In their response, almost all students comment on the determination, perseverance, and fortitude Boyden exhibited as he single-handedly built, and then oversaw, a burgeoning institution for sixty-six years. My students, who are mostly teachers themselves, admire Boyden's ability to balance administrative responsibilities with genuine involvement in the lives of students. Yet, while conceding that Boyden was a maverick for his time who helped to create the legacy of the quintessential school head, students question the viability of his leadership approach for contemporary schools.
I agree. Even if such exceptional leaders exist today, and I believe they do, emulating Boyden's leadership style would neither be advisable nor effective. Throughout Boyden's tenure, Deerfield Academy was relatively homogeneous and unencumbered by the massive social and economic changes that characterize our society today. School leadership at the turn of the century calls for different skills and competencies, and a departure from the notion of the lone warrior commanding an organization. Today's leaders must look to other role models and other sources for inspiration.
School heads who turn to the collection of current literature for guidance may discover that almost every book seems to have implications for them. The Barnes and Noble website lists no fewer than 3,061 entries under the topic "leadership," offering a full range of perspectives from condemnation (Condemned to Repeat) to vindication (Reinventing Yourself) to inspiration (Leadership Secrets of Jesus). Every book has the potential to be relevant to school leadership because the job is so complex and demanding. Further, independent school organizations straddle the corporate and philanthropic sectors. They are businesses that must stay afloat while pursuing the noble aims of developing the minds and hearts of young people. The bottom line is as ephemeral as it is concrete, calling upon a diversity of managerial and leadership skills coupled with a wide range of capabilities.
The most encouraging news that emerges from the vast literature on leadership is that much of what is needed for success can be learned. Laying aside the fact that schools of various sizes with different financial resources require leaders with differing sets of skills, there appears to be emerging consensus on what is necessary for leading organizations effectively today and into the next millennium. In short, there are core competencies, skills, knowledge, and attitudes that effective leaders share.
Core Qualities for Successful Leadership
• Intelligence | Intelligence and integrity provide a foundation for making sound judgments that affect other people's lives. There are historical debates about just how much intelligence is required for successful leadership and how to measure such intelligence. However, there is agreement that common sense is as necessary as raw intellectual ability, and there are few debates on the need for coupling intelligence with integrity. Without integrity, school leaders are not only ineffective, they are destructive and demoralizing to school communities.
• Integrity | Leaders with integrity have a firm set of personal ethical standards — principally honesty and fairness. School heads demonstrate integrity by showing consistency in their personal beliefs, values, and work behavior. Leaders who preach what they believe and practice what they preach model integrity, which is fundamental to engendering trust and loyalty from school constituents.
• Caring | School heads set the tone for human interactions in the school. To develop students who are caring and loving, schools must be led by caring and loving people. Amidst the pressure for accelerated academics it is hard to find time to think about caring. Everywhere we hear that America's youth are faring poorly in international comparisons of academic achievement and that our nation's economic future depends on a better educated populace. There is a general belief in this culture that our children must work harder and better if our nation is to retain its competitive edge. In independent schools, this belief translates into increased pressure to provide the kind of academic rigor that will win places in leading colleges. There is an obvious inherent danger in blindly following this path.Philosopher Nel Noddings does not dismiss the development of academic competence, but he does argue that most of societal problems cannot be solved through our drive for academic excellence. We need to reorder our priorities, says Noddings, to teach children to be caring human beings — to care for self, for others, for the physical environment, and for ideas.
Skills and Knowledge for Successful Leadership
• Competence | Leaders need a base of professional knowledge that includes administrative skill and deep understanding of the teaching and learning process. Competence evolves from knowledge and intuition gained through experience in classrooms and different aspects of school life. Tom Sergiovanni, in his book Moral Leadership: Getting to the Heart of School Improvement, calls this "craft know-how" which includes intangibles such as sensing what to do and when to do it, but there is also a knowledge base that is best learned in a systematic way in professional development and graduate programs.
When Teachers College decided to offer a Master of Arts concentration in Private School Leadership we surveyed school heads to determine the most important skills for successful administrative practice. The input helped shape the core curriculum of the program to include: organizational analysis and change, legal issues in private schools, marketing and strategic planning, business management, and studies in curriculum and behavioral research.
• Team Building | Even in corporate America, the John Wayne school of management has given way to an approach that is less hierarchical and more collaborative. In all forms of American organizations there is a desire for participation and teamwork — and strong evidence that such participation leads to greater effectiveness. Besides, in a rapidly changing world, even supremely gifted individuals can't handle the amount of work alone or know all they need to know.
Heads need to be effective in encouraging teamwork among teachers and in orchestrating teams of administrators to make sense of ever-changing information and to deal with the exponential growth of administrative complexity. The job description of many of the leaders who work in these teams is also changing. As search consultant Christopher Arnold points out, "Many schools no longer have business managers, they have CFOs. Development officers have been replaced by VPs for advancement and admission directors are now often called enrollment managers. These changes are not just in title; they reflect more comprehensive and challenging tasks such as strategic planning.
Heads also need to equip administrators to be responsive to a more demanding parent constituency. In business, the term "never satisfied customers" is used to emphasize that customers' needs are not static, but are continuously evolving and growing. In a school setting, effectiveness partly requires that one sense and respond to parent and student needs as they emerge. As information technology leads to a more informed parent body, and electronic communication gives ready access to almost anyone in the school, the head needs to be buttressed and supported by a cadre of well informed administrators.
Dorothy Hutchinson, head of The Nightingale-Bamford School (New York), says that one of the most important changes in her role over the past five years has been the need to develop a strong administrative team since it isn't possible to respond personally to all of the parents who contact her. "More than in the past," says Hutchinson, "administrators have to be well informed leaders who can function autonomously."
Effective teamwork requires the school head to be a team player as well. The head doesn't have carte blanche to act in ways that would constitute unacceptable behavior in others. The head's personal behavior needs to model the behavior that he/she is looking for in other team members.1
• Use of Power | Rather than connoting dominance and underhandedness, power and the desire for power may be a critical component in successful leadership behavior in schools. Despite widespread belief to the contrary, powerlessness in organizations may be far more destructive than powerfulness. Powerlessness in heads is likely to breed bossiness and often creates a petty, dictatorial, rules-minded managerial style. On the other hand, powerfulness — which includes having access to resources and information, and the ability to act quickly to get the job done — leads to more constructive leadership that utilizes the talents of others.
To increase power, leaders need to enable others in the school to act by delegating responsibility and providing resources and information for making decisions. Instead of diminishing power, sharing power actually enhances a leader's influence and effectiveness — particularly when the leader delegates but doesn't abdicate responsibility.2
• People Management | In my class on administration, I show Charlie Chaplain's 1936 film Modern Times to illustrate the scientific management perspective on workers as machines whose ideas are neither solicited nor valued. In modern business organizations, practices such as quality circles and democratic participation harness the intelligence of people at all levels of the organization. Although the factory model of schools, where teachers are viewed as interchangeable parts, was never a useful paradigm for independent schools, in some schools teachers do not feel that their ideas and opinions are respected or welcomed. As we struggle to attract and keep capable people in our classrooms, we need to accept the notion that bright people, even young teachers, want to have a say in what happens in their classroom and in their school. If we deny them this voice, they are likely to leave for jobs where their input is valued. Talented young teachers who are treated like functionaries are the most at-risk in our schools.
MIT professor Peter Senge, in a 1997 Harvard Business Review article titled "Looking Ahead: Implications for the Present," says that a major challenge leaders face is to harness the intelligence and spirit of people at all levels of an organization to continually build and share knowledge. Today's independent school leaders need to involve teachers in decision making in all aspects of school life.
• Community Involvement | For both civic and protective reasons, independent school heads must play a leadership role in their communities. Recent events that involve state and local governments on issues such as taxation and curriculum requirements also indicate that independent school leaders may no longer restrict their attention solely to their own schools. Instead, they must be active citizens in local and state affairs and deal with issues of public policy that affect their schools and education in the public realm. Frank Boyden knew this instinctively. He played an active role in the town of Deerfield and he was sensitive to the needs of the community. In all likelihood, Deerfield Academy would have closed its doors if not for the alliances Boyden built outside of the school. He continued his involvement, eventually becoming a civic leader as educational advocate at the state and federal level.
Today's independent school leaders have added concerns. The growth of public charter schools, and the increasing involvement of business in education, may create new competition and new regulations for independent schools (see Chester Finn's article in this issue). This year the number of charter schools in the nation will equal or exceed the number of independent schools that are members of NAIS, and they are adding a new competitiveness to local education markets. On Cape Cod, for example, a new charter school is adopting the International Baccalaureate curriculum and attracting students away from long established independent schools. Along with increased competition, the growth of charter and for-profit schools is also likely to result in increased state regulations as a way to provide oversight. New corporate competition from companies such as Edison and Sylvan Learning are part of a growth industry of business investment in education that may provide further challenges with increased pressure for state monitoring.
• Political Astuteness | The word "political" is often thought of as a dirty word in independent schools, but it is a critical element in effective leadership. In Reframing Organizations, Lee Bolman and Terrence Deal argue that leaders must be politically astute in three major areas: agenda setting, networking and coalition forming, and bargaining and negotiating.
In setting an agenda, school leaders must create a climate for change that has two major elements: a vision for the school's future and a strategy for achieving that vision. The first practical task in building networks and coalitions is to figure out whose help you need. The second is to develop relationships with those people. Heads need support to get things accomplished, but they also need "critical friends" or allies to provide honest feedback. The simple message is that if you want support you must cultivate it.
One way to cultivate support is through bargaining and negotiation. The best known approach to negotiation was developed by Roger Fisher and William Ury. In their book, Getting to Yes, the authors argue that most people routinely engage in positional bargaining — they take positions and then make concessions, ultimately missing the opportunity to create mutually beneficial agreements. This points to a common tendency to focus on positions, rather than needs and interests. Because much of school life requires negotiation and bargaining, successful heads learn the value of open and collaborative behavior.
• Productive Use of Conflict | Leaders have to recognize that conflict in organizations is not only inevitable, it is desirable. Since conflict can neither be eliminated nor suppressed for long, the key is to encourage productive conflict. According to social psychologist Morton Deutsch, conflict has many positive functions in organizations. It prevents stagnation, stimulates interest and curiosity and is the medium through which problems can be aired and solved.
Conflict is the root of personal and social change. Through dissent and disagreement, leaders are better able to develop common understanding and ultimately, unity and commitment. Popular management writer Peter Drucker writes in his book, Managing the Nonprofit Organization, "All the first-rate decision makers I've observed, beginning with Franklin D. Roosevelt, had a simple rule: If you have consensus on an important matter, don't make the decision. Adjourn so that everyone has time to think." Drucker says that since important decisions involve risk, they should include different perspectives on the issue. "Acclamation means that nobody has done their homework."
In an article entitled "Vicissitudes of Leadership," professor of management Kets de Vries emphasizes that successful leaders encourage people to speak their minds. They foster "contrarian thinking," giving people confidence to say what they mean and taking to heart General Patton's assertion that "when everyone agrees, somebody is not thinking."
• Self Awareness | In a study that I was involved with, heads and division directors noted the complementary balance of skills that often occur in these two roles. Heads who have an accurate model of themselves are better equipped to choose an administrative team that compensates for their weaknesses.
To be self aware and to see yourself as others see you is a form of intelligence that psychologist Howard Gardner, in his book Multiple Intelligences, labels "intrapersonal intelligence." Leaders also have to be aware of their "own story," and the biographical sources of various visceral reactions. In A Call to Stories, Robert Coles demonstrates that a successful professional relationship requires leaders to be keenly aware of their own life stories, and careful listeners of the stories of those they are trying to help.
Even with a high level of interpersonal intelligence, leaders need to seek feedback from others. In most organizations, the higher one rises, the more isolated one becomes with fewer opportunities for real feedback. To counteract this tendency, school heads need to regularly ask for feedback from board members, administrators, and faculty members.
• Emotional Intelligence | In his book Emotional Intelligences, psychologist Daniel Goleman describes emotional intelligence as a series of learned abilities, such as being able to motivate oneself and persist in the face of frustrations, to control impulse and delay gratification, to regulate one's moods and keep distress from swamping the ability to think, and to empathize and hope. According to Goleman, emotional behavior may be a greater factor in leadership effectiveness than mental intelligence. EQ (Emotional Intelligence) may be a more accurate predictor of leadership success than IQ (Intelligence Quotient), particularly as work is increasingly accomplished through groups and teams.
Goleman says that people with a high level of emotional intelligence are skillful in managing others. They know how to give criticism artfully, and they understand that leadership is not dominating, but persuading people to work toward a common goal. For example, in offering criticism, which is one of the most important and oft-dreaded tasks of management, high EQ leaders are skillful in focusing on specific information on what the person did well, what was done poorly, and how the action could be changed. Skilled EQ leaders offer a way to fix the problem rather than launch a personal attack that makes people defensive.
Attitudes for Successful Leadership
In addition to core components and skills and knowledge, success in the workplace is contingent on several attitudes that shape leadership behavior in the workplace.
• Commitment | The leadership author, Peter Drucker, says what matters most in the qualities of leadership is not the leader's charisma but the leader's commitment to the organizational mission. The mission defines why a school exists, often in lofty, abstract language. The job of the school head is to make the mission operational, and to constantly remind people of the organization's purpose. Drucker says that the first task of the leader is to make sure that everybody sees the mission, hears it, and lives it.
But missions are not static. As demographics change and society changes, the mission may need to be altered. Leaders need to involve their organizations in reviewing and revisiting the mission periodically to make sure that it is still viable over time.
• Continuous Improvement | Almost every independent school conference these days seems to dwell on the problem of change. Administrators lament that faculty cling to outdated practice, even in the face of contradictory research. For example, although we know the lecture method is one of the least effective instructional approaches, it remains one of the most prevalent methods. In The Human Side of School Change, Robert Evans does a skillful job of describing why people are resistant to change, explaining that change has both an emotional and cognitive dimension that makes people reluctant to give up familiar practices for an unknown alternative.
But Evans overlooks the major obstacle to change in independent schools — the absence of a sense of urgency. As John Kotter points out in Leading Change, in the face of strong enrollments, high acceptance rates into competitive colleges, and alumni/ae who return to offer accolades,it is hard for faculty to feel compelled to change. In the absence of a visible crisis, schools become complacent.
Heads of independent schools can work hard to effect a sense of urgency, or they can help to develop a culture that focuses on continuous growth. With some issues, such as the absence of ethnic diversity, an imperative for action may be appropriate, but for most issues it is simply unrealistic to create a sense of urgency. Independent school heads may be more successful if they encourage the habits of continuous improvement, regarding change as a learning process rather than a singular event. Leaders act as powerful role models when they exhibit continuous learning themselves. Heads of schools can encourage continuous learning by prompting faculty to ask the right questions. "How can we do this better or differently?" "Is that practice worth doing at all?" Continuous growth builds on experience but it also requires the ongoing infusion of provocative ideas and regularly scheduled time for groups of faculty to meet together to reflect on their work. Successful school leaders need to invest heavily in professional development and provide a school structure that allows for meaningful faculty interactions to occur.3
• Understanding Diversity | In former years, trustees and school heads attempted to minimize differences among faculty and among students to ensure ease of communication and comfort. That is no longer possible or desirable in a nation where one out of three children is a person of color. The practical benefits of diversity go beyond equity and social justice — diversity makes schools better equipped to prepare students for the world in which they will work and live.4
Most schools have made some headway in attracting a more diverse student body but leaders have to work harder to attract faculty of color to serve as role models, to bring new scholarly perspectives to the curriculum, and to provide a variety of perspectives to institutional decision making. Currently 27 percent of NAIS schools report no teachers of color on staff, and 17 percent have only one teacher of color on staff, so that the number of schools with one or fewer teachers of color comes to 44 percent. Leaders will need to take an active role in educating whole communities to the need for diversity — parents and board members, faculty and students. Effective leaders must be committed to addressing deep issues of race and class, which when left unaddressed weaken meaningful attempts at diversity. Leaders must be prepared to make people uncomfortable.5
• Intraorganizational Alliances | What little sharing occurs between independent schools is often motivated by cost reduction for such things as purchasing and insurance. Most professional communication is casual and often haphazard. Curriculum is seldom shared and schools often spend time and resources reinventing the wheel. Although independent schools pride themselves on their independence and distinctiveness, there is much that the schools have in common. Benno Schmidt, of the Edison Corporation, accused private schools of being cottage industries that are vestigial in nature, failing to test the educational approaches that work and those that do not, or to spend money improving teachers' skills.
Schmidt is right. Collectively, independent schools have not accepted responsibility for systematic research or training and there is little sharing of knowledge on successful practices. The Edison Project invested three years and $40 million in research and development, admittedly an amount which few schools could afford. However, thoughtful inquiry among groups of schools on what works and what doesn't, and on how educators and trustees should be trained, would not be prohibitively expensive and would contribute to educational advancement.
School leaders need to rid themselves of the cottage industry mindset, in which there is little collective sharing of effective ideas and practices. To be in the forefront of education, independent school leaders will need to encourage pooling resources to share knowledge of successful practices and to investigate problems and concerns of common interest.