A r c h i v e d  I n f o r m a t i o n

The Role of Leadership in Sustaining School Reform: Voices From the Field - July 1996

Vision and Values

According to participants, sustaining reform requires that educational leaders have a clear vision of the kind of school they want to have and operate consistently according to values and beliefs tied to that vision. These leaders seldom claim to have invented the vision or the underlying values and beliefs; instead, they perceive themselves to be "keepers of the dream." They embrace it whole-heartedly and make sure that everyone else does too. As one leader from Kentucky said:

Having a vision, knowing what your purpose is, is really important. When we started, it was a rocky road for us. The leaders knew what the school had to be, but a lot of people had baggage that made it hard to get there. Fortunately, some people had tenacity, commitment, and vision.

Developing and maintaining the vision challenges a leader's ability to determine how well what is happening matches reasonable expectations at a given stage of implementation. In addition, when faced with problems, effective leaders see multiple solutions that preserve the spirit of the vision. They find it important to study the nature of vision and recognize the stages of its development. A principal from Florida characterized one seductive diversion: "If you get too much into the minutiae, you lose touch with your mission." Keepers of the dream take a broad view of the school.

A collective, student-centered dream. Although the details of participants' visions varied, each put students squarely in the center. Said one New Hampshire principal, "Your mission statement has to be really simple. The focus has to be the kids." Strong leaders made a commitment to equity regarding both children and colleagues; that is, they supported visions growing out of convictions that all students can learn and all staff members can make a contribution to student learning if they choose to.

Most shared the sentiment of a California principal: "It has to be a collective vision; principals don't change schools by themselves. The principal is the wide-angle lens to keep the whole vision in view for the whole school." Furthermore, said a New Yorker, "the vision is crafted collaboratively, with generosity of spirit." There is not a signature attached to the vision; it belongs to everyone. Participants advocated building a sense of purpose in the whole staff and identifying a set of values central to the staff, parents, students, and community.

A Vision of Restructuring: The "Amen" Experience

I truly believe that an effective principal needs to be like an effective minister or pastor, with the capacity to inspire in others the sense of commitment and passion that will carry the change for the long haul. When the staff, like a congregation, comes to the collective and spontaneous "amen," that is a magical moment. Here is my story.

After three years of team building, sharing power and decision making, after struggling to find the right process to prepare the staff to move to each new level, along came Senate Bill 1274, the school restructuring grant program. For me this seemed like the right vehicle to use [to achieve our goals]. The staff was unsure at first, but I kept pushing, and final a cadre of staff went to the training workshop [to learn how to write a 1274 proposal].

They came back both inspired and frustrated: inspired by the possibilities and frustrated by the short timeline to put a proposal together. The staff as a whole decided to go for it, to come to consensus on a proposal that would turn our school upside down if implemented. In trying to craft the vision, the staff and I struggled with terms, philosophies, language, and more. A subcommittee gathered our thoughts, and went away to try to put them into some appropriate prose. They came back with one version, received response, then went away. I participated on the subcommittee and as a member of the staff.

Finally, the subcommittee came to the staff with a proposal that became the vision for the whole school. As they read the vision, there was this collective "yes!" like an "amen" at church. I had chills and tears, as did others. That vision, that passion burned in my soul and, I believe, in the souls of may (if not all) of those in that room that day. Now, three and one-half years later, that passion still burns at our school.

Maintaining fitness. As those whose role and responsibilities provide the most comprehensive view of "what is," its relation to "what may be," and the extent to which everyone is deciding and acting according to agreed-upon values, principals saw themselves often as the only ones who could see the big picture. Hence, they identified self-assessment as an important strategy to use in evaluating their own performance and progress. Critical reflection on one's own performance and on the performance of one's work group was seen to be a valuable asset in making school dreams come true. "I am the protector of the vision in the face of all kinds of external pressure," said one California principal; taking care of one's own integrity and preserving personal commitment are essential for coping with such pressure.

In the opinion of many, sustaining leaders cultivate particular qualities of character and use special skills to keep the school vision vital and responsive. Successful leadership comes from self-awareness, courage, patience, trust, wisdom, honesty, and openness, they said, and good leaders set about to acquire these qualities in a fairly deliberate way.

Realizing the dream obliges school community members to govern their own behavior by the values implicit in the new order. As one Pennsylvania principal put it, "Leaders have to facilitate the process of developing and defining a meaningful mission statement and putting it into practice." On the individual plane, according to forum participants, good leaders model the agreed-upon values, acting deliberately, with a positive, enthusiastic attitude. They try to be fair and consistent, to initiate rather than only react, to make connections across experiences, and to expect great things from everyone. They examine learning outcomes and organizational priorities according to the demands of the vision. Recognizing that respect for others must be predicated on respect for oneself--and that self-respect is a resource that requires constant renewal--they make time to take care of themselves, personally and professionally. However, they avoid acting as if achieving their school's vision is a way to get a ticket punched on the way to better things.

Helping coworkers adopt the values implicit in the vision is another key leadership behavior. Telling the story of one school's reform, a Maine principal reported that "staff looked at our own value system as professional educators and came to ourcore beliefsby consensus. The faculty motto was: 'We are all in this together.'" Once the values are identified, good leaders act on them. This includes helping everyone feel they belong--parents, staff, and community members with an interest in the school's vision. As plans evolve and new activities develop, leaders guide others in finding ways to use individual talents, balancing individual needs with the needs of the whole school. While keeping people focused on the vision, leaders who sustain reform affirm progress and celebrate success.

One irony that participants mentioned often concerned the fundamental ambiguity of some aspects of change. Said one, "As visionaries, we don't know what it's going to look like in the end." To go where no one has gone before is ultimately to be surprised in one way or another, no matter how well you have done your homework. As much as they know that schools need some kind of stability to get from one day, month, and year to the next, leaders who are successful change agents are ruefully conscious that they cannot predict where they will end up.
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