Leadership Unlocked: Professor Alma Harris

System Leadership - The Power and Potential of Leadership Within, Between and Across the System

Leadership Unlocked 4 th November National Academy for Educational Leadership Wales Professor Dr. Alma Harris @almaharris1

There are two things that people complain about • 1. The way things are • 2. Change

Around the Globe

So much reform, so little change

Why? Why Educational Reform Fails Convoluted Policies

Distractions

Change fatigue

Bad Timing

Zero buy in

Limited Capacity No Implementation Process

Distractions -PISA

Singapore

• ‘We have been winning the wrong race’

Successful Education Systems Focus on the right things not just the latest things

EXCELLENCE THROUGH EQUITY

THESE ARE THE HALLMARKS OF OUR BEST SCHOOLS AND SYSTEMS

Capacity Building

Professional Learning

Right Drivers (Fullan, 2010)

Teacher Informed Change

Leadership

‘Policy Learning not Policy Borrowing’

• Good things are happening in all education systems, somewhere.

• The real challenge is to locate it, build upon it and make it system wide.

• System leadership within, between and across the system, under the right conditions, can support this scale up.

Leadership Matters •Kenneth Leithwood, Alma Harris & David Hopkins (2020) Seven strong claims about successful school leadership revisited, School Leadership & Management, 40:1, 522, DOI: 10.1080/13632434.2019.1596077

‘School Leadership is second only to classroom teaching as an influence on student learning’.

Leadership is the key to school and system transfomation

Leadership -What We Know

Collaborative, Connected and Collective leadership is a powerful lever for change

System leadership in inherently disruptive

System Leadership- According to the Evidence

Process

A Starting Point System leaders are catalysts for change and innovation.

System Leadership is the practice of mobilising change within the system (or parts of it) Leaders in the system are not necessarily system leaders

Macro Level

A macro focus emphasises the collective impact of system leaders/ship to change, transform or improve the system.

At the macro level, system leaders/ship is presented as broad set of expectations and leadership practices focused on change and improvement at scale.

Where education systems, and sub-systems (i.e. district, municipality) have embraced (or are embracing) system leaders/ship, it is viewed as a way of leveraging school/system transformation and improvement.

Micro level interpretations of system leaders/ship focus on the functions of individual system leaders within a context or setting.

Micro Level System leadership requires lateral engagement and agency

Can anyone be a system leader?

a) advocacy

d) change agentry

g) improvement

b) activism

c) facilitation

These functions are not mutually exclusive and vary from system to system.

System Leadership in Different Contexts

Singapore

England

Canada

Scotland

System Leadership Requires • Clear model of engagement • Clarity about purpose • Buy-in • Quick wins • Impact measures from the start

Conditions for System Leadership • • • • •

Authentic collaboration Strong Relationships Shared language Trust Collective rewards

Silos and Sinkholes

Boundary management

Barriers to system leadership

Fear and mistrust

Vested interests

System Leadership

•Is distributed wisely and widely within, between and across the system.

System Leadership

The practice of leadership – matters more than the who of leadership Connections and relationships that build new leadership capacity within, between and across the system

Simply working together does not guarantee any change or improvement in leadership, professional practice or pedagogy.

For this to occur, the conditions for collaborative learning and the evaluation of impact need to be firmly in place.

System Leadership = Collaboration

System Leadership within, between and across the system

•

Fundamental rethink of leadership development and leadership career stages

•

Radical departure from tired and increasingly irrelevant leadership CPD

•

Release of those with potential to lead (within, between and across) the system based on their ability to connect and to be a catalyst for developing something new.

•

System leaders do not have a job description

•

Leadership agency over formal position or role

•

Leadership without Ego

System Leadership • Involves connecting parts of the system that were not connected before.

• Investing in lateral leadership within, between and across the system that creates the capacity for change.

Ask Yourself • Am I a System Leader?

• How am I developing system leaders?

• How am I supporting them?

• What opportunities am I providing?

• How far am I a catalyst for change beyond my institution?

Thankyou @almaharris1