Do you need to do something different at your school or in your district? Is there a need for a change? Is what you have been doing in the past working? Are things getting better?
Leadership is the key to any change initiative at a school site or in a district, but the type of leadership that is necessary might vary depending on the situation, the need, and the vision of the school or district.
Leadership is often confused with management. They are not the same. As has been quoted often, managers do things right, and leaders do the right things. Sometimes, principals get so buried in doing things right (paper work, budgets, school plans, safety plans, meetings, program monitoring, more paperwork, etc.) that they never have a change to do the right things.
“Managers in every organization have a responsibility for initiating and directing change in addition to their regular objectives. Everyone has the shared responsibility of changing the organization to make it better equipped to meet the needs of its customers, and of keeping finding innovative ways to deliver its products or services. Just doing better what you do today is not enough.” Paul Sloane
Let that last line sink in. "Just doing better what you do today is not enough.”
Are small improvements in what you are already doing going to make the change your school needs a reality? What about your district?
If you so, then the typical style of leadership or management might work fine for your school or district. If not, then you might need to bring in or use some lateral leadership.
Here are 8 traits from Paul Sloane’s list of Conventional Leaders vs. Lateral Leaders found in his book The Leader’s Guide To Lateral Thinking Skills.
Catalytic Questions:
How might you be spending to much time making your current operational or educational model better INSTEAD of finding a better model?
Is incremental improvement going to be enough?
In what ways might you re-think your criteria for success? How might this impact your school or district?
How might you change your leadership approach if you viewed your school or district from the perspective of a business, a design firm, a marketing or media company, an accountant’s office, a data collection center, or an inventor’s lab?
In what ways could re-framing your school’s current situation using different verbs or adjectives lend some insight?
Are you questioning your assumptions?
In what small areas of your district or school might you try out some lateral leadership?
Recommended Reading:
Gapingvoid’s Three C’s Remixed- Jeff Utecht
Why Innovation? - Stephen Shapiro
The end of “best practices”- Jeff De Cagna
Be a Solutionist- Gerry Kosater
How do you make “Time for Innovation”in an organisation?- Green Hat Thinking blog
Do You Experiment at Work?- Scott Berkun
Recent Comments