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Dr Chris D RolphMonks ' Dyke Technology CollegeEngland, United Kingdom
This paper explores some of the tensions involved in creating distributed leadership within a school and argues that for it to succeed those involved must be willing to hold several paradoxical positions.
The days of the ' superhead ' , parachuted into struggling schools to turn them around and make drastic, lasting changes, seem to be behind us, at least in the UK. Lessons learnt include the suspicion that there are actually very few individuals who have the charisma, stamina and strength to match the task on their own. It is also well documented that individual charismatic leaders do not necessarily build ' great ' institutions (where the definition of great includes sustainability over a period of decades - see Collins ' book, Good to Great). Schools may flourish under dynamic leadership but, once the autocratic individual moves on, success fades and the school declines. Where schools are struggling and rapid radical change is required, a domineering approach may be what ' s needed. However, this must then evolve into shared leadership for the change to be sustainable.
The recipe for sustainable improvement, or even the ongoing transformation that the UK government seeks, seems to include a model of leadership which is at least devolved but, better still, distributed across the school. It is patently obvious that no single leader can answer all of the questions or solve all the problems in an organisation that probably averages 1,000 individuals, but that a team of people, all exercising leadership, can hope to achieve far more. Much has been made of the benefits of this approach, such as the personal and professional development of those involved, the ' ownership ' that people feel, the ability to draw on people ' s strengths, and so on, but there are also drawbacks, such as the potential for reduced pace of change, increased risk, and the high level of trust that is required.
Without wishing in any way to decry the idea of distributed leadership, and indeed, as a practitioner who has worked hard to develop and encourage it in school, I have observed that for true distributed leadership to be successful a number of paradoxical positions must necessarily be adopted. These are not disadvantages per se, but if they are not recognised then distributed leadership cannot be practised successfully. For the leader who can see these paradoxes and simultaneously hold onto ideas that appear to be diametrically opposed there can be real benefits, although the dynamic tension that plays out can lead to a troubled mind! Each paradox begins with a high and noble ideal, but once this is worked through into practice it becomes ironically apparent that the antithetical position must also be adopted in order for the initial ideal to succeed.
The first and probably most obvious paradox relates to the points already made about strong charismatic leaders. A headteacher who wishes to see distributed leadership in his or her school will need to have huge self-confidence and enormous strength of character. The strongest leaders are those who are able to share their leadership with others in the organisation, but this may well mean that they have to exhibit some of the qualities of the enigmatic ' superheads ' , discussed earlier.
Often those leaders who appear to be strong are those who ' lead from the front ' , who are surrounded by fearful subordinates, and who can eloquently describe their achievements to willing listeners. There is a security in autocratic leadership that flows from a reluctance to be questioned and a reliance on hierarchical structures. These allow for blame to be readily apportioned, and easily accommodate principles of accountability and responsibility. However, as we know, such leadership and such structures inhibit the flexibility, creativity and change that transformation demands.
In spite of these assertions, the leader who wishes to see distributed leadership in the school is no weakling. Allowing others to have their head and exercise their particular talents not only requires personal humility, but also great courage and self-discipline. Courage is needed because of the risks involved, and self-discipline because other people will do things differently, and there will be the temptation to interfere, to create stricter parameters, and even to do the job oneself. Risks can be minimised if there is a clear, shared vision for the school, which ensures that, even though different routes might be taken, people still head in the right direction. However, creating the shared vision itself requires strong leadership from the top.
When distributed leadership succeeds everyone experiences and shares in the success, but when it fails the headteacher is ultimately responsible. A second irony and paradox is that the humility involved in creating shared leadership can also lead to isolation and loneliness for the headteacher, and that the headteacher who we have defined as strong and effective can be ignored when observers see the distributed leadership in a school (Collins quotes President Truman: ' You can accomplish anything in life provided that you do not mind who gets the credit ' ). It requires more than just a superficial glance to understand just how this distributed leadership is given the freedom to flourish by the head. Even those within the school who are exercising leadership skills may do so resentfully, feeling that the headteacher is abdicating some responsibility. To a certain extent this is an inevitable inheritance from Michael Barber ' s days of informed prescription: it can be more comfortable to work in an environment where behaviour is prescribed than in a climate where one is expected to use one ' s own professional judgement. Creating distributed leadership in a school does not necessarily make a headteacher popular.
Related to these paradoxes is one involving succession planning, which does not necessarily harmonize with Collins ' idea of ' getting the right people on the bus ' . We may subscribe to Collins ' concept of spotting people ' s talents and setting them free to exercise their gifts: instead of trying to fit a square peg into a round hole, letting the peg create the square space around itself. This is fine until one of the team leaves, vacating a very personally shaped space. Do we try to find someone to fill the gap, or do we find someone who is ' right ' but with different skills, which means everyone else ' s roles have to change a little to accommodate this? The difficulty with most schools is that the hierarchical structures already exist, and roles and responsibilities for some posts may be laid down in legislation. We are used to the idea that people can be trained or groomed for specific jobs, and therefore succession planning within a fixed structure can be relatively straightforward. Where we have put people first however, then discovered the right roles for them, ultimately building a ' dream team ' , it can be almost impossible to plan for future changes to this team. Furthermore, in an educational environment where professional development is encouraged and quality staff are in short supply so that promotion may be rapid and frequent, the problems caused by these personnel changes become increasingly likely.
There is a relatively straightforward solution to this problem, and we see it practised by the very government that creates some of the rigidity that causes us difficulties. If we were able to arrange leadership teams as the Prime Minister orders his cabinet, where roles and responsibilities can change as frequently or as little as necessary, and where individuals can be shuffled into or out of positions of responsibility, we would indeed have a free hand to fit roles to people rather than the other way round. We would be able to plan more effectively for the future; as priorities change we would be able to move in people with the most appropriate abilities, then change the team and structures again when necessary. This can be done to a certain extent with temporary or fixed term appointments, but employment law serves both to protect employees against the obvious abuses made possible with a cabinet system, and also to restrict severely the flexibility with which we can operate.
In the UK all schools are currently making changes to employment practices as they take on board the government ' s workforce reform agenda. The readily apparent irony inherent in this is that, as schools make changes to release teachers to teach, increasing the number of support staff to do this and relieving the unnecessary stress and burden of administrative tasks, so additional pressure is created by the change process. The beginnings of a further paradox can also be seen here: some schools have already been creative in their use of staff, and appear to be ahead of the game. The good practice of these schools, which have pushed the limits of autonomy, is now being emulated and copied - will it soon become uniform and then prescribed?
A well-documented paradox, which in our school we have experienced very sharply during a two-year change process, is inherent in any developments that seek to produce a coherence or wholeness through the school. Change causes disruption, and where there is genuine distributed leadership there will always be areas in which change is occurring. No matter how secure the shared vision and sense of purpose is within a school, as leaders attempt to bring about transformations in their areas they will generate a certain amount of unease and discomfort - Michael Fullan calls this ' the edge of chaos ' . Yet one of the purposes behind distributed leadership is to avoid chaos: to generate a consistency and unity as an organic organisation moves in a single direction. As Fullan says, any attempt to create coherence will inevitably generate discord, and this is especially the case where there is distributed leadership.
There is another dimension to this particular paradox: as the headteacher relinquishes aspects of leadership to the leaders distributed through the school, so the need to monitor their activities increases. Allowing others to exercise their leadership skills does not mean leaving them to their own devices; on the contrary, it becomes absolutely imperative to scrutinise their activities in order to ensure that the overall direction is not lost. This applies as much to the student leadership within a school as it does to the paid employees.
A further paradox has to do with the government ' s agenda of leadership for transformation (as opposed to transformational leadership). An individual leader with clear vision and an understanding of strategy can effect dramatic change in a school - the kind of thing that we might be tempted to call a transformation. This may or may not be lasting if, and when, the individual leader moves on - we only know that the leadership was truly effective if the changes are proved to be sustainable under new leadership. However, the transformation that the government desires is for schools to become continually improving (continually transforming?). While there is no paradox in the sense that this may well be easier with distributed leadership, since even when key individuals change the overall direction of the whole school need alter little, there is a dichotomy that needs to be explored in the perceptions from within the organisation.
Where a school makes radical changes, sees hugely improved results, and resets its own agenda and ethos, everyone can see and feel the sudden turn and identify the point in time when the turnaround happened. This is even more the case where an inspirational leader has brought about the step change - transformational leadership. By contrast, in the school exercising distributed leadership for transformation, the transformation itself can be very hard to see. The school is likely to already be highly achieving, and the distributed leadership, while effective, will bring about change and development in a rather more subtle way. For some within the school it may be barely noticeable unless they look carefully, like the phosphorescent wake curving gently from the stern of a galleon under a calm moonlit sky. When the sun rises, the position and direction have clearly changed, but many on board will barely have noticed the movement, so accustomed have they become to the steady motion of the ship.
Hence we may find that where distributed leadership for transformation operates in a school, those involved in it may not be fully aware of this fact. Even for the external observer, the strong dictatorial leader is easy to spot in a matter of moments but distributed leadership may not be readily apparent, especially in a short time period. That it effects transformational change will certainly not be seen in a snapshot of a school - such as that provided by a single Ofsted inspection. The final irony, then, is that the kind of leadership to which many of us aspire in our schools, and which is held up as the ideal by the government, could turn out to be invisible to its own inspectors.
Irony or paradox, the silver lining to this particular cloud is that those school leaders who are truly committed to distributed leadership for transformation will, by definition, be those prepared to take risks and push at boundaries rather than just jumping through inspectors ' hoops. The final comment, then, which brings us firmly back to reality, is that this will be done with the best interests of the students at heart. Paradoxically, the strongest and arguably best headteachers are those who are prepared to run the risk of being overlooked as they encourage distributed leadership in their schools.
References
Jim Collins (2001). Good to Great. Random House.
Michael Fullan (2001). Leading in a Culture of Change. Jossey-Bass.
Dr Chris D Rolph is Headteacher at Monks' Dyke Technology College, in Louth, England, in the United Kingdom. His professional interests include leadership development and change management. Outside of school he enjoys spending time with his wife and twin daughters, and attempting to tame the garden.
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