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The Contemporary Context of Educational Change Essay If there ever was a time in which schools could operate in isolation, that time has long since vanished. There are now many actors and players who would like their say in shaping what is taught, to whom, and how, and who want to take a lead on the education stage. Some will have greater authenticity than others, but none will be capable to lead on their own. The leadership tapestry is multifaceted, rich and ever changing. Leadership is more than a role-based function assigned to, or attained by one person in an organization who uses his or her power to influence the actions of others. It extends beyond the instantaneous school community, embracing those numerous actors on the wider leadership stage—governments, trade unions, school districts and businesses—recognizing the diverse roles which they play. Orton, J. and Weick, K. E. (1990)description of educational organizations as â€Å"loosely coupled systems â€Å"is a third image of the university that still captures the frustrations of deans and college and university presidents who often describe managing change in higher education as â€Å"herding cats†. School leadership is a way of influencing others through communication. Yet it took half a century before researchers stopped up looking at the traits of leaders and began to think concerning the leadership situation itself. Since then a lot of work has been done on how people become leaders as well as how they can best influence followers, how they can develop teacher and student morale, and how they can better the performances of staff members as well as the children they serve. A recent survey of the research agreed on these points: 1. Leadership is not domination or compulsion of others but the encouragement of efforts to achieve communal goals; and 2. Leadership promotes change but it can also oppose change when it feels itself susceptible (G. Egan, 1990, pp. 48-49). The idea of leadership as a network of relationships amongst people, structures and cultures, both within, and across organizational boundaries has been re-affirmed. The numerous actors are drawn together in quest of the education reform agenda: an agenda that has focused to a great extent on schools. Increasingly, governments of different persuasions have shared the belief that the macro-problems of the state and society can be addressed through improving the micro-efficiency of the school. As a consequence, schools have been assigned the task of righting a range of social and economic ills—a role which numerous would argue is beyond the capability of schools to achieve. â€Å"Rising national expectations about schools have been accompanied by reduced teacher autonomy and increasing demands for higher performance—of teachers, as well as of pupils† (MacBeath, Moos and Riley 1996, 223-50). One of the fundamental areas of agreement between researchers who have investigated educational change concerns the powerful impact of head teachers on processes related to school effectiveness and school improvement. Research identifies consistently that those schools which have demonstrated the capacity to improve themselves, tend to be led by head teachers who have made a significant contribution to the effectiveness of their staff. â€Å"Whatever else is disputed about this complex area of activity known as school improvement, the centrality of leadership in the achievement of school level change remains unequivocal† (West Jackson 2001). This should not surprise us—â€Å"it is now more than twenty years since leadership was identified as one of the key components of ‘good schools’ by Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Schools in England. HMI stated that without exception, the most important single factor in the success of these schools is the quality of the leadership of the head† (DES 1977:36). In particular, the local management of schools has resulted in the head teacher becoming a manager of systems and budgets as well as a leader of colleagues. In addition, the increasingly competitive environment in which schools operate has placed a much greater emphasis upon the need to raise standards and to improve school outcomes. One of the major growth areas of the burgeoning management development field has been head teacher training. While much of this training has been narrowly focused and competency driven, it has nonetheless, reinforced the centrality of the head’s role in leading school development and improvement. This broadening of interest in, and understanding of, the head’s leadership role parallels the pattern of development of leadership theory generally. In the UK the adoption of local management of schools has come from a belief in the relationship between decentralization and enhanced school effectiveness. In particular, the shift towards the self-management of schools has been premised upon the assumption that management decisions are more likely to be effective if they are located within the institution. This emphasis upon ‘self-management’ has been welcomed by many head teachers, primarily because of the possibility it offers for increased control over policies and resources and expanded scope for leadership. â€Å"Management is therefore developing as a significant challenge to improve organizations and has become a key concern of many† (De Long Seeman 2000:33) What starts as freedom to move around budget items and resources, to alter and to develop new priorities, inevitably brings with it new staff management issues. Indeed, it may well be that it is not the technical skills of financial or resource management that we have to assimilate, but the rather more complex interpersonal skills needed to create support for new priorities amongst the staff group. â€Å"There are also evaluating acts, which measure staff decisions or accomplishments against organizational goals and standards. And finally, there is the diagnostic function, which seeks to point out sources of difficulties, problems that need to be resolved, and the steps that need to be taken to resolve them†. (Robert G. Owens, 2004, pp. 176-182). It is here, in the implementation of interpersonal skills in times of difficulty, as well as times of growth, that the leadership individuality of the head teacher will be tested. It may be that the current prominence within head teacher training focuses too much on the technical competencies of management, and not enough on the personal and interpersonal qualities that are expected to be needed as schools take increased accountability for improving themselves. Similarly, this focus on the relationship between leaders and work groups and the ways in which the leader can extend and harness the relationship has been replicated in the development of leadership theory usually—it is not a ‘school’ issue as such. â€Å"It has been widely argued that complex and dynamic changes, such as the ‘cultural’ changes that are required for sustained school improvement, are less likely to occur as a result of transactional leadership† (Burns 1978, Caldwell 1999). A model of leadership more similar with the requirement of cultural change is that of transformational leadership. This approach of leadership focuses on the people involved and their relationships, and needs an approach that seeks to change feelings, attitudes and beliefs. Transformational leaders not simply manage structure, but they resolutely seek to impact upon the culture of the school so as to change it. It has been argued that cultural transformation and all the related complexities that surround school-based change are at the core of school improvement. Consequently, both supposedly and conceptually, transformational leadership would emerge to be consistent with a desire to bring concerning school improvement, rather than just ‘change’ the school. Of course, while the centrality of leadership in this school improvement process is unquestionable, there is a matter over who the ‘leaders’ are in the interest of improvement efforts. There is a rising research literature that points towards the importance of leadership at all levels within the organization. For instance, the leadership role of what might be termed ‘middle managers’ has been recognized as important, for example, in explaining differential school effectiveness (Sammons et al. 1996; Harris et al. 1995). Likewise, there are increasing calls for and recognition of a leadership role for teachers in the context of their own areas of direct accountability. Yet there is some research evidence that suggests that there is an ever-growing segregate between ‘leaders’ and ‘followers’ as a consequence of the changes arising from the self-governance of schools (Wallace and Hall 1994). The strong managerially culture obvious in some schools has resistant the separateness of the senior management team and has claimed leadership as an activity for the few, rather than the many. Schools committed to continuous improvement found that such schools feel constrained by this formulation of leadership as a function of hierarchy and are moving beyond it. Instead, these schools enlarge both leadership and ‘followership’ as generally based functions within the culture of the school. Hopkins et al. 1994 noted that a school that looks to the head teacher as the sole source of direction and inspiration is relentlessly constrained in its development capacity. Yet school structures often support this rather limited view, imposing a hierarchy of roles over the real sharing of knowledge and skills. Most often linked with school improvement. In practice, this means that head teachers give others real authority and assist them to extend to be able to use this authority prudently. This means giving up the idea of structure as control, and viewing structure as the vehicle for authorizing others. But it is not easy to give up control. Even when goals are agreed, it is not all the time easy to trust others to use their own knowledge and skills to take change about. Yet trust is critical to support the leadership climate. The transformational approach is stranded in trust: â€Å"Trust is the essential link between leaders and led, vital to people’s job, status functions and loyalty, vital to fellowship. It is doubly important when organizations are reaching rapid improvement, which requires exceptional effort and competence, and doubly so again in organizations like schools that offer few motivators†. (Evans 1998:183) Labaree (1997) described the educational goals of democratic equality and social mobility as conflicting because they represent competing visions of education and the structure of education. He defined democratic equality as an ideological tradition â€Å"that sees schools as an expression of democratic political ideals and as a mechanism for preparing children to play constructive roles in democratic society† (p. 43). As he explained further, the pursuit of equal access, whereby everyone â€Å"should have an equal opportunity to acquire an education at any educational level† (p. 46), is one form of this goal. This goal has made attending a postsecondary education institution a norm, rather than an exception, for high school graduates. The result, Labaree argued, has been tremendous public funding support designed to open up all levels of education to everyone. Institutional ramifications include â€Å"the proliferation of programs and courses, the search for ways to improve pedagogical efficiency, the concern about enhancing administrative control, and the stress on fiscal parsimony† (p. 46). In contrast, Labaree (1997) defined the social mobility goal as providing â€Å"students with the educational credentials they need in order to get ahead in [the existing socioeconomic] structure† (p. 50). He saw this as an individual goal, rather than a collective goal, like democratic equality, because social mobility emphasizes â€Å"individual status attainment rather than the production of human capital† (p. 51, emphasis in the original). He saw the tension between equal access and social mobility as â€Å"providing an unlimited possibility for education attainment† (p. 69) so long as there is a â€Å"pyramid-shaped occupational structure† (p. 69). Social equity arguments for postsecondary education attainment combine the goals of access and of mobility, despite their apparent conflict. Labaree (1997) acknowledged that these two goals are expressed in â€Å"the market for educational credentials† (p. 71). Within school improvement it is often proposed that cultural transform (which supports new teacher collaborations, new teaching as well as learning processes that, in turn, lead to enhanced outcomes for students) desires to be a central focus of leadership studies. The types of school cultures most helpful of school improvement efforts appear to be those that are mutual, have high expectations for both students and staff, that show a consensus on values, that hold a secure environment and those which persuade all teachers to presume leadership roles suitable to their experience (Hallinger and Leithwood, 1996). In summary, the role of leadership in school improvement is to take about cultural change by altering the processes which occur within the structure and not inevitably to affect the structure itself. Work Cited Burns, J M, 1978, Leadership, New York, Harper and Row Caldwell, B J, 1999, Reinventing School Leadership for Lasting Reform in the Third Millennium. In The Life and Work of Teachers in Changing Times: International Perspectives, Day, C, Fernandez, T, Hague, T Moller, J (eds), London, Falmer Press De Long, D. and Seemann, P. (2000). Confronting conceptual confusion