![[Table of Contents]](/icons/up.gif){kind=icon}
When I arrived at City High School, the chair of the English department was the resident scoffer. Arms folded, eyes glazed, poised with car keys in hand, he endured staff meetings. On good days, he graded papers. I began to ask his opinion and demonstrated that I valued it. I asked him to serve in a major leadership role in school strategic planning, insisted that the make the final decision among two candidates for a job in his department, and begged him to chair a long-term study group. That was over a period of three years.By the middle of the second year, he was asking for help to use the computers and other high-tech equipment he had scorned the year before. He began to shame others into learning about it. A confirmed college-prep teacher, he took an interest in at-risk students and insisted that others attend student support team meetings on their behalf. This year, he responded to a need identified in the long-term study and organized an ethnic literature course with at-risk students in mind; he now claims this as his favorite class. With others in his department, he has proposed new graduation requirements, which they see as a need identified by citizens in our community. He is agonizing over catching two top students who were cheating, when that may have brought him vindictive pleasure for years ago.
None of these changes were mandated for him in a professional development plan. He found a place of worth among his peers, and he discovered that the administration wanted to hear--and act on--his opinion. He blossomed when he was valued, trusted, urged, but never pushed too quickly or shamed for his poor attitude.
High School Principal
Mid-Atlantic State
Many empowering traits fall into this category, to the extent that they can be understood to mean "giving voice" to others or making room for multiple agendas. Dimensions that involve actual partnerships with outsiders or between departments are also included. Effective leaders do not simply aim to change or educate people--they try to understand people's motivation and goals and encourage their inclinations to be actively and responsibly engaged. Effective leaders promote a total team effort, involving staff, families, and communities in support of students' learning.
As a result of this rare ability to really hear others, successful leaders keep reform vital by making adjustments that are responsive to a great variety of interests and concerns, without losing track of the common agenda. Partnerships emerge because stakeholders see the bit that they promoted become part of the whole; they claim their share of the work cheerfully, because it gives expression to their own sense of what is right for a school to do. Leaders do not prevail by being wishy-washy. On the contrary, they remain fixed on the vision. However, their capacity to integrate different ideas into a coherent program provides others with attractive opportunities to become active school boosters.
Leadership skills and activities that engage partners and make harmony of many voices may be sorted into three general categories:
Listening to and understanding others. Put simply by a Kentucky principal, "A good leader recognizes how to include everyone." Empathy and perceptiveness reveal how best to approach others, while openness and patience encourage them to take the initiative when necessary. Effective communication skills forge bonds, nurture relationships, and inform attempts to mediate. Staff and community members equally benefit from the leader's skills in this area.
Explaining the success of shared decision making at one school, a participant from Maine commented, "Teachers bought into the process because of the principal's willingness to listen and to be challenged without getting defensive." A Kentucky principal claimed, "In six years, one good idea came from me. Most of the good ideas I get come from teachers."
Being active listeners, recognizing concerns, and creating a climate of honesty keep school leaders in tune with the way other staff members feel about the school program. Furthermore, these behaviors generate an encompassing perspective on current events and a deep pool of ideas for solving problems.
Participants often credited their good relationships with parents and community members to this propensity to listen well and offer opportunities for those outside the school to provide input on school reform. One Kentucky principal arranged a schedule with his faculty so that at least twice a year every family received a personal telephone call from him and the staff, updating news of their children's accomplishments. A colleague in the state told the story of a principal who annually "organized a `get to know' party, with teachers serving punch and refreshments in the five housing projects [that were home to most of the students]. Principals have to believe parents can make a difference, that they are wanted and valued, and principals convey this by what they say or do." This concept is so important that the United States Secretary of Education has formed a Partnership for Family Involvement in Education.
The Partnership for Family Involvement in Education is a grassroots coalition of more than 650 national education, parent, community, and religious organizations, schools, and employers. Launched by U.S. Secretary of Education Richard W. Riley in September 1994, the partnership supports the idea that education is everybody's business through two long-term activities: "America Goes Back to School," and "READ*WRITE*NOW!" Information and materials are available by calling 1-800-USA-LEARN or visiting www.ed.gov on the Internet.
According to forum participants, a successful long-term reformer does not just roost quietly in the school office listening to those who drop in to chat (although that is a key aspect of leadership). In addition, the reformer takes his or her "ear" on the road, seeking out the voices whose combined messages create a complete view of problems and solutions that can be addressed by the school program.
Empowering others through recognition and acceptance. While participants recognized that being good listeners provided them with valuable insights, they also knew that listening is a means of empowering others. Social institutions as large and complex as schools can render some people virtually invisible and mute their distinctive voices. Confusion about how the system works, lack of formal education or proficiency in English, or a perceived lack of relative social status may cause some parents and community members to feel that their concerns and questions are not important. The sound and the size of politically or economically mighty members of a community might overshadow others. Sustaining reform demands that leaders recognize the legitimacy of everyone's concerns and the value of everyone's resources. In the words of a Floridian, "You keep others involved by letting them know that they are valued. . . both as human beings and as resources. Let them know that their opinions matter." A Californian commented that "parents have a lot of voice, and I feel protected by that."
In addition to listening, participants recommended other strategies for learning how others feel. "You need to be able to see things in your students' eyes and in your teachers' eyes," said one Kansan. Climate is key, said a principal from Virginia; it "should support honest, open, and direct relationships among staff."
Empowerment may cut two ways: most participants noted that an ongoing part of their work was cultivating the support of those with political clout. Adding new constituencies from previously disenfranchised groups in the community is bound to make it harder to gain consensus around key issues. However, elevating the level of complexity in this way was not viewed as a negative development. One hardworking innovator in a multilingual California community seemed to relish the work; she claimed, "The political task of winning trust is exciting."
The term "empowerment" came up again and again in these conversations with experts, each time with a different nuance of meaning set by the context. In this report, three dimensions of empowerment are described. First is the power engendered by being heard, speaking in one's own voice, which is described in this section. Leaders who sustain reform solicit the input of many voices. Second is the power that comes from being knowledgeable in area of common concern, discussed in the section about "Knowledge and Daring." Long-term leaders promote learning among all members of the school community as the foundation of risk taking. Third is the power that comes from having institutional authority, which is described in the section on "Savvy and Persistence." Effective leaders distribute both authority and responsibility through out the community.
Taking advantage of diversity. Successful long-term leaders viewed diversity as a resource, and they acquired the knowledge and skill needed to take advantage of it. As a Georgia principal stated, "You must be able to recognize the strengths of others and utilize them for the good of the organization." Participants used the language of a dozen different "typing" systems to characterize useable differences among the children and adults with whom they worked. "That teacher was a visual learner," one would say and go on to tell a story demonstrating a good way to make a point with that person. "This part of the community was very tight-knit," said another and gave an example of how to make the most of existing communication networks. Personality types, learning styles, levels and kinds of giftedness, cultural and ethnic differences, approaches to instruction, outside interests--all of these were mentioned as potential resources for some collective activity.
Mirroring teachers' concern with offering students individually challenging and engaging instruction was participants' concern with capitalizing on variations among faculty and community members for the benefit of their common work. Creating work groups with the right "chemistry" and providing assignments well-matched with teachers' interests and gifts were expressions of leaders' attention to boosting effort and stability by taking individual differences into account. Developing partnerships based on accurate perceptions of the interests and abilities of all relevant members of the school community is one cornerstone of long-term leadership success, according to many forum participants. These partnerships create the conversations that generate shared visions of great schools and adoption of the common values necessary to develop such schools.
-###-
[Vision and Values]