Schools are complex organisations to lead. The role of school principal is one of the most complex leadership roles in organisations today.
This complexity of role is due to several factors.
The quality of the school principal’s leadership has been proven to have a big impact on the quality of education outcomes for students. This belief has led to a whole industry focused on leadership development of school principals. The problem is that most of this development work focuses on the individual leader with only an incidental focus (if at all) on the environment in which the leader is operating. Kurt Lewin originally proposed that the behavior we observe is a function of the person, in interaction with the environment they are operating in. This default toward a focus on the person is understandable given the complexity of the environment and the challenge it presents in terms of how to intervene. This focus on the individual leader has inadvertently led us to assume that if we just had better leaders, the challenges we are currently facing in education would disappear. But what if the environment is a big part of the problem?
A key aspect of the environment that school principals operate in is the school leadership team. While many parts of the environment may feel beyond the school principal’s capacity to influence (technological changes, government policy, shifting social norms) they can be intentional about how they set up their school leadership teams for success. In other words, they have agency to shape the team environment to create the conditions for superb collaboration.
The challenge is that most teams are not set up for success. To quote Richard Hackman, ‘I have no question that when you have a team, the possibility exists that it will generate magic, producing something extraordinary. But don’t count on it!’ Our research and practice show that most team in organisations are a team in name only. The majority of so-called teams spend their time-sharing information, working on technical problems, telling each other what they already know and wasting time advocating for their functional role. These team meetings will feel less engaging, benign or worse, unsafe and subsequently a waste of time. And time in schools is one thing that we cannot afford to waste.
So why don’t school leaders set their teams up for success? There are a couple of technical answers to that question and a few adaptive challenges:
So, let's assume you are a school principal who recognizes that you need a team to help you lead your school through these challenging times. Where to start?
It always starts with the work.
Most teams spend most of their time working on technical problems that are owned by one or two team members. These meetings tend to be a series of report outs or quick resolutions and/or move to action. They are useful and necessary but need to be short and sharp with clear actions and accountabilities. To do the deeper learning work required to address the more complex, adaptive challenges that schools face today, the team need a clearly articulated interdependent task that they own together.
The interdependent task will reflect the vision and strategy for the school, focused on resolving the tension inherent in perceived polarities such as equity and excellence, learning and wellbeing, accountability and care. When teams are collaborating on this deeper, learning work, they need the capacity and time to step into the space of not knowing, feeling safe to be vulnerable with their colleagues. Having a clear interdependent task gives the meeting the purpose and meaning that makes this vulnerability worth the risk. Leaders can begin reimagining what their team could be, focused around the two or three big challenges, that if addressed would make the biggest difference to the learning and well-being of your students? This requires engaging one or two trusted colleagues in a dialogue to explore what the interdependent tasks may be.
A compelling purpose as a guiding light
Clarifying the interdependent task of the team into a compelling purpose provides a key scaffold/structure to bind the team and guide the agenda. A compelling purpose for a team is clear (team members have a shared common sense of what success looks like), consequential (it makes a material difference to the vision and strategy) and challenging (there is stretch, and learning embedded in the task). To craft a compelling purpose is not a simple task. It requires you capture the unique value-add of the team; the work that only this team can do. Experience suggests that this work is best done with a small group of confidants that the school principal can test ideas with before getting the team to work on the draft statement and make it their own. When done well, a compelling purpose will help to create the conditions for superb collaboration, giving the team members a reason to overcome their individual competence compulsion and learn from and with their colleagues.
A good scaffold for a compelling purpose statement is:
The rights skills and behaviours
Once the leader has the clear structure in place to guide the team (interdependent task and compelling purpose), it is time to ensure they have the right skills and behaviours on the team to effectively deliver on the purpose. Leaders often assume that they don’t have the capacity to change out team members and so even asking “Do I have the right skills and behaviours” feels like a bridge too far to cross. Before starting to wish for different team members, leaders can think about the team they do have and where the hidden skills and talents are. Perhaps they have been waiting for the right conditions to show themselves. The question to ask is, “How could you develop the capability of the team members to demonstrate the skills and behaviours required to deliver on the compelling purpose?” It is a leader’s role to create the conditions in the team where people can do their best work and truly flourish. Once the leader has the compelling purpose in place they can clearly assess where the team are relative to the requirements of the task.
Putting it into practice
Putting in place the six conditions for superb collaboration takes time and practice. This is an expression of leadership as a learning activity. One of the keys to success is the fourth condition which looks to develop the key practices or team norms that support the team to deliver on its purpose. Collaboration is not like a warm bath. It requires team members to take the risk of learning something new, out in the open. Agreeing with the team, on three or four practices that will support the collaboration is a critical step. A practice by its nature is something whereby each leader is consciously incompetent, so they need to give themselves and the team the space to have a go, make mistakes and correct the errors.
As I said earlier on, one of the things that gets in the way of leaders putting in place the conditions for superb collaboration is the lack of knowledge. Yet this knowledge can be accessible to all leaders. There is a great online module that leaders can take that will upskill you in the 6 team conditions and give you confidence to put them in place for your school leadership team.
Schools today need great leadership at all levels to create an environment in their schools where all students can learn and thrive. It is beholden on school principals to lead from the front and recognise that they can't do it all themselves and they need a high-performing leadership team to lead the way. If you take the time to be intentional and put in place the 6 conditions for superb collaboration in your school leadership team, ‘it will generate magic, producing something extraordinary’.