Resolving hierarchy in a flattening world
Today’s educational leaders are required, out of necessity, to operate in with a distributed, shared leadership style. I believe this is an appropriate leadership approach because we cannot and should not have to do our work alone. This is also in line with current educational research which indicates that the two factors that have the most profound effect on student learning are teacher instruction and principal leadership. The thing that I am wrestling with is how do we expand this flatter, less hierarchical approach to leadership to the division office and beyond that to the ministry? Accountability contracts/continuous improvement frameworks . . . these top-down rather inflexible means for “ensuring” accountability are the reality of the environment in which we work. Can the two approaches live together harmoniously? Does anyone have experience with implementing distributed approaches to supporting accountability frameworks? What have you done? What doesn’t? What would you like to try, but have not? Thoughts?
