Michael Fullan (2016) provides six guidelines for successful change in education systems. These guidelines are; to define closing the gap as the primary goal, to recognize that successful strategies are socially based and action-oriented, to assume that the initial problem is a lack of capacity and begin to work on it, to provide sustainable leadership through direction and continuity, ensuring internal and external accountability, and positive pressure and motivation. This write-up will focus on the last three in the order listed above.
Providing Sustainable Leadership through Direction and Continuity.
Fullan (2016) urges school leadership’s importance in its ability to stay on track and maintain change. In his view, leaders should be able to sprout new ones to ensure no leadership gap. Sustainable leadership makes and sustains an environment that is conducive to learning. Principals should engage others in leadership by delegating assignments and tasks to formal and informal leadership structures that exist within the school. Delegation promotes personal responsibility, process ownership and grooms future leadership for any potential gap in leadership, such as the principal’s absence. The markers for an effective principal should be assessed, among other things, by the number of teachers they have mentored and prepared for leadership roles in the future. The ability to transfer knowledge and practical experience to teachers is essential for maintaining continuity of goals and accompanying actions taken to achieve them (Fullan, 2016).
Sustainable leadership also involves principals holding consultative meetings with stakeholders to share potential key performance indicators. Setting these objectives is paramount to forging the right attitudes required for a significant culture shift by preventing resistance and clarifying doubts. All stakeholders are given a chance to create the vision and understand the processes to be deployed to achieve the goals (Cook, 2014).
Sustainable leadership also applies to the efficient use of resources. The goal of continuity is achieved by ensuring a steady supply of human and other resources required to keep operations at optimum performance levels (Cook, 2014). This means that the teacher turnover rate should be maintained at an all-time low if not zero. It is within the principal’s mandate to create and implement plans that efficiently use available resources to achieve their goals. These plans should be mindful not to overburden staff members with uphill tasks and unachievable goals, which leads to frustration and decreased job satisfaction (Pulakos, 2014). The plan should consider everyone’s capabilities and have room for capacity-building opportunities such as training modules required to achieve these goals.
An excellent example of setting leadership proxies is in classroom setups when students are broken into groups and given assignments. As the students delegate the duties amongst themselves, leadership roles begin to emerge. The students get a greater understanding of the topic and develop good working relationships. The same for teachers, giving them assignments and tasks, assigning them departmental roles and engaging them in committee setups is a great way to nurture their talent.
Ensuring Internal and External Accountability
Accountability is described as the data-backed correspondence between an individual’s responsibilities and what is expected of them by the community (Fullan, 2016). Accountability can further be classified into internal and external accountability. Internal accountability is a collection of activities and efforts towards a goal for continuous improvement. Internal accountability is a situation within the school’s environment where everyone’s role is geared towards achieving set objectives.
According to Fullan (2016), internal accountability is measured in tests, examinations, charts, reports, performance appraisals, and other valuable metrics that can provide data in line with the schools’ aims. He also insists that internal accountability is safeguarded in the school culture. Based on how we look at the data, there needs to be a paradigm shift from perceiving reports as measures of incompetence and focus on them as instruments of great insight. The shift to a favorable light motivates everyone to keep the culture alive.
External accountability is how a school’s performance matches the expectations and pressures of the environment within which it operates. External stakeholders include the parents, local and federal government. Fullan (2016) states that for external accountability to work, internal accountability needs to be enforced. Research has shown high amounts of external accountability affected internal accountability. Passing strong external accountability policies has the effect of decreasing motivation among teachers (Poole, 2011). Therefore, the conclusions drawn from this report could infer that internal accountability is more the child of sustainable leadership than external interference. It is up to the principal to define the school’s vision, set goals, and implement strategic plans that reflect and consider external factors. For example, if there is a change in local government policy regarding how to enhance inclusivity and diversity in the classroom, it is the role of the principal to analyze the policy. The principal can achieve this by looking at how their school is affected by this policy change, to determine whether their immediate community is affected, and if the school has sufficient resources to handle such changes, or whether there will be a need to increase capacity. Looking at all these factors, the principal should then develop internal accountability metrics geared towards satisfying both long-term and short-term external expectations.
Some organizations set stricter internal standards compared to external ones to ensure that they are always within the requirement. This method should be approached with caution, as the school demographic is more dynamic than an organization’s demographic. It’s easier for students and teachers to feel left out by those measures. The main objective then should be to keep these goals as achievable as humanly possible. In this way, tremendous internal accountability will automatically translate into great external accountability.
Positive Pressure and Motivation
Positive pressure is described by Fullan (2016) as the driving force between schools and governments to adequately perform to the level expected by the opportunities presented by each to the other. By this definition, schools should feel pressured to meet external stakeholders’ expectations, given that external stakeholders have played their part in ensuring the school is well equipped. By the same logic, governments should feel pressured to meet the school’s expectations by providing adequate resources, given that existing resources are effectively being utilized and the school is displaying serious commitment to improvement. The main objective in this is to ensure everyone maintains reasonable expectations of the other while at the same time eliminating potential excuses from either side.
Fullan (2016) has addressed positive pressure to refer to the relationship between the schools and the governments. However, this same positive pressure trickles down to the school’s implemented plans. For change to occur effectively, it is imperative to ensure that each goal has a set timeline. The usefulness of any plan is its execution within that time. Timely execution is essential because it allows one to track their plans’ progress and how efficiently resources are being used. It is important to also ensure that as teachers perform their duties and deliver on time; work done is also of acceptable quality. Therefore, it is the principal’s responsibility to ensure there are open communication lines between themselves and all staff at all times. In as much as principles have their expectations of what needs to be done, they should turn a listening ear to teachers and understand the type of resources needed to meet those expectations effectively. Teachers who have more resources at their disposal should then feel obligated to meet school leadership expectations and improve their performance. Principals who do not meet staff members’ work requirements cannot expect the best service delivery type.
Positive pressure is constructive and collaborative. It does not dwell on frustrating either party but is a consultative process that allows empathy and justified expectations.
Conclusion
In conclusion, organizational change is a vital part of an organization’s life cycle. Changes bring about positive development and increase efficiency in an organization. Changes are meant to satisfy both external and internal stakeholders of the organization for the common goal of achieving profitability. In education, changes are made to ensure that the learning process is inclusive and delivers value for money, securing many students’ futures. Teachers can also acquire leadership skills, get motivated to work efficiently and build satisfactory careers through changes in learning institutions.
References
Cook, J. W. (2014). Sustainable School Leadership: The Teachers’ Perspective. NCPEA International Journal of Educational Leadership Preparation, 9(1), 1–17.
Fullan, M. (2016). The New Meaning of Educational Change (5th ed.). Teachers College Press.
Poole, S. M. (2011). The relationship between external accountability policy and internal accountability: A cross-state analysis of charter and traditional public schools. Journal of School Choice, 5(3), 261–280. https://doi.org/10.1080/15582159.2011.604225
Pulakos, E. (2014). Performance Management – SHRM Connect. Performance Management: A Roadmap for Developing, Implementing and Evaluating Performance Management Systems, 2(8, Aug-2015). https://community.shrm.org/blogs/chris-arringdale/2014/08/19/the-importance-of-discretionary-effortand-how-to-inspire-it
