4 Inclusive leadership with others
It is perhaps unnecessary to point out that leadership is about working with others. However, as with the teacher in figure 1, some might struggle with the notion that this means it is about politics. Is it fair, as stated in the last section, to suggest that making long and short term decisions, about such things as resources, which directly impact on children and their families is fundamentally political? After all, many practitioners and school leaders, would suggest that their priority is about building relationships and being supportive of others. They may struggle with the advice given to school leaders by the Chief Executive of the Royal School for Deaf Children, at the National Association of Specialist Education Colleges to:
- get in at the start of projects
- liaise at the top of organisations
- be shrewd
- consider issues of competition
- think strategically
- ‘be a politician!’ (Rix, 2015)
But when we step back from the notion of politics as a party-political process, and instead recognise that it is a process of ‘world-making’ that arises through ‘critique, disagreement, difference, and conflict’ (Postero & Elinoff, 2019), then it is easier to accept that any decision we make about a child, family, colleague or institution is political. It will affect their world, it will involve negotiating potential disagreements, whilst working with different views and the risk of conflict. It is not unreasonable to expect the leader to critically reflect upon a wide range of issues in this context. Consider, for example, a couple of studies of Israeli school leaders. In one study, it was clear that school leaders deliberately created time and space to build interpersonal relationships with staff, which they saw as particularly valuable when seeking to transform multiple deeply rooted aspects of an institution (Friedman & Berkovich, 2020); whilst in a second study of school leadership teams, the heads rewarded supporters by placing them in formal leadership roles (which ensured a core of support), whilst placing adversaries in sligthly lesser positions within the management team (which ensured they were close enough to control – Berkovich, 2020).
Activity 7 Thinking about the politics of all this
Spend some time thinking about the component parts of a political system and how these might be reflected in schools that you know. Kamecka-Antczak (2020) suggests that a political system involves:
- an interdependent community, made up of groups of similar and contrary interests
- organisations, which through execution of influence and the acquisition and exercising of power represent the interests of these groups
- institutions having tools of persuasion, compulsion and power
- formal standards and customs governing mutual relations and component parts, ideologies and strategies
- membership of international institutions and other organisations
Now make notes about:
- examples of each of these 5 components of political systems as they function in a school context
- the ways in which school leaders by engaging with these 5 components are involved in ‘critique, disagreement, difference, and conflict’.
Discussion
School communities are composed of groups with similar and contrary interests, including pupil groups, parents, subject areas, types of support role, and leadership teams. These groups have formal structures that give them influence and power, such as governing bodies, school councils, class councils, parent associations, subject departments and local authority administrations. They have various institutional functions, with differing capacities to persuade people and make demands on them. Issues such as appointments to roles, line management and promotion are all examples of this, but so too are decisions about curriculum and the provision of additional or special education. All of these are also linked to externally determined norms, regulations, codes of practice and legal acts, and also to a national curriculum, exam boards and funding structures. Schools are situated within the wider community too. They are affected by commitments to such things as children’s rights, pupil exchange programmes or national volunteer services.
These different aspects of the political system are not isolated from each other, of course. For instance, a study in Holland suggested that a benefit for school leaders of being closely involved in collaborations with other schools, was that they were more likely to be approached for advice from their own staff (Moolenaar & Sleegers, 2015). Similarly, working closely with local district administrative leaders can assist head teachers in their relationships with families and communities (Epstein et al, 2011). The interweaving nature of structures, process and their underlying values, means there is always a challenge in relation to balancing priorities. Woodrow & Busch (2008), for instance, provide a couple of examples of how different sets of values can create difficulties for leaders and compromise their intentions. Firstly, an early years leader who fines a very supportive parent for picking up their child late, because she believed that all parents had to be treated the same; and secondly a school leader who chose not to challenge a child’s assertion that you had to be married to have children to avoid upsetting the girl’s mother who worked at the setting. The researchers suggest that the institution’s commitment to (and understanding of) an ethic of care undermined their pedagogical leadership in the curriculum context.
It is against this complex background that senior leaders in schools need to be ‘courageous in their conversations’ (Setlhodi, 2020). If they wish to develop and sustain cooperation across boundaries, they need to involve people from the school community in dialogue about plans and intentions, sharing ideas as part of everyday conversations. This approach is clear in a case study of a principal in the United States, who had a record of success in leading change efforts and developing inclusive schooling (Hoppey & McLeskey, 2013). This principal was focussed upon relationships with the teachers. He displayed trust in them, listened to their ideas and concerns, and sought to treat them fairly.
‘I think my teachers or my big people need to believe that I believe in them and I’m invested in their success. Not just because I want them to be happy, [but] because if they are happy, then there is a better chance that they will be professionally successful.’ (p. 249)
The researchers give examples of the principle doing this: for instance, he invests in software that staff suggest; he pays for them to go to a conference they say will help them support students; and because he believes trust is reciprocal he institutes an annual vote of confidence in his leadership.
This principal wanted to get to know the staff and what was important in their lives. He wanted them to feel supported. Consequently, he often worked with his door open and ensured that he did not have a full diary so that he could informally meet with people for the majority of the school day. He had a belief that he needed to be available for anyone to bounce ideas off him. He liked to listen too, for a long time, before joining in, often with a question.
‘If you want to know what’s important in an organisation, just walk around and listen to what people talk about and that’s what’s important…If people are never talking about school, then that says something. If people are talking about kids, that says a whole lot about the school’. (p. 249)