Who Will Lead?

Post submitted by ASCD Scholars facilitator Tom Hoerr.

A recent article in Education Week said, "Studies are showing that many principals don't stay on the job long, and that those who leave don't take other jobs as school leaders." But that's not news. Each week I read about the impending shortage of school administrators. There aren't enough people choosing to pursue administration, and the attrition rate of those playing a leadership role is too high.

Not only is education subject to political and media pressure created by current measures, but schools are also constantly faced with new, ever-widening expectations and accountability. That may not be bad; after all, we need to know when our performance isn't up to par, and we should have the highest expectations for all our students. At the same time, the fact is that administrators have come under more scrutiny and are expected to do more, with less, and to do it faster and more cheaply. Is this realistic? The data on principal retention suggests that the job isn't worth the toll it takes.

This is not just a problem with building-level administration. Susan Moore Johnson and Morgaen Donaldson, in research completed for Harvard's Project on the Next Generation of Teachers, show that   teacher leadership is stymied by a culture that reinforces the status quo and makes leadership emotionally draining and dangerous ("Overcoming the Obstacles to Leadership"). How much of this is due to demands for increased accountability, the instant omnipresence caused by technology, or the simple fact that we have circled our wagons in defense and are now shooting at one another?

As expectations and accountability have increased, ratcheting up the need for skillful leadership at all levels, we should ask ourselves: What is realistic? What made you pick up the mantle of leadership? What makes the price of leadership worth it, or is that naïve? Should we not bother to seek a balanced equation in our profession and life? How can we go beyond the model of an individual self-sacrificing leader to create the mass of new-and-great leaders needed in the 21st century?