THE SUCCESSION CHALLENGE

ISSUES IN SUCCESSION MANAGEMENT

with

Sustainable leadership

Sustainable leadership matters, spreads and lasts. It is a shared responsibility that does not unduly deplete human or financial resources, and that cares for and avoids exerting damage on the surrounding educational and community environment.

Hargreaves & Fink 2003

Seven principles of sustainable leadership

1 Depth

2 Endurance

3 Breadth

4 Justice

It matters It lasts It spreads It does not harm the

surrounding environment

Continued…

of sustainable leadership

5 Diversity

6 Resourcefulness

7 Conservation

It promotes diversity & cohesion

It conserves

expenditures (human/material) It honours the past in

creating the future

Seven principles

Principle 2: Endurance

Sustainable leadership lasts. It preserves and advances the most valuable aspects of learning and life over time, year upon year, from one leader to the next.

Succession Planning

Ensuring the right person is in the right place at the right time

for the right reasons

Succession management involves the long term development of a pool of well prepared, contextually sensitive, dedicated leaders who are available for promotion whenever the need arises within an organization

Succession Management

Leadership Succession in Three Countries

• Ontario Canada –South Board of Education - 83 schools

• Eastern School District – 10 schools ( one secondary)

• Midlands Local Authority - 614 schools

Generic succession Issues

1. Supply and Demands

3. Boomers and their Babies

2. Warm Bodies or Leaders of Learning

4. Location, location, location

5. Diversity

c. Rotating leaders

Some Policy Issues

a. Grow your own or hire and hope

d. Unplugging the pipeline

b. Hire for potential or existing proficiencies

Some Procedural Issues

1. Entry and exit strategies

2. Selection strategies (vetting, interviews)

3. Honest feedback

4. Induction processes (the first year)

5. Appraisal of performance

6. Local Politics

7. Preparing faculties for transition

1. Supply and Demands

Is there a shortage of Qualified Leaders?There is no shortage of qualified candidates for the principalship, it makes little sense to rely on strategies aimed solely at adding more candidates to the pipeline. It’s time to move beyond the pipeline, away from policies aimed solely at increasing the number of certified candidates, and focus far more attention and resources on reforming policies and practices to:

        Adjust incentives and working conditions to enable non competitive schools and districts to attract qualified candidates

        Bring local hiring practices into line with heightened expectations for principals performance; and

        Redefine the job itself in ways that allow principals to concentrate on student learning above all else. 

The Wallace Foundation (2003). Beyond the Pipeline:Getting the principals we need where they are needed most. Center on Reinventing Education,

available at www.crpe.org , accessed February 15, 2009, 4.

This whole thing with No Child Left Behind, accountability, data, the amount of paper and less time for the work I love to do which is coaching teachers, creating a vision for the school, being passionate in getting to know the kids. Doing this kind of work I think has made my school very special . . . . It is in many ways the school I had envisaged. The piece I am frustrated about is how do we get better if we are so busy spending time with the paper things we are doing, and we are losing the passion and the creativity. I feel that so much of what we do is about aligning documents, making up paper plans, but for me, the job is creating the story, somehow the passion is lost.

Vickie: Elementary Principal

Do we have a supply problem

or a demands problem?

2. IMAGE OF EDUCATIONAL LEADERSHIP

Leaders of learning

or

Warm Bodies

Our conclusion . . . is that leadership has very significant effects on the quality of school organisation and on pupil learning. As far as we are aware, there is not a single documented case of a school successfully turning around its pupil achievement trajectory in the absence of talented leadership. One explanation for this is that leadership serves as a catalyst for unleashing the potential capacities that already exist in the organisation.”

Leithwood, K, Day, C. Sammons, P., Harris, A., and Hopkins, D. (2008).

Leadership is Important

1. knowledge of the substance/subject matter: What the work is about?

2. knowledge of how to facilitate the learning: The how of the work?

3. knowledge of how teachers learn to teach and how others can assist their learning: The how of learning for the previous two layers.    

4. knowledge of how to guide the learning of other adult professionals: The how of learning for the previous three layers.

Four ‘Layers’ of Knowledge

Stein, M.K. & Nelson, B.S. (2003)

There’s no way in five years of teaching experience that a person can know and understand all three divisions (ages 4 to 16), and that worries me because, number one, I don’t know how you can support your staff and number two, I don’t know how you can be believable to parents that you really have a clue on what’s going on for their children. Whereas I pulled on my experience so often especially working with parents of special needs kids, but also parents whose children were struggling in whatever way, or even parents whose kids were gifted and didn’t understand why we might not want to identify that particular thing until later in their life.

A Leader of Learning

Canadian elementary prinicipal

Because the principal must decide which teachers will receive tenure, it is crucial that principals have prior experience as teachers and understand What good teaching is and how to recognize it. They will be called upon to evaluate and help struggling teacher, which they cannot do unless they have experience in the classroom. . . . People with little personal knowledge of good Instruction . . . are likely to rely exclusively on data because they have so little understanding of teaching.

Warm Bodies

Diane Ravitch

I honestly believe that most principals want to be educational leaders. I think that there are a couple things getting in the way. I think that the expectation of the person still doing those managerial tasks is part of the problem but I think the other part and probably the bigger part of the problem is that I’m not so confident that we have prepared principals to truly do the job of an educational leader.

American Senior Official

Do you know what business you ‘re in?

PETER DRUCKER

Our schools will not improve if we continually reorganize their structure and management without regard for the essential purpose. Our educational problems are a function of our lack of educational vision, not a management problem that requires the enlistment of an army of business consultants.

Diane Ravitch:

Death and Life of the Great American School System

Purpose?

• Test scores?

• Over subscribed schools?

• Customer satisfaction?

• Short-term achievement targets?• ‘Adequate yearly progress’?

Educational leadership

is about a passionate, steadfast, obstinate commitment to the enhancement of ‘deep’ learning for all students – learning for life, learning for understanding, learning for an increasingly fluid, messy and risky world.

Standards and Sustainability

Testing Achievement Learning

or

Learning Achievement Testing

Hargreaves & Fink, 2006

•What does the focus on standardized outcomes determined by external (to schools) testing actually stand for and thus do they represent valid, worthwhile or meaningful outputs?

•Does increased emphasis on preparation for the tests and the adaptation of teaching and curriculum to the requirements of test performance constitute worthwhile effects of ‘improvement’?

•In terms of economic competitiveness, is what is measured here what is needed?

What Matters ?

Stephen Ball, The Education Debate

Do we evaluate what we value or

do we value what we evaluate?

The Accountability Question

The Two HungersIn Africa, they say there are two hungers, the lesser hunger and the greater hunger.

The lesser hunger is for the things that sustain life, the goods, and services, and the money to pay for them, which we all need.

Left Brain Thinking

Any job that depends on routines - that can be reduced to a set of rules, or broken down into a set of repeatable steps – is at risk.

Daniel Pink - A Whole New Mind

… the emerging labor market is not between those with more or less education, but between those whose services can be delivered over a wire and those who must do their work in person or on site. The latter will find their livelihoods more secure against outsourcing to distant countries. You can’t hammer a nail over the Internet. Nor can the Indians fix your car. Because they are in India.

Why Indians can’t Fix Your Car

Michael Crawford

Going DeeperThe greater hunger is for the answer to the question ‘why’, for some understanding of what life is for.

Handy, C. (1997). The Hungry Spirit. London: Hutchison, p.13.

Deep Learning

Our educational system does its best to ignore and suppress the creative spirit of children. It teaches them to listen unquestioningly to authority. It insists that education is just knowledge contained in subjects and the purpose of education is to get a job. What’s left out is sensitivity to others, non-violent behaviour, respect, intuition, imagination, and a sense of awe and wonderment.

The Body Shop

Broad Learning

I must study politics and war, that our sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy. Our sons ought to study mathematics and philosophy, geography, natural history and naval architecture, navigation, commerce and agriculture in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music, architecture, statuary, tapestry and porcelain

(McCullough, 2001, pp. 236-237).

John Adams

The future belongs to those who ‘do’ engage the right side of the brain, with its abilities to

think holistically and long term, recognize patterns, interpret emotions and nonverbal communications, . . . . The top jobs of the

future are in the helping professions, designing new or modifying old products, and creating new technologies. At the same time

we will still need people who can build houses, repair the plumbing, put in sewers and attend

to all the services that make modern life livable.

The Right Side of the Brain

Based on Daniel Pink

Breadth

Old basics

• Numeracy• Literacy• Obedience• Punctuality

New basics

• Multiliteracy• Creativity• Communication• Info.Technology• Teamwork• Lifelong Learning• Adaptation &

Change• Environmental

Responsibility

Five pillars of learning

• Learning to know*

• Learning to do*

• Learning to live together*

• Learning to be*

• Learning to live sustainably

UNESCO Learning: The Treasure Within, 1996.

Commitment

Leaders of learning

are ordinary people who, through extraordinary commitment, effort, and determination, have become extraordinary and have made the people around them exceptional.

Summary

Are we hiring and supporting :

Leaders of learning

or

Managers of things ?

3. Boomers and their Babies

The Vets

Pre -1928Margaret Thatcher, George H.W. Bush, Queen Elizabeth II, Jimmy Carter

Shaped By the depression and World War II

Thrifty, corporate structure and chain of command

The Silents

1928-1945 (demographic trough)

Woody Allen, Gloria Steinem, John McCain

Influenced by vets and indirectly by depression and W.W. II

Conformist, play the game, delayed gratification, intact families

The Boomers

First stage 1946-1953

Tony Blair, Bill &Hilary Clinton, Bill Gates,

George W. Bush, Prince Charles

Numbers (competitive), good times (optimism), television ( informed), Dr. Spock ( indulged), self absorbed (me generation), live to work (never really retire)

Second stage 1953-1963Steve Jobs, Barack Obama (cusper)

Generation ‘X’

1963 -1978

Michelle Obama, Tiger Woods, Michael Jordan, Michael Dell, Wayne Gretzky

Economic downturn, latch-key kids, Skeptical (work to live), life-work balance, technological literacy (solitary)

(Demographic trough)

The Millennials

1978 - 2000

Prince William, Prince Harry, , Lebron James, Sidney Crosby,Daniel Radcliffe, Britney Spears

Wired, (facebook, My Space, You Tube), good times, indulged, helicopter parents, work to live -collaborators, customizers, freedom ( entitlement), speed, entertainment, innovation, integrity

One reading of these norms is that this new generation will burst the bonds of industrial age structures and cultures and move the education of our young people into a high-tech era of collaboration, innovation, and creativity. Another reading might suggest however, that this is a generation, that is ill prepared for the hard work, perseverance, and sustained inquiry that educational leadership requires and is more interested in going along, getting along, and when things get tough, moving along.

The Succession Challenge

The Future of Leadership ?

“This is a generation that is more interesting, more confident, less hidebound and uptight, better educated, more creative, in some essential fashion, unafraid”

OR

This is the “dumbest generation” that suffers from “vigorous indiscriminate ignorance? No cohort in human history has opened such a fissure between its material conditions and its intellectual attainments. None has experienced so many technological enhancements and yielded so little mental progress.”

Are Millennials up to the succession challenge

4.Location

Location

Location

The World is Flat ?

“There are many advantages that children can enter this world with including intelligence, physical power, and agility, good looks and caring parents. It also matters where you live”

Edward Leamer

THE WORLD IS SPIKEY

Deep Learning

30% produce 50%

The Creative Class

Florida, R. (2002). The Rise of the Creative Class. New York: Basic

Books

Diversity

Talent

Technology

Tolerance

Attracting Leaders

Aesthetics

–parks, culture, history, sports facilities

Basic Services

–affordability, public transportation, health and educational facilities, churches

Openness

- tolerance, public safety, quality of leadership

Florida, R. (2002). The Rise of the Creative Class. New York:Basic Books.

c. Rotating leaders

Some Operational Issues

a. Grow your own or hire and hope

d. Unplugging the pipeline

b. Hire for potential or existing proficiencies

a.Grow your Own or

Hire and Hope

Succession Management

identify

recruit

develop

select

induct

Appraisal(Feedback)

support

celebrate

transitions

&

b. HIRING FOR POTENTIAL

OR

EXISITING PROFICIENCIES

c. Rotating Leaders

d. Unplugging the Pipeline

Assistant principal: career position or

Principal in training

Pools

Pipelines

Reservoirs

In Memory of Jock

Succession management involves the long term development of a pool of well prepared, contextually sensitive, dedicated leaders who are available for promotion whenever the need arises within an organization

Succession Management

Succession Planning

Ensuring the right person is in the right place at the right time

for the right reasons

 There are concerns across countries that the role of principal as conceived for needs of the past is no longer appropriate. Potential candidates often hesitate to apply, because of overburdened roles, insufficient preparation and training, limited career prospects and inadequate support.

[i] Pont, B., D. Nusche and H. Moorman (2008), Improving School Leadership: Policy and Practice: Executive Summaries OECD, Paris, retrieved from, www.oecd.org/edu/schoolleadership, accessed December, 2008, 1

1. Supply and Demands

2. Leaders of Learning

is about a passionate, steadfast, obstinate commitment to the enhancement of ‘deep’ learning for all students – learning for life, learning for understanding, learning for an increasingly fluid, messy and risky world.

The succession challenge is to rethink our notions of leadership and of leadership development designed “for another time” to invite, prepare and sustain newer generations to assume the mantle of educational leadership.

3. Leadership and the Millennials

“There are many advantages that children can enter this world with including intelligence, physical power, and agility, good looks and caring parents. It also matters where you live”

Edward Leamer

4. THE WORLD IS SPIKEY

Pipelines, Pools, & Reservoirs

• We need to unplug the pipeline, fill up the pool and build ourselves a reservoir through distributed forms of leadership

Learning from Noah’s Ark1 Don’t miss the boat

2 Remember we’re all in the same boat

3 Plan ahead. It wasn’t raining when Noah built the Ark

4 Stay fit. When you’re 600 years old, someone may ask you to do something really big5 Don’t listen to critics; just get on with the job that has to be done

Learning from Noah’s Ark

6 Build your future on high ground

7 For safety’s sake, travel in pairs

8 Speed isn’t always an advantage; the snails were on board with the cheetahs

9 When you’re stressed, float awhile

10 Remember the Ark was built by amateurs, the Titanic by professionals

11 No matter the storm, there’s always a rainbow waiting

The woodpeckers may have to go