Ensuring Student Success Through

Distributed Leadership

Jane Kise, Ed.D.Leading Learning for

the Future Conference17 October, 2013

“I doubt you can help but I can’t think of anyone else to call…the last

primary grade teacher meeting ended in a shouting match…”

“…am I part of the

problem?”

• We’re the ugly stepchild.

• Corinne’s gestures, tone, lack of support—she seems to hate us all. We’re ruled by fear.

• Having Jane Kise come in is just so the School Improvement Plan can show action on poor ratings that administrators received from staff.

• Corinne is accusatory

• Everyone works to build their own reputations in her eyes.

• Corinne is organized, dedicated, knows how to be an administrator, and is on top of things with our parents.

• I like and respect Corinne.

• Corinne isn’t crazy, nor is she a bad principal.

• I feel sad that Corinne is so stressed.

Is Corrine a good witch or a

bad witch?

Personality TypeA Framework For

Understanding Individual Differences In How Normal

People

Gain Energy

Gather Information

Make Decisions

Approach Work and Life

IntroversionGaining energy through solitude and reflection

ExtraversionGaining energy

through action and interaction

SensingFirst gathering

information through the five senses and past

experiences; reality is the starting place

Intuition First gathering information

through hunches, connections and analogies; insight is the starting place

A Neutral Framework Lets You Strategize for Normal Differences Before Assuming

a Problem

It is not appropriate to expect or force a person to act like someone else just to please others or to fit in. In medicine, treatments are judged not only on their effectiveness, but also by their side effects. One would not place a child who is allergic to wheat on steroids to prevent the reaction; one would stop feeding the child wheat....changing the environment, not the child, is the most effective and benign intervention”

(Webb et. al. p. 48)

The Four Learning Styles

The Story of Mah

• On your own, read The Story of Mah, page 6 in your handouts

• When you are finished, examine the assignment choices, page 7 in your handouts

• Be ready to discuss

• Which one you would choose

• Which one you’d NEVER choose

Management AND Leadership

Management

• Complying with rules and regulations

• Budgets, staffing

• SchedulesLeadership

• Engaging others with vision

• Setting priorities

• Ensuring staff can care for selves AND reach goals

Blind Spots are Inevitable--and DANGEROUS For

Leaders

Type Can Help With Three Key Leadership Tasks

1. Understanding each person’s strengths and how to work together

2. Improving communication and change processes

3. Providing processes to ensure that the strengths of all type preferences are included in decisions, policies, and communications

Differentiation

Learning Styles

Not an all-in-one tool

but a theory that organizes strategies

Classroom managementReading/

Math Strategies

Teacher/Student

Relationships

TYPE

Study Skills

Students of

poverty

Reflective Practice

Thinking Making decisions through

logical analysis, consideration of precedents,

and clear principles

Feeling Making decisions by

stepping into the shoes of those involved to determine how each would be affected

Ways to Decide [Judge]

Type Bias

Mike Schmoker, Results Now

Imagine every student graduating from high school having analyzed and imitated excellent examples of adult writing and having written

countless close literary analyses, essays, grant

proposals, business plans, and position papers on

multiple political, scientific, and cultural

controversies…

Teachers Principals

61-68% Feeling 71% Thinking

• Think about implications for performance feedback style and staff morale…

Successful leaders are significantly clearer about their own preferences [styles and strengths] than those who don’t succeed.

PerceivingApproaching life by focusing

on staying open to more information (to “perceptions”)

JudgingApproaching life by

focusing on coming to closure (to

“judgments”)

Sensing, Thinking: Structured, Practical Leaders

Sensing, Feeling:Practical, Community-Focused Leaders

Intuition, Feeling:Visionary, Collegial Leaders

Intuition, Thinking:Strategic Leaders

Is Corinne a good

principal…

…or a bad principal…

The Staff…

TeachersTeachers Principal and AP

Principal and AP

ThinkingThinking 33 2

FeelingFeeling 1212

What does this staff need to do going forward?

ST: Please clarify—we aren’t in

charge…

SF: kindness, honesty, loyalty,

courtesy…

NF: 3 pages full of community-

building activities

NT: 5-step process for

better meetings

Could we sit in these groups at all future meetings so we remember that

we’re speaking foreign languages?

U.S. Type Distribution of Principals and Teachers

ST SF NF NT

Principals 56% 15% 8% 21%

Teachers 22% 41% 27% 10%

Research validates...that leading a school requires a complex array of skills.

However, this creates a logical problem because it would be rare, indeed, to find a single individual who has the capacity or will to master such a complex array of skills…

Marzano: School Leadership That Works

Taken at face value, this situation would imply that only those with superhuman abilities or the willingness to expend superhuman effort could qualify as effective school leaders.

(Marzano cont’d) Fortunately, a solution exists if the focus of school leadership shifts from a single individual …

… to a team of individuals

The Leadership Matrix

• Sensing

• Procedures, routines, processes, expectations

• Intuition

• Setting direction, influencing beliefs, acting as change agent

• Thinking

• Using data, aligning curriculum, knowledge for instruction and assessment

• Feeling

• Building relationships, fostering collaboration, understanding qualitative data, recognizing accomplishments

The “Function” Leadership Roles

• When the administration makes a decision, nothing’s put in writing. We’re expected to remember exactly what was stated.

• It’s October and students still don’t all have locker assignments.

• Uniform policy? 60% of the high school is out of uniform most days!

• Policies change and they’re always making exceptions—for the teachers! No surprise that it’s hard to get teachers to enforce rules with students.

Teacher Comments

Administrative Leader (Sensing)

Establishing standard operatingprocedures and routines

Maintaining focus and monitoring implementation

Managing administrative processes

Systemic Instructional Leader (Thinking)

Aligning curriculum and standards

Using data, assessment and testing effectively

Community Instructional Leader (Feeling)Building relationships

Extraverted and Introverted Roles

Interactive Leader

Being visible

Being situationally aware

Gathering input

Advocating for the school

Reflective Leader

Providing time for reflection

Learning from positive and negative results

Delaying decisions to allow for reflection

Judging and Perceiving Roles

Balancing planfulness and flexibility

• Circle your “Top 5” roles

• Cross out your “Bottom 5”

• In groups

• Green for top 5 roles you like and do well

• Red for bottom 5 roles you’d rather avoid

Leadership Matrix, p. 9(Role descriptions, pp. 10-11)

What Might Your

Leadership Team Do

Well? Overlook?

Great leaders are not mythological composites of every dimension of leadership. Instead they have self-

confidence, and without hubris they acknowledge their deficiencies and fill their subordinate ranks not with lackeys but with exceptional leaders who bring

complementary strengths to the organization (Reeves, 2006, p. 33)

Leaders need to see both points of view...

Being Visible AND Being Reflective

Results AND Relationships(Students AND Adults)

Procedures, Routines AND Change

Clear Expectations AND Appreciation

Quantitative AND Qualitative Data

Focusing on Goals AND Being Flexible

• Breathe in deeply

• Hold your breath for as long as you can

• Now exhale!

Which is Better:

Inhaling or Exhaling

???

Center for Creative LeadershipEffective Strategic Leader Skills

1. Strategic learning: firm grasp of your business

2.Leverage Polarities

3. Span Boundaries (influence across organization, build collaboration)

4. Lead Change

Polarity thinking: channeling the energy of both sides into moving

forward toward a greater purpose

Healthy Life

Unhealthy Life

and

Greater Purpose:Greater Purpose:Effective Leadership

Positive Results

Positive Results

Negative Results from Over-Focus

Negative Results from Over-Focus

Distributed Leadership

Top-DownLeadership

Deeper Fear

Distributed Leadership AND Direction

Deeper FearBlind spots hijack leadership

Transform It Through Learning and Leveraging

Copyright © PMA 2002 Polarity Map ™ 1

Early Warnings Early Warnings***

getting into the downside of this left pole.

Action Steps Action Steps pole? What? Who? By When? Measures?

Values = positive results from focusing on the left pole

Values = positive results from focusing on the right pole

Fears = negative results from over-focusing on the left pole to the neglect of the right pole

Fears = negative results from over-focusing on the right pole to the neglect of the left pole

*

**

&

• 

Common Purpose

Deeper Fear

Action Steps

Early Warning

signs

Action Steps

Early Warning

signs