School Leadership Teams “the Engine of Change”
Jan Keating believes that well-managed leadership teams are key to ensuring that schools remain flexible enough to serve student needs. In her Conference session, “Transforming Your School through Shared Leadership,” she maintained that essential change cannot happen without a collaborative team of educators guiding the process.
A purposeful approach to building the team and guiding its work makes it effective.
“The leadership team is the engine of change in your school. Schools have to change all the time. A leadership team gives a school the capacity to adapt,” said the former biology teacher and principal who has worked in both Illinois and California. “Schools are like living organisms. If an organism cannot adapt to the changing environment, it will cease to exist. If allowed to change and adapt to fit its environment, the organism will evolve and flourish.”
Keating said the composition of leadership teams may vary from school to school. Generally the team members are teachers, although that’s not essential. She urged educators to avoid the easy route of simply appointing department heads. “The leadership team cannot be a political place,” she said.
Team members must share a commitment to ensuring that the best curricula are in place and that the best instruction is taking place in every classroom.
Keating said strong leadership teams can effectively tackle several critical tasks.
- Driving instructional improvement. Teams are a forum for sharing best instructional practices and determining how to make them available to the entire faculty. Teams are also well suited for addressing grading issues and interpreting data that can be used to improve instruction.
- Hiring and developing good teachers. Developing teacher recruitment strategies, establishing interview processes, setting up induction and mentoring programs, and directing professional development are all appropriate team tasks.
- Setting and communicating policy. Keating views leadership teams as the prime mechanism for researching, debating, and deciding school policy matters. Team members are charged with gathering relevant information and viewpoints from their colleagues, and building buy-in among other teachers.
Keating urged educators to use rigorous processes for conducting team business and considers team participation a formal part of members’ job descriptions.
The results can be dramatic. At Pacific Collegiate School, a Santa Cruz, Calif., public charter secondary school where Keating served as principal until recently, a strong focus on team leadership led to significantly better AP exam participation and passage rates, higher SAT scores, lower student attrition, and greater enrollment. Collaboration works, she said.
“By setting up a shared leadership team, you are setting up a professional learning community,” Keating said. “Everyone is working toward the important goal of improving curriculum and instruction in the classroom.”
What's your experience with collaborative or team leadership? Does it work--or is it a lot of work with few results? Tell us about the team leadership barriers and benefits you have encountered -- just click on "Comments" below.
ASCD offers several important resources addressing teacher leadership, which is essential to effective shared leadership teams. Of particular note is Teacher Leadership That Strengthens Professional Practice, a new book by Charlotte Danielson that delivers practical strategies for helping teachers become effective leaders in their schools.
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