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