Recently I read Michael Fullan’s The Principal: Three Keys To Maximizing Impact with several local administrators as part of a book study. This was an incredibly enlightening read and dialogue that has impact for all administrators, not just principals. Superintendents, Heads of Schools, and Directors should follow the key understandings and strategies that Fullan outlines here.
As Fullan typically does, he first sets the stage of the current state of affairs facing school leaders:
– Students in higher grades increasing disengaged
– Teacher and administrator satisfaction down significantly just since 2008 (administrators from 68-59%; teachers from 62-38%)
– Principals feeling their jobs have become to complex, requiring them to be accountability micro-managers trying to do too many things 1:1 with individual teachers and not having the time (and therefore not seeing the impact of) to focus on leading groups and connecting with the larger community with shared vision.
The result being what is found on this chart:
To flip this around, Fullan encourages us to look at the principal’s new role as a Leading Learner – learning alongside groups of teachers to explore what is best for students and using this collaborative learning as “motion leadership” causing positive motion forward. In this process, leaders need to focus on the drivers that have positive effect sizes and minimize or eliminate those that don’t. He states that the right drivers do 4 things.
- Foster intrinsic motivation
- Engage teachers and students in continuous improvement
- Inspire collective action or teamwork
- Affect all teachers and students
I so appreciate Fullan stating that by using the right drivers in the chart below, we collaboratively build capacity from the beginning by focusing on quality pedagogy and systems-wide strategies and solutions. He’s so right when he says, “It is far more important to pull humans than try to push them.” (Fullan, p. 28)
Fullan would encourage us, and I couldn’t agree more, to maximize our impact from instructional leadership by: (a) being specifically involved in instruction so that we are knowledgeable about its nature and importance; (b) resisting the micromanaging of one teacher at a time; (c) focusing on actions that will shape the culture of learning more powerfully; and (d) develop the professional capital of teachers as a group. This just makes good sense, and is largely what at my current school we are working on with our collaborative teacher feedback system that is directly connected to professional development and allows for choice in looking at exploring in groups with teachers and administrators the pedagogy and systemic practices that will have the greatest impact on student learning and positive, open school climate.
Fullan would term this as building Professional Capital which is a combination of:
Human Capital (“…the human resources and personnel dimension of the quality of the teachers in the school – their basic talents.” Fullan, p. 70) – Fostering Master Teachers
Social Capital (“…the quality and quantity of interactions and relationships among people. In a school, it affects teachers’ access to knowledge and information; their sense of expectation, obligation and trust; and their commitment to work together for a common cause.” Fullan, p. 70) – Building Collegiality
Decisional Capital (“…the resources of knowledge, intelligence, and energy that are required to put the human and social capital to effective use. It is basically the capacity to choose well and make good decisions.” Fullan, p. 70) – Quality, Focused, Shared Decision-Making
I believe that our job as leaders is to ensure that we maximize all 3. Without one of these, the system breaks down and will not foster a truly effective learning environment.
The other piece of Fullan’s book that I appreciated was his emphasis on encouraging leaders to be Change Agents. Looking for the most impactful things you can do as a leader to foster successful change? Look no further than these specific Change Competencies that Kirtman encourages us to focus on:
Fullan cites Amabile and Kramer’s 2011 research finding that people are most motivated, energized, and self-efficacious when they feel that they have overcome obstacles and made progress, even small steps of progress in their daily work.” (Fullan, p. 152) Even if we butt up against small failures, we need to give teachers, students, and community members the opportunity to have ownership and make successful, positive steps forward as this is what will give us – what Fullan calls – the positive “contagion” that will move us forward. How can we do this? Fullan basically says to do four things: remove obstacles, provide resources, support autonomy and group development, and call attention to progress through celebration. Can we do this? Absolutely. I look forward to utilizing these ideas in collaborating with other to maximize our collective impact now and in the future.
Michael Fullan speaking about the main points in The Principal: Three Keys To Maximizing Impact:
I highly recommend that you get with some colleagues in your area and do a book study to put Fullan’s strategies of being a Learning Leader, System Player, and Agent of Change to life. Once you purchase the book, a professional development training kit can be downloaded from www.wiley.com/go/theprincipal The password can be acquired from Fullan’s website, but please purchase the book before downloading out of respect for the author and publishers.
Resources:
Amabile, T., & Kramer, S. (2011). The Progess principle: Using Small Wins to Ignite Joy, Engagement, and Creativity at Work. Boston, MA: Harvard Business Review.
Fullan, M. (2014). The Principal: Three Keys to Maximizing Impact. San Francisco, CA: John Wiley & Sons.
Kirtman, L. (2013). Leadership and Teams: The Missing Piece of the Education Reform Puzzle. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education.
