LeadershipWashington State University

gsharratt@wsu.edu

Leadership Priorities

Please select one or two leadership phrases or comments that most align with your view of leadership and reflect the culture of where you work, or would like to work.

Share with a colleague or at your table why you selected the phrase of comment.

One child who does not learn what is needed for future success is

one child too many.

Urquhart, 2008

McREL, Changing Schools

“Leadership Matters!”

It matters a great deal in leading a learning culture where staff and students improve in practice and

performance.

Adult behavior changes when . . .

If you want to change people’s behavior, “You need to create a

community around them, where these new beliefs could be practiced,

expressed and nurtured” (p. 173).

Fullan (2005)

What’s Worth Fighting For Out There Hargreaves and Fullan (1998)

Respect those you want to silence

Move toward the danger in forming new alliances

Manage emotionally as well as rationally

Fight for lost causes

Respect those you want to silence

“In turbulent times the key task of leadership is not to arrive at early consensus, but to create opportunities for learning from dissonance.

Mobilizing people to tackle tough problems is the key skill needed these days: Instead of looking for saviors we should be calling for leadership that will challenge us to face problems for which there are no simple or painless solutions - problems that require us to learn in new ways” (Heifetz, 1994, p. 2).

Move toward the danger in forming new alliances

Healthy neighborhoods and healthy schools go hand in hand (Schorr, 1997).

Today’s environment is dangerous, but it is also laced with opportunities (Hargreaves & Fullan, 1998).

Leadership requires principals and others to take their school’s accountability to the public (Hargreaves & Fullan, 1998).

Manage emotionally as well as rationally

Emotionally intelligent leaders assist teachers, students, parents, and others to create an environment of support, one in which people see problems not as weaknesses but as issues to be solved.

Leading rationally translates to “reculturing” the school, which involves changing the norms, values, incentives, skills, and relationships in the organization to foster a different way of working together. Reculturing leads to improvement in teaching and learning.

Hargreaves and Fullan (1998)

Fight for lost causes (be hopeful)

Leaders fight for the silent voices and issues in their organizations. They provide the voice of hope - solutions can be found.

Principals with hope are much less likely to succumb to the daily stresses of the job and encourage others to persist in their efforts.

Hope is not a promise or prediction – it is a daily belief and behavior the moves the organization forward.

Hargreaves and Fullan (1998)

Leadership is . . .

“Doing right things right.”

Kenneth Leithwood, 2004

Leading with the “Right Work”

“The right work at both the school level and the district level is to do something that

impacts the classroom.”

Waters & Marzano (2006)

“The purpose of leadership is the improvement of instructional

practice, regardless of one’s role.”

Richard Elmore (2006)

Effective leaders are. . .

relentless in pursuing the improvement of their

practice and performance.

June 26, 2002 Seattle P.I.

Germany ends South Korea’s dreamThree-time champs will face

Brazil or Turkey in final

BY JERE LONGMANThe New York Times

“South Korea was playing out a fantasy, while Germany is one of the world’s powers. Victory is a relentless expectation, not a delirious wish. While South Korea had a nation’s support, it could not match Germany’s skill and conviction.”

A recent report (2007) from McKinsey & Company titled, How the World’s Best-performing School Systems Come Out on Top, concludes that :

1) the quality of an education system cannot exceed the quality of its teachers, and

2) the only way to improve outcomes is to improve instruction.

Great Schools Consist of . . .

Great teachers doing

great teaching.

McKinsey & Company (2007)

Great teaching consists of . . .

Teachers’ knowledge and skill,

Students’ engagement in their own learning, and

Challenging and meaningful content.

PELP Coherence Framework (2006)

Students achieve when:

there is a culture of high expectations,

teachers know how and when learning occurs, and

schools identify and support struggling students.

Urquhart, 2008McREL, Changing Schools

McKinsey & Company’s 2007 Report Findings . . .

Get the right people to teach,

Support their growth of their knowledge and skills, and

Ensure that every student performs to his or her potential focused around common (agreed upon) learning beliefs.

The Role of Leadership in Highly Effective Schools

Hire well

Develop people

Intervene early and often

Create a “high reliability” system(failure is not an option for any student)

McKinsey & Company ( 2007)

Life is a path you beat while you walk it.

It is the walking that beats the path. It is not the path that makes the walk.

Antonio Machado