Marian Iszatt White. Centre For Excellence in Leadership. Lancaster University, UK.

Educational Leadership: A Case Study

Marian Iszatt White Centre for Excellence in Leadership Lancaster University, UK. Ambridge is a failing FE college1. After two poor Inspections, it is improving slowly, but still has a long way to go. Construction and Health & Social Care were both graded 4 at Inspection, and retention and results were disappointing across the board. Staff morale is low, and there appears to be no shared vision for the future. The college is housed in aging, dilapidated buildings, and is perpetually short of space. This results in valuable management time being lost to firefighting on maintenance and accommodation issues. After three years as Principal, Penny is running out of time to turn things around. In particular, she needs to address the following specific issues: 1) College building project. If it is to raise the standard of provision to students, not to mention staff morale and its profile in the community, the college needs to fund and project manage the construction of high quality, purpose-built facilities to house its vocational training. There are two difficulties here. Firstly, as a college recently out of debt and with poor results, it will be difficult to convince the LSC to contribute funding to the project. Secondly, with a grade 4 at Inspection for Leadership and Management, and little experience of project management within the SMT, it will be important to ensure that the twin tasks of a successful construction project and the raising of standards within the college can both be effectively resourced within the team. Ensuring that this issue has been properly

All names of colleges and people in this case study are fictitious.

Marian Iszatt White. Centre For Excellence in Leadership. Lancaster University, UK.

addressed will certainly form part of the LSCs funding decision process. 2) Vision. The college currently has a vision which is laminated but not lived. It appears in documents in the same format as it has for years, but fails to relate to the colleges future, or to inspire and direct current effort. Staff are focused on todays problem rather than on tomorrows goals and have no clear framework within which to direct their efforts or make day-today decisions. In addition to developing a meaningful shared vision for the next 3-5 years, the college needs to underpin this with the appropriate policies and procedures. These either do not exist currently, or are not widely disseminated, such that management and staff have to re-invent the wheel every time an issue arises or a decision requires to be made. 3) Coherent leadership. The college SMT are currently working as individuals, rather than as a team. They frequently introduce contradictory initiatives, or fail to co-operate and communicate effectively. Individual members of the team regularly pass the buck for things they should have been responsible for and dont seem to take personal ownership of issues that need resolving. This is proving costly in terms of wasted time and resources, and is creating a poor working atmosphere within the team. The Vice Principal frequently undermines Penny in front of colleagues or simply goes his own way without consulting her. This results in divided loyalties within the SMT and confusion amongst the staff. The team needs to be united under a common set of objectives, with a strong sense of leadership and clear areas of delegated responsibility. They need to learn that they are accountable for the areas under their control, and cant expect Penny to bail them out or act as arbiter when things get out of control. 2

Marian Iszatt White. Centre For Excellence in Leadership. Lancaster University, UK.

This is Pennys first Principalship, and she is aware that its early years have been devoted to picking up the pieces of the college as she inherited it. In order to move the college forward, she recognises that she needs to develop her own leadership skills and those of her team. Penny has a good relationship with her governors, and a strong Chair of Governors. He has supported her in bringing in a leadership coach to help her develop her leadership skills and enable her to be more effective within the college. The coach has given her some materials on Golemans six leadership styles model, and indicated that she intends to use this framework in working with Penny. Which leadership styles do you think the coach should be advising Penny to adopt in dealing with the above issues, and what specific behaviours do you think that is likely to include?

Marian Iszatt White. Centre For Excellence in Leadership. Lancaster University, UK.

What Penny Did Next Pennys biggest problem is the issues within the SMT, and in particular with her Vice Principal. Until she resolves these, it would seem to be impossible to address the more practical issues of raising standards within the college, and it would certainly be difficult to convince the LSC to contribute funding to the new building project. In discussion with her leadership coach, Penny realised this would need some fairly radical changes in behaviour from her, and a very different style of leadership. In the past, she had always been very hands-on and had ended up being dumped on by her SMT colleagues rather than supported by them. She got very caught up in the detail of situations, and didnt always focus on or force others to focus on the bigger picture. This resulted in a lack of joined up thinking within the SMT, and a consequent lack of clarity in the leadership they provided to the rest of the college. With hindsight, she recognised that she had been operating as a manager, and not a leader at all. Going forward, there were a number of things she intended to do to be more effective as a leader and to move the college (and her SMT) forward. 1) The attitude of her Vice Principal was a very serious issue and, because she had not addressed it with him head-on in the past, one which would be difficult to tackle now. She suspected that because she was female, and had previously been Head of Hair and Beauty, he viewed her as a lightweight and consequently didnt respect her. She would need to be more Authoritative in her overall style putting forward a clear vision for the college, focusing on the bigger picture when dealing with specific issues, demonstrating sound reasoning in making decisions in order to counter his initial impression of her. She would also need to use the Coercive style in directly addressing with him his unacceptable behaviour in publicly undermining her she must tell him this is completely unacceptable, agree new ways of 4

Marian Iszatt White. Centre For Excellence in Leadership. Lancaster University, UK.

working with him, and hold him accountable for sticking to what they have agreed. If necessary, this may take the form of formal disciplinary procedures: a tough measure, but he has to know she means business. She can also use Pacesetting in establishing a more professional approach to meetings a preset agenda, a brisk style, challenging inappropriate behaviour as it occurs making it more difficult for others to follow his lead if he continues to go off track. At the same time, she could work to get him on board by recognising his skills and experience through a Democratic approach to some issues: this could be used as a reward for keeping to their agreement, i.e. if you work professionally with me, and respect my authority, then Ill show others I respect you by calling on your expertise. In the long term, this will be more effective than a purely Coercive approach as it will be more motivational. 2) A second area she needs to address is that of her SMT not working together, and not taking ownership of their individual areas of responsibility. Again, this will require a combination of styles to fix! Underpinning everything will need to be the clarity of direction provided by the Authoritative style these are our objectives as a leadership team, these are the aspects for which you are responsible, and this is why they are important. For intelligent, well-motivated people, having the why as well as the what can be key to gaining buy-in and commitment. She will need to work with them individually in a Coaching style to develop their skills in a number of areas, including conflict resolution, problem solving, strategic thinking and basic communication! Thus instead of solving their problems for them, Penny should use this style to help them learn how to solve them for themselves. She will also need to use an element of the Coercive style in letting them know that if they dont work together effectively, then they will be held accountable for the 5

Marian Iszatt White. Centre For Excellence in Leadership. Lancaster University, UK.

results. As well as developing the SMT as individuals, it will also be important to develop a sense of team commitment. This could be done by using the Democratic style around the issue of how the vision and direction which Penny is setting for the college can be worked out in practice. This allows everyone to contribute and feel involved and valued, without the result being management by consensus. The latter is unlikely to generate very challenging goals and, in any case, may be very difficult to achieve with this group as it stands. At the moment, Penny may be wise to avoid being too Affiliative, as she needs to present a strong image of someone who is in control, and is going to set and achieve high standards. The Affiliative touch should be reserved for specific instances where individuals are struggling and require reassurance or support rather than as a general approach. 3) The whole college currently has the air of a failing college. Morale is low and nobody seems to feel that things are going to get any better. They need a strong and meaningful vision, backed up by practical plans for bringing the vision about, to replace the tired and irrelevant mission statement they have currently. They also need to see that the senior management team are serious about making the vision a reality. This means a strong dose of Pacesetting from Penny herself and from the SMT (the latter may involve a bit of the Coercive style from Penny to make sure they present a united front, but far better if it comes from a Democratic approach.) So if the vision says we will have an inclusive, friendly learning environment then Penny must consistently challenge aggressive or abusive behaviour when she sees it. If it says meeting the needs of the community is important to us then she must ensure she is visible in the community, consulting them about their educational needs and implementing what she is told. If it says 6

Marian Iszatt White. Centre For Excellence in Leadership. Lancaster University, UK.

we value creativity and innovation, then she must consistently take time to consider new ideas from staff, and make every effort to implement or at least trial them wherever possible. And right down at the nitty-gritty end of the scale if the vision says we will create a clean and pleasant environment for staff and students to work in then she must challenge every person she sees dropping litter or writing graffiti. If the vision is going to have any meaning at all, then it needs to be evident in every decision she makes and everything she does: the devil really is in the detail! With these issues addressed, Penny will then be in a position to consider how she can resource the new building project and raise standards at the same time. With a more effective SMT behind her, they should be able to share the workload between them without things getting missed or forgotten. A more motivated staff, with a clear sense of direction, should also require less fire fighting activity from senior management, as they will be more able and willing to solve problems for themselves. These improvements will also have gone a long way towards addressing the LSCs concerns about funding the new building project. Post Script Although aspects of this case study have been changed to disguise the college in question, the above is based on a real situation, observed earlier this year. The above plan of action represented a huge challenge for Penny, and was likely to take much time and effort to implement. It required her to make dramatic changes to her style of leadership and to make them stick with often sceptical colleagues. We hope to revisit the college later this year to see how things are progressing but, because it is a real and currently unfolding situation, it is impossible to provide a right answer or to tell you whether the 7

Marian Iszatt White. Centre For Excellence in Leadership. Lancaster University, UK.

leadership styles chosen worked. The recommendations Penny was offered are only one way of tackling the problems she faced: in your discussions, you will probably have considered numerous others. This represents an extreme example of how one may seek to change ones leadership style: usually one would consider being, for example, a bit more Authoritative, a bit less Affiliative rather than raising ones game across the whole range of styles at once. None-the-less, Pennys case does illustrate the complexity of leadership, and the need to employ a range of leadership styles in dealing with any given situation.