Leadership and culture: the close connection: constructive organizational cultures promote achievement and mutual encouragement. They also invite innovation and higher performance.

There are four major ways to change an education organization: strategy, culture, human processes and structures. All of these are important for transformative change from 20th to 21st century education (or beyond), and all of them depend on leadership.

That's probably the reason why leadership development is the No. 1 priority worldwide of top organization leaders inside and outside of education.

It's probably also one reason why top executives like Michael Dell, president of Dell Computers; Dee Alarcon, superintendent of the Solano County Schools; and Bob Wells, executive director of ACSA have, along with their senior leadership teams, participated in leadership development that began with a 360-type assessment of the impact of senior leaders on the culture of their organizations.

The connection between leadership and culture is so close that "leadership and culture may be two sides of the same coin" (Senge, 2000, quoting Edgar Schein).

What is leadership?

So what is leadership? And what is its relationship to leading? Certainly it's a common assumption that leadership and leading are exactly the same thing. Consider the following:

* "A leader is best when people barely know that he exists, not so good when people obey and acclaim him, worst when they despise him. Fail to honour people, they fail to honour you. But of a good leader, who talks little, when his work is done, his aims fulfilled, they will all say, 'We did this ourselves.'"--Lao Tzu, Chines founder of Taoism and author, (6th Century B.C.)

* "As we look ahead into the next century, leaders will be those who empower others."--Bill Gates

* "Leadership is a combination of strategy and character. If you must be without one, be without the strategy."--Gen. H. Norman Schwarzkopf

* "Leadership is influence--nothing more, nothing less."--John Maxwell, author and entrepreneur, 1998

* "Know yourself and seek improvement. Be technically and tactically proficient. Make sound and timely decisions. Train as a team. Set the example."--Selections from the U.S. Marine Corps Leadership Principles

Leaders arise out of their culture

Leadership is about leading--but within the context of an organization. Leaders arise out of the culture of the place in which they lead, and do not exist separately from that culture. If leadership involves leading, the same must be true of leaders within organizations. Leaders appointed by the school district come out of or align with the culture of the organization called school district.

Individually and together, these leaders comprise the core leadership of the school district--that group of individuals hired or promoted out of the culture of the organization itself with targeted responsibility for forwarding the purpose and performance of the organization. Once in place, these leaders--again individually and together as core leadership team--begin to impact the culture of the organization they lead.

So what is organizational culture?

In different ways, students of organization (like Edgar Schein, Terry Deal and Rob Cooke) suggest that culture is the often hidden sets of norms and expectations that underlie what people "expect" and see as "expected of them" when they come to work (or class). It is the set of often unspoken interactions, relationships and expectations that spell out "how we do business" around here.

While it's easy to talk about cultural "styles" (as folk once talked about management "styles"), there are only a few basic kinds of organizational culture. Constructive organizational cultures promote achievement, self-actualization and mutual encouragement. Defensive organizational cultures can be passive or aggressive. Passive defensive cultures promote low effort, and show a negative correlation with high performance and innovative solutions. Aggressive cultures promote bullying, hierarchical thinking, and long hours spent on very narrowly defined objectives.

For nonprofit and for-profit entities as well as countries, a pattern emerges: organizations with constructive cultures consistently--and often dramatically--outperform organizations in which passively compliant or aggressive interactions are the more common cultural expectations. A colleague who has worked with large cohorts of schools in England reports that the same kind of correlation exists across schools that I have found in smaller samples in the United States.

Guess which kind of culture is desired by most organizational leaders? Constructive, of course. This is the kind of culture that invites innovative solutions, efficiencies, increased satisfaction, and consistency of higher performance. It's also been the hidden side of education organization.

Leadership matters

Yes, leadership matters. It is the leadership team in the education organization that entertains and decides upon the kinds of strategy, structural and human process changes that will flavor the future character and capacity of the education system--always while impacting the culture of the organization in place. The "edge" is in surfacing the connection between leadership strategies and cultural change.

References

Senge, Peter. (2000). Schools that Change. New York: Doubleday.

ACSA's strategic plan for leadership coaching

In October 2005, the Association for California School Administrators Board of Directors formed a Task Force on Leadership Coaching to develop a strategic plan for leadership coaching development and leadership support. The plan, which will implement a research-based, leadership coaching model of support for California's school administrators, aligns ACSA's mission and core values and furthers ACSA's Leadership Matters project.

The program model is designed to provide high quality coaching and support to all educational leaders, with an initial focus on new site administrators. The plan also reflects the need to support the ethnic, age and gender diversity of school leaders. The overall goal is to position ACSA as the primary provider of coaching development and leadership support.

The following excerpts from the strategic plan provide an overview of how, why and what ACSA will offer its members.

Effective leadership at a premium

The research is clear! The success of our schools is largely determined by the quality of its leaders. Effective educational leadership has never been at such a premium, and the expectations placed on our school leaders are daunting even to the veteran administrator, let alone new administrators attempting to learn their jobs in a "rapid-fire" environment.

Leadership seminars, workshops, institutes and academies are necessary for administrators to add to their knowledge base, to stay current. They provide support and supply valuable "content." However, most of these settings do not provide opportunity for participants to have deep conversations around effective practice or how to effectively implement professional development content at the school or in the district office.

There is also well-documented information on the disconnection between leadership pre-service programs and many of the realities administrators face on the job. As part of his work at the UC Santa Cruz New Teacher Center, Gary Bloom, associate director of NTC, said, "Hundreds of principals have been surveyed and asked how they acquired the many skills and the broad knowledge essential to their jobs. Principals report that pre-service programs are among the least significant sources of preparation for the principalship."

Blended coaching: practical approach to complex learning

Most workshops and pre-service programs include two necessary training design components: theory and demonstration. Many also include practice. However, most professional development does not incorporate coaching as a part of the training design. Blended Coaching ensures--over time and with practice--that the behaviors essential to successfully leading a school or district become integral to culture and practice.

A proven model of success

California, through its Beginning Teacher Support and Assessment program, has a model for the induction of professional educators. Every school leader deserves similar high quality professional development and support. New leaders should have access to a professional leadership coach as part of their induction process during their first years of service.

Such processes should be both intensive and site-based, and offer individualized coaching and a curriculum designed around the needs of the new professional leader. To ensure continued professional growth and career-long learning, experienced administrators also should have access to certified coaches throughout their careers.

It is no surprise that principals report that their most important learning takes place on the job. Therefore, it is logical that leadership coaching 'on the job' is a practical approach to support administrators.

More information about ACSA's strategic plan for leadership coaching will be posted at www.acsa.org and published in EdCal as it becomes available.

Kathy Ohm is director of the ACSA Planning Center.