training, induction and continuing
professional development, including mentoring and cluster
professional development support structures.
- Philip SA Cummins, Autonomous schools in Australia: Not
‘if’ but ‘how’, CSE, February 2012
The school leader’s role
•  School leaders must be experts in the evaluation of data,
and the data that has been assembled across research
worldwide indicates that activators are more successful
than facilitators.
•  The strategies with the greatest effect size on learning
include reciprocal teaching, feedback, teaching students
self-verbalisation, meta-cognition, direct instruction,
mastering learning, goal-setting, effective testing, and
behavioural organisation.
- John Hattie, Visible Learning, 2009
Changes ahead
1.  Leadership capability, skills and wisdom
– 
– 
Modeling change
Serving staff
2.  Personal professional growth
– 
– 
– 
Study
Mentoring
Partnerships
3.  Sharing the journey
– 
– 
– 
– 
Action research programs
Community governance
Culture capture
Clusters
The school leader’s role
Reflecting on your capacity to manage the changes to your
role:
•  What works?
•  What might be retained and nurtured?
•  What doesn’t work?
•  What might be done differently?
Remember that when you leave this earth, you can take
with you nothing that you have received…only what you
have given: a full heart enriched by honest service, love,
sacrifice, and courage.
Francis of Assisi
Dr Phil Cummins
[email protected]
www.circle.org.au