Preparation for Educational Leadership

There is a paradox implicit in educational leadership practitioner programs. The paradox is that while universities award degrees and certificates to individuals, effective educational leaders do not “do leadership unto others.” It is time we moved well beyond the “heroics of leadership genre” (Spillane, 2007) in understanding and building capacity for educational leadership. Let’s take a closer look at this paradox by examining what effective educational leaders do, how this is related to the concept of “distributed leadership” (Spillane, 2006), and who leads in educational settings.

First of all, what does the research tell us about what effective educational leaders actually do? In an influential report for the Wallace Foundation, Leithwood, Louis, Anderson, & Wahlstrom (2004) distilled the work of educational leaders into three cogent categories:

Setting Direction:
• Constructing, selling, and sustaining a vision.
• Getting cooperative commitment for organizational goals.
• Setting and maintaining high expectations.

Human Development:
• Monitoring instruction and progress.
• Developing teachers’ knowledge and skill, both individually and collectively.
• Providing encouragement, recognition, and support.
• Developing a sense of accountability for performance.

Organizational Development:
• Adapting and modifying standard operating procedures (routines, tools, structures) to support instructional improvement.
• Building a culture that de-privatizes classroom practice, supports collaboration among teachers, and maintains high expectations.
• Procuring and distributing resources.
• Handling disturbances/creating and maintaining an orderly work environment.

Consider this list carefully. Is it likely a leader can enact these functions alone? When using this lens for viewing leadership, it brings the importance of shared or distributed leadership into sharp focus. The Distributed Leadership framework shifts the emphasis from individual leaders acting alone to leadership stretched over multiple leaders, followers (who in turn influence leadership practice), the unique context or situation in which leadership is practiced, and the interdependencies between them.

This brings us back to the relationship between leadership preparation and practice. While we accept, enroll, and grant credits, degrees, and certificates to individuals, it is important to situate student work within practice, implicating a whole host of “others” with whom you work in your leadership preparation.

What do you think? How does this affect how you view your leadership preparation experiences and your “real” work?

References

Leithwood, K., Louis, K., Anderson, S., & Wahlstrom, K. (2004). How leadership influences student learning. Wallace Foundation Report. Retrieved May 15, 2009, from http://www.wallacefoundation. org/KnowledgeCenter/

Spillane, J.P. (2006). Distributed leadership. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Spillane, J.P. (2007). Taking a distributed perspective: School leadership & management [Powerpoint slides]. Retrieved May 13, 2009, from http://www.sesp.northwestern.edu/dls/ publications/presentations/