Leadership Assignment 1

Mindlab Leaders Assignment

Leadership in Digital and Collaborative Learning - Assessment 1

Critically analyse the leadership of a change initiative that you were involved with in the past. Then plan your leadership of a future change initiative. Identify the leadership theories, styles and attributes used and evaluate their effectiveness.

Either individually, or in groups of two or three, write a cohesive essay where you begin by briefly evaluating a previous change initiative, and your own role within it, with reference to relevant leadership theories. Building on these reflections, explain and justify how you will lead your main stakeholders through the implementation of the change initiative outlined in your Digital 1 assignment. Demonstrate your critical understanding of multiple leadership theories and key principles, including their strengths and weaknesses, through these two change initiatives.   

Leadership in Digital & Collaborative Learning

Karen Duligall & Toni Te Whaiti

Havelock North Primary School (HNPS) is a decile 9 primary, with the vision of empowering learners for life. We (Karen and Toni) started working together as e-Learning Lead Teachers in 2009. Our Principal gave us the responsibility of leading our school through a Ministry of Education (MoE) ICT initiative. He wanted us to share and implement changes to all stakeholders: parents and whanau, staff, Board of Trustees and students while keeping in mind the best way to implement these changes.

The MoE ICT initiative had the goals of:

• unpacking the learning areas to interpret how ICT could be integrated with and enhance the curriculum
• raising teacher’s awareness and use of NZ Curriculum online and other resources available

Six local schools formed the Magpie Cluster to implement the MoE ICT initiative and enlisted the help of two facilitators.

The Principals of each school created their own outcomes with their lead teachers and the Magpie Cluster facilitators. At HNPS we worked together to collaboratively create short and long term goals for our school. As a school, we were having a number of ICT issues. Primarily staff were unable to get to their documents, data or emails while at home or away from the school network. All staff needed to be able to access information anytime, anywhere. Our initial priority was that our email server needed replacing. We were looking for options which would give our staff more flexibility. Google Apps for Education (now known as G Suite) was suggested to us by our facilitators as a possible solution. Once we investigated we realised that there would be multiple benefits.

Therefore, our change initiative was:

• to introduce G Suite school wide
• to upskill the teachers enabling them to make full use of the initiative

Our long term goal was:

• for all staff and students to fully commit to using G Suite
• to take out the main server and become fully cloud based

Within any school setting a change initiative is ultimately lead by the Principal - the master-leader (Crippen, 2012, p.193), who has the overall responsibility for its success or failure. Within our school, during the implementation of G Suite, our Principal both lead the initiative and was a follower of the Magpie Cluster facilitators. The facilitators advised the six Principals and Lead Teachers, and we (as HNPS Lead Teachers) followed both our Principal and the facilitators, whilst simultaneously leading the change within our school with our teachers being the followers. As Carolyn Crippen (2012) states “in order to have leaders, we must have followers” and “there are usually more followers than leaders in most organisations and schools” (p.192).  

Today, as we look back on the implementation of the MoE ICT initiative with a critically reflective lens, we are able to review the successes of the leadership by evaluating the different leadership theories, styles and attributes.

On reflection, our Principal was mainly exhibiting a Distributed leadership approach. It is a form of Shared leadership where many people collaborate within a supportive context, on identified goals, to build leadership capacity in and across institutions (Jones, Hadgraft, Lefoe & Ryland, 2014). Our Principal’s philosophy was to build and encourage leadership within his staff. According to Harris (2003) Distributed leadership implies interdependence rather than dependency with an emphasis on collective action, empowerment and shared agency. We, as his followers, found this to be a strength - his trust in us and our abilities was empowering.

At times his leadership could also be described as Situational as he could change his leadership behaviour according to the readiness of his followers.  Graeff (1997) and Grint (2011) both suggest that Situational leadership theory requires a rational understanding of the situation and an appropriate response, rather than a charismatic leader (as cited in McCleskey, 2014, p.118). “Successful leaders are those who can adapt their behaviour to meet the demands of their own unique situation.” (Schermerhorn, 1979, p.5). Within the MoE ICT initiative, with us as his able followers, our Principal exhibited highly supportive but directive behaviour - trusting us to share in the decision making and to have the ability and the knowledge to complete the tasks required.

Daniel Goleman (2000) links Emotional Intelligence to six styles of leadership - Coercive (or Commanding), Visionary (Authoritative), Affiliative, Democratic, Pacesetting, and Coaching. We felt that our Principal’s leadership was Democratic as he forged consensus through participation. There was a lot of collaboration and team leadership. His style worked well because we, as his followers, were competent.

However, his weakness was communication. This weakness led to us, as followers, sometimes feeling confused, whereas usually, followers of a Democratic leadership style would be receiving clear, convincing, well-tuned messages.

Goleman (2000) states that “the more styles a leader exhibits the better” and “the most effective leaders switch flexibly among the Leadership styles as needed”. Whilst our Principal used most of the Leadership styles mentioned, he lacked an Authoritarian style which, on reflection, lead to a lack of enforcement of the change initiative. He didn’t model the behaviours he was looking for (specifically using the new G Suite products) which lead to him losing the respect of some followers. Alienated followers, who were already against the change, lacked commitment and the initiative lacked urgency.

Throughout, our Principal and the ICT facilitators displayed Growth Mindsets (Dweck, 2006). Leaders that display a Growth Mindset believe that they can achieve higher results and that their followers can also be motivated to improve and grow. The Growth Mindsets of our Principal and ICT facilitators strengthened our Growth Mindsets which increased our resilience.

Both of the ICT facilitators were also extremely charismatic. Charisma is one of the elements of Transformational leadership and Bass & Riggio (2006) (cited in McCleskey, 2014, p.120) identified charisma as being a combination of idealized influence and inspirational motivation. The facilitators were admired, emulated and respected by us as followers, instilling us with enthusiasm and optimism. Franciosi (2012), stated that leaders need to be motivators, communicators and facilitators of communication among the members (p.238). Our ICT facilitators did this really well. They set up sessions for Principals and lead teachers during which we had the opportunity to talk about new learning and new initiatives, as well as how we were leading the change in our schools. This helped us focus on the vision and we were able to support each other for the duration of the MoE ICT initiative.

Critical reflection on the leadership of the ICT facilitators showed they were using the Pacesetting style (Goleman, 2000) to achieve quick results with a motivated and competent team. This had a positive effect on all of the lead teachers who were motivated by high performance standards and the facilitators modelling the new learning themselves. We were all focused on performing better and faster, surrounded by like-minded people.

As we reflected on our followership of both our Principal and ICT facilitators during the MoE ICT initiative we realised that we were Mentee’s (Crippen, 2012, p.194). We had been developing a personal growth plan and new skills to strengthen our teaching in the classroom. Based on Kelly (1992) (cited in Crippen, 2012, p.196) we were in the Exemplary followership category which has a high independent thinking and high active engagement score. This equates to Activists in the more recent Kallerman (2008) (cited in Crippen, 2012, p.196). We felt strongly about our leaders and the messages they were giving us, and we acted accordingly - following with trust and loyalty. We were determined to lead our followers with the enthusiasm that we saw in our leaders, trusting that they would embrace the change initiative just as we did.

During the MoE ICT initiative, we found the ICT facilitators to be extremely charismatic, we admired and emulated their Pacesetting leadership style. So when we implemented the initiative at HNPS we also used the Pacesetting style that we had seen work so well when we were followers. We set extremely high performance standards and exemplified them ourselves with our own students in our own classrooms. We pushed our new learning to improve outcomes for our school. We expected others to do the same and followed up on those who didn’t rise to the occasion. As we didn’t have any real authority over these individuals this meant that the initiative slowed down and some teachers became resentful. The Pacesetting style destroyed confidence, many teachers felt overwhelmed by our demands for excellence and morale dropped. On reflection, our followers were not as competent or self-motivated as we were when following our Pacesetting leaders. Goleman (2000) does warn that the Pacesetting leadership style has a negative overall impact on the climate of the working environment.

The leadership style that had worked well for our ICT facilitators was not successful for us with a different set of followers. We now know that this was not the right course of action to take, as the leadership style you adopt depends on the competence of your followers.

We could not have adopted a Coercive (Commanding) style as we did not want to tell our teachers exactly what to do. We wanted them to embrace the new tools and adapt them in their own classrooms in ways that worked for them and their students. The Authoritative (Visionary) style would have been a more appropriate style to adopt. According to Goleman (2000) “An Authoritative leader states the end but generally gives people plenty of leeway to devise their own means. Authoritative leaders give people the freedom to innovate, experiment, and take calculated risks.” For many of our more confident followers, this leadership style could have had positive results. We could also have used the Democratic style adopted by our Principal to implement the initiative with our followers but this style works best when the direction and final outcome is yet to be decided, and we were absolutely certain of our goal.

Finally, the Coaching style is one we should have considered. It helps followers identify their strengths and weaknesses. It establishes goals and plans to accomplish them. As leaders, it would have required us to delegate to our followers, setting them challenging assignments.

Our Digital 1 change initiative is to introduce Hapara Workspace as a vehicle for our reading program. This will be the platform from which we will share redefinition digital tasks at the transformation level of the SAMR model (Puentedura, 2010). Initially we will roll out this initiative to our Early Adopter (another Year 5 teacher) and then to the Early Majority (Year 6 teachers). Throughout, we will bear in mind our other stakeholders. We have already trialled the initiative within our own classrooms to streamline the process and have begun to solve any problems that could be a barrier to our followers.

For the Early Adopter, the Pacesetting style would be appropriate because he is highly competent and motivated. As leaders, we need to ensure we display a Growth Mindset because we know that it is motivational and helps followers to improve their practice. As our follower we see him as a Mentee because he is developing new skills to strengthen his teaching in the classroom. We know that Early Adopters are on the lookout for advantages and are not concerned about risks (Robinson, 2009, p.3). They are personally confident and well informed. We just need to say to him ‘go and try this’, and he will go away and do it. In order to maintain the sense of urgency (Kotter, 2017) we need to follow up in a timely manner. As a beginning teacher he has enthusiasm and is quick to make connections. We feel we know him as a follower and will offer him strong face to face support during our weekly planning sessions.

The Early Majority also require face to face communication to sell them the advantages of our digital change initiative. They need more of a Coaching style as this works well with positive people who would like to improve their performance (Goleman, 2000). We will harness the charismatic attributes of our ICT facilitators and run sessions such as Techie Brekkies, quizzes and games to motivate. We are aware that lack of charisma is a weakness in our current leadership style and is an area that we need to improve to engage our followers and achieve successful outcomes. We will encourage our Early Adopter to talk about his successes (peer-peer communication) and to prove that the innovation is do-able and provides genuine benefits. We need to provide the Early Majority with research from educators that they regard as well respected. We need to give them clear, simplified instructions and guidelines for them to achieve success (Robinson, 2009. p.6).

As previously stated we are a decile 9 school. Our parents are well informed, educated professionals who would be classed as Late Majority with a propensity to resist change. In order for them to support our change initiative they require assurance that it provides genuine benefits for their children. In order to keep them up-to-date, communication is essential. Therefore, we have introduced a #TechTalk, #EducationConversation section into our weekly class newsletters to slowly introduce them to new ideas and practices.

In conclusion, based on our observations and critical reflections of the success of the leadership theories, styles and attributes used when implementing the MoE ICT initiative, we now know that we need to be using different leadership styles for different followers. A Pacesetting style will be beneficial for the Early Adopter, but a Coaching style is more appropriate for our Early Majority. Charisma is also something that can be developed and with a Growth Mindset we are well on the way.

References

Crippen, C. (2012). Enhancing authentic leadership− followership: Strengthening school relationships. Management in Education, 26(4), 192-198.

Dweck, C. Mindset: The New Psychology of Success. New York: Random House, 2006

Franciosi, S. (2012). Transformational leadership for education in a digital culture. Digitalcultureandeducation.Com, 4(2), 235–247. Retrieved from http://www.digitalcultureandeducation.com/uncategorized/dce_4001_franciosi/

Goleman, Daniel. "LEADERSHIP THAT GETS RESULTS." Harvard Business Review, vol. 78, no. 2, 2000, p. 78. Academic OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com.libproxy.unitec.ac.nz/apps/doc/A60471886/AONE?u=per_unit&sid=AONE&xid=79e96bf5

Harris, A. (2003). Teacher leadership as distributed leadership: heresy, fantasy or possibility? School leadership & management, 23(3), 313-324. Retrieved from https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Alma_Harris/publication/249826646_Distributed_Leadership_in_Schools_Leading_or_misleading/links/565e8c1008ae1ef92983dbca.pdf

Jones, S., Hadgraft, R., Lefoe, G., & Ryland, K. (2014). Evidence-based benchmarking framework for a distributed leadership approach to capacity building in learning and teaching. Retrieved from http://ro.uow.edu.au/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1591&context=sspapers

Kotter International. (2017). 8 Steps for Accelerating Change (eBook). Kotter International

McCleskey, J. A. (2014). Situational, transformational, and transactional leadership and leadership development. Journal of Business Studies Quarterly, 5(4), 117-130.

Puentedura, R. (2010). SAMR and TPCK: Intro to advanced practice. Retrieved from http://hippasus.com/resources/sweden2010/SAMR_TPCK_IntroToAdvancedPractice.pdf

Robinson, B. Les. (2009). Changeology. Scribe Publications

Schermerhorn, J.R. (1979). Situational Leadership - Conversations with Paul Hersey. Mid-American Journal of Business, 12(2), 5-12.

Spillane, James P. Distributed Leadership, John Wiley & Sons, Incorporated, 2012. ProQuest Ebook Central, https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/unitec/detail.action?docID=694355

Markers Notes

Kia ora Karen and Toni. Thank you for your Leadership 1 essay submission. Having responsibility for implementing an ICT initiative to all stakeholders was a major undertaking, and it was pleasing to see the careful consideration you gave to this process. Overall, you have drawn upon a good range of literature to explain the leadership. There was a sound discussion of pacesetting. In future assignments, it would enhance your work to go into greater detail about what changes you might make to your leadership for when it did not suit certain groups. Still, a sound piece of work.

Describe A Previous Change Initiative: 17%

DESCRIBE A PREVIOUS CHANGE INITIATIVE: The change initiative, its intended outcomes and the leadership roles in it described in an integrated and coherent manner.

Critically Reflect On Overall Leadership: 18%

CRITICALLY REFLECT ON OVERALL LEADERSHIP: Strengths and weaknesses of overall leadership critiqued / influences on and effectiveness of leadership theories, styles or attributes critically reflected on, with reference to wider practice and theory - and clearly related to one another in context.

Reflect On Own Leadership And Followership: 18%

REFLECT ON OWN LEADERSHIP AND FOLLOWERSHIP: Strengths and weaknesses of your own leadership or followership are critiqued with reference to wider practice and theory - and clearly related to one another in context.

Develop A Leadership Plan For A Change Initiative: 16%

DEVELOP A LEADERSHIP PLAN FOR A CHANGE INITIATIVE: Leadership plan analyses the perspectives of multiple stakeholder requirements and adoption stages.

Source Material: 7%

SOURCE MATERIAL: Good list of references, cited and discussed.

Presentation And Reflection: 7%

PRESENTATION AND REFLECTION: Presentation that describes and combines themes, with a narrative structure and reports on what you have learned.