Reflection
Think about your overall instructional focus. Do you have an organizational plan that includes supporting and coaching teams in their collaborative efforts to improve learning?
Wrap-Up
At the beginning of this chapter, we offered you an opportunity to consider which concert site you would rather visit and experience. Which of the two organizers provided the more positive approach leaving guests feeling safe in a well-organized environment? The same opportunity exists for your school. By taking the time to consider your daily practices, protocols, and expectations and taking action where needed, you can move toward a more positive experience for students and staff.
Wrap up your examination of establishing and maintaining organization by completing the “Making an Impact in Eight: Establishing and Maintaining Organization” reflections (pages 53–55).
As you do this work, we want to remind you that others are with you on your journey. As you clarify your intentions and focus on creating the systems and organizational practices that align to what you want to accomplish, we want you to turn your attention to how you build such a system with others. Sharing the leadership of your school is important work, and so the focus of the following chapter is to consider how to do this.
Making an Impact in Eight: Establishing and Maintaining Organization
The following eight ideas provide opportunities for further reflection and action. We provide five reflections on what great leaders do and avoid doing to gain focus, as well as three considerations for how to make an impact in eight minutes, eight weeks, and eight months to guide your leadership planning and practice.
Chapter 3
Building Shared Leadership
Shared leadership may have its greatest impact by reducing teacher isolation and increasing commitment to the common good.
—Karen Seashore Louis, Kenneth Leithwood,
Kyla L. Wahlstrom, and Stephen E. Anderson
Superintendent Julie Schmidt starts every district leadership team meeting at Kildeer Countryside Community Consolidated School District 96 in Buffalo Grove, Illinois, with the opportunity for principals and district office staff to celebrate. “Let’s start with a few celebrations. Does anyone have a celebration he or she wants to share?” she asks (J. Schmidt, personal communication, February 2018). Middle school principal Greg Grana celebrated his instructional coaches when he commented on the value of their collaboration with him in supporting teachers’ instructional practices (G. Grana, personal communication, February 2018). Elementary principal Christine Pfaff celebrated her building team leader’s work in facilitating and leading collaborative teams (C. Pfaff, personal communication, February 2018). The final celebration was from elementary principal Jenny Smith who thanked the district curriculum office administrators for supporting her efforts to incorporate purposeful play into instruction. She also acknowledged each of her teacher teams for staying focused on the goal and creating amazing playful learning opportunities for the students. She explained how she supported them and created the conditions for successful implementation—they did the rest (J. Smith, personal communication, February 2018).
These celebrations school leaders have shared with us highlight the importance and value of shared leadership with formal and informal leaders. In her Educational Leadership article, “A Framework for Shared Leadership,” author and professor emeritus Linda Lambert (2002) proclaims educators can no longer adhere to the idea that one lone instructional leader is enough. She expresses that when principals try to do it alone, they leave resources like teacher input untapped. Everything relies solely on the principal. When he or she leaves, new programs and other innovations are difficult to sustain.
Terri L. Martin and Cameron L. Rains (2018) offer another way to look at shared leadership in their book Stronger Together: Answering the Questions of Collaborative Leadership. They express that “while collaboration is people working together, collaborative leadership is about encouraging others to be leaders as well” (p. 2). They go on to say that effective collaborative leaders determine the best ways to use the strengths and skills of others to get the job done, and that we need each other to ensure that teachers get what they need so that students can learn and grow.
Richard DuFour, Rebecca DuFour, and Robert Eaker (2008) warn that the shared leadership approach does provide some challenges. When principals engage in sharing leadership, they need to be open and clear about the guidelines and be prepared to make decisions on their own, understanding that they must be directive at times. They suggest that teacher training must be provided so that those who are expected to take an equal part in leadership understand their role and have the capacity to participate purposefully and effectively (DuFour et al., 2008).
In a PLC, three big ideas drive the work: (1) a focus on learning, (2) a collaborative culture, and (3) a results orientation (DuFour et al., 2016). As stated in the introduction, school leaders cannot be expected to lead by themselves; in a PLC, leaders and teachers share collective responsibility for student success in a collaborative culture. You might be the superhero of school leadership, however, that is not the leadership style or way of working we believe is best for school leaders.
Intentionally building collaborative teams and sharing leadership with others will strengthen your ability to improve your school. We know how hard this work can be, so we offer ideas and tools in this chapter to support you as you develop an authentic shared leadership model in your PLC. We discuss building and focusing your guiding coalition, creating shared leadership among staff members, setting up collaborative teams, guiding team work, building leadership capacity, and scheduling.
Reflection
Are you a leader who shares leadership, or are you trying to do it all alone? What guidelines will you provide related to shared or collaborative leadership? What training will you provide for teacher leaders?
Shared Leadership and PLCs
We both are avid sports fans, and we often talk about “our teams.” One theme we both see in highly successful teams is the strong focus on we. For example, when Jordan Spieth, a young, dynamic golfer on the Professional Golfers’ Association of America Tour, is interviewed, he always seems to say we, never I—even though he is the one hitting the ball and taking the heat when he loses and the credit when he wins. It is about his team. Spieth may be the one on the course playing the game, but it would be very difficult for him to be successful on his own. For example, a golfer’s caddy acts as his or her advisor. Among many other things, the caddy pays attention to the slope of the course, the distance to the pin, and what club should be used to make the best shot possible. The golfer and the caddy analyze the shot, discuss it, and make decisions together. Shared decision making is a crucial part of the golfer-caddy relationship and can make the difference between winning and losing a tournament. Whether in golf or education, shared or collaborative leadership is critical to successful outcomes. The growing demands on school leaders that require them to respond to multiple complex issues at any given moment require a shift from a singular-leader model to a shared- or distributed-leadership model.
In PLC schools and districts, collaborative teams contribute to the positive school culture where shared leadership thrives. In a Wallace Foundation leadership report, educator Karen Seashore Louis, Kenneth Leithwood, Kyla L. Wahlstrom, and Stephen E. Anderson (2010) contend that the supportive environment, collaborative culture, shared values, common focus on student learning, and purposeful sharing of practices in PLCs are already a form of distributed or shared leadership. The key is to foster these practices to deepen the shared leadership and create a strong foundation for continuous school improvement. Principals need to be willing to work with school stakeholders to co-create effective strategies for enhancing teaching and learning. This type of collaboration ensures students acquire the knowledge and skills that will benefit them in school and in life (Louis et al., 2010).
In PLCs, collaboration means interdependen
cy; team members “need each other, rely on each other, and depend on each other to achieve a shared goal” (DuFour et al., 2008, p. 180). This includes teams that share knowledge to impact learning for themselves and for their students. This is the very essence of the PLC model and in the complex work of schools, this shared responsibility for student learning is absolutely critical to ensuring success for all students.
In addition to the shared responsibility for learning from all teams, PLCs call for the creation of a strong leadership team, or a guiding coalition (DuFour et al., 2016). You should not try to do it alone; instead, model a collaborative culture by creating strong leaders who help spread effective evidence-based practices at the team level. Establishing shared leadership in your school is a research-based and practical best practice. You need the expertise, resources, and energy of others in your school if all students are to achieve at high levels.
The Guiding Coalition
It is critical for school leaders to understand the balance between giving away the power and empowering a team to share school leadership. In fact, it is the only way to ensure that you build necessary relationships, develop common understanding of the non-negotiables among faculty members, and create opportunities for others to lead in implementing the continuous work of school improvement. The leader, collaborative teams, and the guiding coalition should co-lead this work. Mattos, DuFour, DuFour, Eaker, and Many (2016) define a guiding coalition as “An alliance of key members of an organization who are specifically charged with leading a change process through the predictable turmoil…. Members of the coalition should have shared objectives and high levels of trust” (p. 21). A strong, highly skilled collaborative team is a critical component of the school-improvement process because when the inevitable turmoil begins, the principal and all team members must be able to rely on each other to stay the course. Leadership expert John P. Kotter (2012) further clarifies the importance of building a strong guiding coalition in his book Leading Change:
No one individual is ever able to develop the right vision, communicate it to large numbers of people, eliminate all obstacles, generate short-term wins, lead and manage dozens of change projects and anchor new approaches deep in an organization’s culture. A strong, guiding coalition is always needed—one with the right composition, level of trust and shared objective. Building such a team is always an essential part of the early stages of any effort to restructure, reengineer, or retool a set of strategies. (pp. 52–53)
Reflection
Whom do you initially think of when you consider forming your guiding coalition? What traits are you looking for in guiding coalition team members? How will you ensure that you don’t “give away the power” and instead truly share it?
Building the Team
During our leadership coaching, principals often remark that they are not sure if they have selected the right people to be members of their guiding coalitions. They want to know what characteristics they should be looking for in guiding coalition team members. We often suggest they begin by considering Kotter’s (2012) four characteristics.
1. Position power: Are enough key players on board, especially those who are responsible for leading a large percentage of others and have influence, so that those left out cannot easily block progress?
2. Expertise: Are the various points of view—in terms of discipline, work experience, nationality, etc.—relevant to the task at hand adequately represented so that informed, intelligent decisions will be made?
3. Credibility: Does the group have enough people with good reputations in the firm so that its pronouncements will be taken seriously by other employees?
4. Leadership: Does the group include enough proven leaders to be able to drive the change process? You need both management and leadership skills on the guiding coalition, and they must work in tandem, teamwork style. The former keeps the whole process under control, while the latter drives the change. (pp. 56–57)
Kotter (2012) also suggests that when assembling the guiding coalition, leaders should avoid three types of individuals at all costs: (1) people with large egos, (2) those who create mistrust and kill teamwork, and (3) reluctant players wary of change. He warns those with big egos are often intelligent, motivated, and productive, so leaders may decide they are valuable to the team. In this case, leaders should manage them carefully, harnessing their strengths and keeping their behavior in check as much as possible. Those who create mistrust and kill teamwork are dangerous because as the leader tries to build trust, this type of individual is working behind the scenes to break it down by undermining other members of the guiding coalition. The reluctant individual who does not buy into a change can be difficult to manage as part of a guiding coalition as well. Kotter (2012) suggests that leaders continue to dig deeper within these individuals to determine the cause of their resistance and work on convincing them the proposed innovation is necessary instead of trying to work around them.
In our work with schools, we have witnessed these types of individuals often. Leaders include individuals typically reluctant to change as part of the guiding coalition because they may have positions of power or other qualities leaders believe make them good choices. Some leaders convince themselves that if these individuals are part of leadership decisions, they will be less likely to resist improvement efforts. When resistance occurs anyway, leaders are reluctant to confront the problem, leaving the individuals to potentially undermine improvement efforts. In our experience, leaders who confront the issue head-on, persevering in their efforts to assist the reluctant individual in understanding and supporting the innovation—rather than just hoping that having him or her as part of the decisions will garner support—are more likely to have high-functioning guiding coalitions and are most successful in their improvement efforts.
Another consideration for building a guiding coalition includes determining the desired outcome or end goal. As the school leader, it is important to spend time reflecting on the necessary common understanding to build within the group and the guidance that will ensure deep implementation of non-negotiables. The team should broadly represent grade and content levels throughout your school, and you should be prepared to understand your leadership role. Figure 3.1 provides a template based on Kotter’s (2012) suggestions for leaders to use as they select guiding coalition members. The criteria in the left column refer to Kotter’s (2012) four characteristics that leaders should be looking for in guiding coalition team members. The goal is to create a balanced, well-rounded team by ensuring that you have included team members that fit each of the four criteria.
Remember, it is never too late to adjust and add new members. In addition, it is really important for leaders to address members who are not collaborating or contributing. In other words, it is OK to say that maybe you didn’t put the right people on the team just yet. It is common to have to revisit membership, so give yourself permission to reflect on whether you need to work more with a particular guiding coalition member to further understand the needs of the school and the leadership work responsibilities, or to say that it might not be the best use of his or her time to be part of the guiding coalition.
Source: Adapted from Kotter, 2012.
FIGURE 3.1: Selecting and reflecting on guiding coalition members.
Visit go.SolutionTree.com/PLCbooks for a free reproducible version of this figure.
Focusing the Guiding Coalition
A guiding coalition should focus on students and instructional leadership, not the day-to-day management of the school. Using DuFour et al.’s (2016) PLC process, the guiding coalition works with evidence to see the big picture of student needs. Members then come together to develop, guide, and support the appropriate professional learning teachers need, the instructional focuses that will be tight expectations, and the schoolwide intervention plans necessary to support student learning. The guiding coalition establishes SMART goals (SMART goals are specific and strategic, measurable, attainable, results oriented, and time boun
d; Conzemius & O’Neill, 2014) based on the evidence and creates an implementation and monitoring plan. This plan will be at the center of the guiding coalition’s work, and members will revisit and adjust it as needed.
During a comprehensive needs assessment at Morrilton Intermediate School in Morrilton, Arkansas, there was clear evidence that Principal Karey Tapley was focused on the right work (K. Tapley, personal communication, August 2017). Student achievement was showing continuous improvement, teachers were meeting as collaborative teams, and she had formed a guiding coalition to help lead the school. Since becoming principal, Principal Tapley was guiding, implementing, and supporting many effective practices. During the needs assessment, however, it became evident that taking some time to build common understanding of the vision, beliefs, and collective commitments of the faculty might help build more collective capacity in understanding “why we work like we do.” From observations and interviews, it was determined that a disconnect existed between the evidence that supported effective practices and why teachers believed they were implementing such practices. In other words, they were meeting together and focusing some discussions on students and learning, but as they were given more information about the PLC process, it was apparent that there was some confusion. One of the biggest problematic areas became apparent when teachers were asked about the vision that they collectively had for the school and what they wanted to accomplish as collaborative teams. Despite all the hard work teams were doing, there was a lack of clear understanding of why or what their common goals were as a faculty. Principal Tapley took this challenge to her leadership team, her guiding coalition, and they started a process of reflecting and visioning to truly identify the collective commitments of staff and what they wanted to accomplish. As they worked with Karen and other consultants, they continued to take their work back to the entire staff to discuss, reflect, and consider what their next steps would be.
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