School Leaders, Crisis Management and Putting Out Fires - what can be done?

In a recent DfE (2018) report senior leaders described their role as ‘akin to ‘crisis’ management much of the time:’ (p21).  My intention is this post is to help senior leaders develop and implement a set of principles which can help prevent most crises and reduce the time senior leaders spend ‘fire-fighting’.  To help do this I am going to draw up work of Bohn (2000) who identifies a set of circumstances when ‘fire-fighting’ has become chronic within an organisation.  Bohn then goes on to provide a model of fire-fighting  and suggests three methods for reducing the amount of firefighting within an organisation.

Are you working in an organisation where ‘fire-fighting’ has become the norm?

Bohn suggests that you are working in an organisation where ‘fire-fighting’ has become the norm if you are the victim of three of the following elements

• There is not enough time to solve problems
• Solutions are incomplete
• Problems recur and cascade
• Urgency supersedes importance
• Many problems become crises
• Performance drops 

Before looking at how to prevent ‘fires’ I’m going to look at a simple model which shows the effects of fire-fighting syndrome.

The effects of fire-fighting syndrome - amended form Bohn 

The consequence of this model is that firms/schools are trying to solve more problems than they have resources to deal with.  Sometimes this leads to minor problems being put to one side or it can consume an organisation’s (school) resources and lead to some of the organisation’s (school’s) best problem leaving through say frustration and burn out. 

  

How to  prevent fires?

Bohn argues that instead of putting a place ‘quick fixes’ leaders and managers should focus on three specific and systematic methods.

Method	Sub-method	Description
Tactical	Add temporary problem solvers	If possible draft in resources (people) to try and address the issue
	Shut down operations	Can an activity be shut down to give time to fix the problem
	Perform triage	Admit that some problems won’t be solved for a while and commit resources to those that are important and can be solved
Strategic	Change design strategies	Try and come up with generic approaches to new development can be used in multiple circumstances and types of issues
	Solve classes of problems	Look for groups that can be solved together – rather than individual diverse problems
	Use learning lines	When running ‘pilot’ projects don’t set up special groups with additional resources, try and implement within a normal situation
	Develop more problem solvers	Get more people involved in solving problems
Cultural	Don’t tolerate patching	Leaders must focus and support real permanent solutions rather than look for the quick fix
	Don’t push to meet deadlines at all costs	Can you be flexible on deadlines -measure projects by looking at outstanding issues and problems
	Don’t reward fire-fighting	Identify and support those colleagues who are good at preventing fires and engage in long-term problem solving.  Don’t give prominence to those colleagues who are constantly putting out fires

And finally

Although it's never easy to move from a fire-fighting mode to an approach which is more proactive - it's only ever going to get done if leaders begin to prioritise resources to address underlying issues - rather than constantly responding with a quick-fix.  Although school leaders may not be able to choose the external or internal pressures that create crises, school leaders can choose how they are going to respond and whether these problems are resolved or just swept under the carpet.

References

Bohn, R. (2000). Stop Fighting Fires. Harvard Business Review. 78. 4. 82-91.

DfE. (2018). Exploring Teacher Workload: Qualitative Research Report: March 2018. London. Department for Education

Expert leadership, headteachers and multi-academy trusts

In this week’s post I will examine whether the chief executive officers of multi-academy trusts should previously been the headteacher of a school.   To help do this I’m going to use the work Goodall (2016) and Goodall and Bäker (2015) on how expert leadership and technical competence has been shown in many settings to be connected with better organisational performance.  I’ll then go onto amend Goodall and Baker’s model of expert leadership for use in schools and multi-academy trusts.   Finally, I’ll consider the implications of the model for the appointment of chief executives of multi-academy trusts.

Expert leadership and organisational performance - evidence from hospitals and universities

Goodall (2016) identifies a number of settings – hospitals and universities – where studies have shown that there is a correlation between the ‘expert knowledge’ of the leader and organisational performance.  For example, in hospitals the presence of a physician chief executive as opposed to a professional manager was associated with 25% higher quality scores.  Although interestingly nurse leaders as chief executives were statistically indistinguishable from professional managers.  In universities research also suggests that the most respected scholars lead the best universities with the quality of the research quality of those universities improving in subsequent years.

As such, these and other studies indicate there is a strong relationship between a leader’s knowledge and expertise in its’ core business activity.  In this next section, I will explore Goodall and Baker’s theory of expert leadership which seeks to explain why expert leadership may be linked with improved organisational performance

A theory of expert leadership

Figure 1 illustrates Good and Baker’s theory of expert leadership and how expert leaders transfer their influence. In particular how ‘experts’ compared to 'generalists' influence organisational performance by decision-making and the signalling of their expertise to internal and external stakeholders.
  

Decisions and actions

Goodall notes that there are three aspects of the model which potentially explain the performance difference between 'expert leaders' and professional managers.

Knowledge-based strategy This can be conceived as being directly influences by expert leadership - as the knowledge gained through the experience of being a headteacher.  As such, strategic choices are likely to be informed by the need to be put the needs of the pupil first.  The priorities of the expert leader/headteacher are in all likelihood going to be different from the professional manager.  In addition, expert leaders are likely to have engaged deeply with colleagues, pupils, and parents, which will inform operational and strategic choices.

Manage the work environment for employees - Expert leaders/headteachers, will invariably have come up with 'through the ranks' and experienced the day to day working conditions of teachers.  They will all  understand teachers professional cultures and values far more deeply than non-experts and professional managers.  This means that working conditions - such as performance appraisal systems, goal-setting and support of teachers is far more likely to be associated with teacher well-being.  They will also have a greater understanding of performance indicators - be they formal and non-formal - which suggest changes in underlying performance.

Hiring behaviour - It becomes much easier to hire 'talent' if the expert leader has already met the standard set by the organisations.  All other things being equal outstanding expert leaders may be more likely to recruit other outstanding individuals.

Expertise as a signal

Goodall again notes three aspects of how expertise as a signal may directly or indirectly impact on organisational performance.

Signalling credibility to current employees - expert leaders and are more likely to command respect because of their track record of success as a headteacher and the business of teaching and learning.

Signals credibility and strategic priorities to potential employees - as the external reputation of the expert leader may be one of the few bits of information that a potential employee may be able to pick-up about the organisation

Credible to stakeholders - finally the board of a multi-academy trust may wish to appoint a noted expert as way of signalling to stakeholders and others


Some initial observations about the theory of expert leadership

First, measuring the impact of increases in expert leadership on organisational performance is a complex issue, which illustrated by the work of Simkins, Coldwell, et al. (2009) on the impact of leadership development programmes ( proxy for expert leadership)  on student outcomes  and who state:

• outcomes are complex, difficult to specify in simple terms and may include unintended or unexpected consequences (both positive and negative) as well as intended ones …
• the most important effects are indirect, occurring through the leaders’ influence on others who, in turn, can influence desired final school outcomes;
• these effects do not occur instantaneously – it takes time for learning to become embedded in changed behaviour, for leaders’ influence processes to have effects on others, and for these changes to impact on teaching and learning and hence on pupil outcomes; p36

Second, if one of the main mechanisms expert leaders have on organisational is strategic choices, then this will require professional judgment.  However, as Duke (2018) notices very little attention has been paid to how and if educational leaders can be trained to develop the quality of their professional judgment.  This is an issue that I will turn to in future posts.

Third, it is important to be aware of the difference between the rhetoric and the reality of being credible to stakeholder.  Leaders may come across as being expert, may be able to argue persuasively and passionately for their vision and strategic priorities and convince stakeholders and others of the veracity of their views.  That said, there are plenty of examples to be had of so-called expert leaders wearing the emperor’s new clothes.  Where so called style and charisma has hidden deep and profound flaws in expert leadership.

Four, remember it's not enough be an expert leader it is essential to be a highly effective manager - who is able to do 'nuts and bolts' tasks associated with management.  Indeed, it maybe this 'professional'  competence which creates the conditions for the expert leaders to flourish.  It could be argued that schools themselves provide far too many examples of where headteacher expert leadership - without this basic managerial competence - has led to schools not fulfilling their potential.

Five, it is worth remembering that although leadership - as Leithwood, Harris, & Hopkins (2008) is second only to classroom teaching as a school level influence on pupil learning - it accounts for a very small percentage of the difference in performance between schools - once pupil background is taken into account.

·   

Six, whilst it may be appealing to believe that multi-academy trusts should be led by expert leaders – those who have a deep professional background in education such as headteachers – it’s only when long-term research has taken place – comparing the results obtained by expert leaders and professional managers that we will have any kind of substantive evidence-base with which to inform the appointment of chief executives of multi-academy trusts.  Up until then - it's probably best not to cherry-pick the evidence in accordance with our professional preferences.

And finally

In future posts I will continue to look at how leaders can directly influence employee motivation and well-being through the impact of perceptions of procedural and interactional justice.

References

Duke, D. L. (2018). Judgment and the Preparation of Educational Leaders. Journal of Research on Leadership Education. 0. 0. 1942775117752455.

Goodall, A. H. (2016). A Theory of Expert Leadership (Tel) in Psychiatry. Australasian Psychiatry. 24. 3. 231-234.

Goodall, A. H. and Bäker, A. (2015). A Theory Exploring How Expert Leaders Influence Performance in Knowledge-Intensive Organizations. In  Incentives and Performance.  Springer.
Leithwood, K., Harris, A., & Hopkins, D. (2008). Seven strong claims about successful school leadership. School leadership and management, 28(1), 27-42. 

Simkins, T., Coldwell, M., Close, P. and Morgan, A. (2009). Outcomes of in-School Leadership Development Work: A Study of Three Ncsl Programmes. Educational Management Administration & Leadership. 37. 1. 29-50.

Boss competence and teacher well-being

In this post I will be looking at the work of Artz, Goodall, et al. (2017) and the relationship between ‘boss competence and worker-well being.  The relationship between 'boss competence and teacher well-being' is particularly relevant to schools given concerns about both teacher workload, stress-levels and well being and the number of teachers leaving the teaching profession.    I’ll then go onto explore some of the possible implications of the research for schools and school leaders.  Finally, I'll undertake a structured critique of Artz et al's research.

Boss competence and worker well-being: a brief summary of the research.

Artz, Goodall, et al. (2017 state that:

• Nearly all workers have a supervisor or “boss.” 
• Little is known about how bosses influence the quality of employees’ lives.
• A boss’s technical competence is the single strongest predictor of a worker’s job satisfaction.
• If a worker stays in the same job and workplace, a rise in the competence of a supervisor is associated with an improvement in the worker’s well-being.
• In a cross-section of 6000 young U.S. workers, the job satisfaction of employees is positively associated with whether the supervisor worked his or her way up within the company (or started the company).
• In a cross-section of 1600 British workers, satisfaction levels are higher among individuals whose supervisor could if necessary step in competently to do that job.
• In pooled cross- sections totalling 27,000 individuals, workers’ job satisfaction is highly correlated with the competence of supervisors.
• These results support the claim that both competence – linked to expert knowledge – and industry experience improve workers’ job satisfaction.

Some possible headline  implications for schools

There are number of 'first-blush'  implications for the leadership and management of schools which members of a school community may choose to draw from these research findings.  For example

• If you want to increase the well-being of staff increase the competence of ‘bosses’ and line managers
• If you want to increase job satisfaction then internal appointments – with individuals working their way up through the school – may lead to increased job satisfaction of those they supervise.
• Senior staff within a school should keep their ‘hand-in’ as teachers to ensure they can competently cover for absent teaching colleagues.
• If you want to increase teacher well-being appoint leaders who have a background in education and schools rather than appointing someone who has generic leadership and management experience.

However, before jumping to these conclusion it is necessary to look at Artz et al's research in more detail to see whether it is useful for schools and school leaders.  To help me do this  I’m going to use  Professor Steve Higgins 6 As model for effective research use: accessibility, accuracy, appropriate, acceptable, applicable, and actionable

The 6 A’s

Accessibility – given the very high level  maths involved in the paper,  the research is not easily intellectually accessible to school leaders and others interested in teacher well-bing

Accuracy – again this is extremely difficult for the lay reader to judge.  However, the authors do identify some significant limitations in the report, for example, what is meant by boss competence is not clear; there is no reliable and valid instrument to measure boss competence; many of the measures used for boss competence where highly subjective; insufficient attention was paid to external factors that may be influencing both perceptions of boss competence and ‘well-being.’

Appropriate – although multiple sources of evidence were used, none of the evidence used appeared to be generated from research into schools and other similar environments. 

Acceptable – the findings of the research would appear to be at first sight to be broadly consistent with teachers values and beliefs – i.e. to be a senior leader must still be competent in the classroom.

Applicable – the research is relevant to schools given concerns about both teaching staff retention and well-being.

Actionable – the research does not appear to meet Argyris (2000) criteria for actionable advice in that it does not,  ‘specifies the detailed, concrete behaviours required to achieve the intended consequences; it must be crafted in the form of designs that contain causal statements; people must have, or be able to be taught, the concepts and the skills required to implement those causal statements; and the context in which it is to be implemented does not prevents its implementation’.  p8

So what can we make of the research and the implications for schools

Nevertheless for me, the main value of Artz, et al. (2017) is that it directed my attention to a topic known as ‘expert leadership’ and the work of Goodall and Bäker (2015). Now, one of the key questions  ‘expert leadership’ seeks to explore is whether experts and professionals – such as teachers and headteachers - need to be led by other experts and professionals, those who have a deep understanding of and high ability in the core-business of their organization.   In future posts I will examine the notion ‘expert leadership’ and its implications for schools in more detail.

References

Argyris, C. (2000). Flawed Advice and the Management Trap: How Managers Can Know When They're Getting Good Advice and When They're Not. Oxford. Oxford University Press.

Artz, B. M., Goodall, A. H. and Oswald, A. J. (2017). Boss Competence and Worker Well-Being. ILR Review. 70. 2. 419-450.

Goodall, A. H. and Bäker, A. (2015). A Theory Exploring How Expert Leaders Influence Performance in Knowledge-Intensive Organizations. in  Incentives and Performance.  Springer.

Teaching Staff Turnover and Employee Engagement

During this week's #UKEDResChat discussion a number of Tweets mentioned concerns about levels of teaching staff turnover and how to go about creating reliable and valid measures of staff satisfaction and engagement.  So with that in mind, I thought I'd have a look at Bamford and Worth (2017) and their report for the NFER as to the reasons why teachers leave the teaching profession.   I will then focus on one recommendation of the report i.e. the need for schools to measure job satisfaction and engagement and intervene -  to show how that might be easier said than done.

Why do teachers leave the teaching profession?

Drawing on data collected from 40,000 households as part of the Understanding Society longitudinal study, Bamford and Worth (2017) found the following.

• More than half of non-retiring teachers who leave remain working in the education sector.
• Teachers do not leave for higher- paid jobs: overall pay decreases, but hourly wages stay the same.
• Leavers' working hours decrease and many secondary leavers take up part-time positions.
• Leavers' job satisfaction and subjective well-being improve after leaving. 

Bamford and Worth then go on to make the following recommendations

• School leaders should regularly monitor the job satisfaction and engagement of their staff, and intervene 
• Government and other secondary-sector stakeholders need to urgently look at ways of accommodating more part-time working in secondary schools 
• School leaders, Government and Ofsted need to work together to review the impact their actions are having on teacher workload, to identify practical actions that can be taken to reduce this 

An evidence-based approach to monitoring job satisfaction and engagement 

Monitoring job satisfaction and engagement and susbequently intervening may seem a very sensible and obvious recommendation.  However, it may be a lot easier said than done .  So to help understand why this might be case I'm going to look at the work of  Briner (2014) who raises some very pertinent questions about employee engagement.  So here goes:

Defining engagement - unfortunately there is no one agreed definition of engagement. 

The consequence of this is as Briner states: From a practical (and academic) perspective the absence of agreement about what something means - and an absence of concern about that lack of agreement - is not funny or weird or cute or unfortunate or inconvenient. It's a confused, confusing and chaotic mess that is almost bound to lead to messy and undesired outcomes. It means that whenever we talk about or think about or try to measure 'engagement' we are almost certainly saying different things, understanding different things, measuring different things and doing different things but believing quite incorrectly they are all the same. 

Measuring engagement - if there is no agreement about the nature of employee engagement the chance of developing valid, reliable and meaningful measures are slim. 

Again as Briner states: As a consequence of confused definition and overlap with other existing ideas there is currently little evidence that engagement measures are particularly valid or reliable. There is one crucial form of validity - predictive validity - for which there seems to be almost no evidence at all. This form of validity is essential as it explores whether measures, in this case of engagement, actually predict anything important in the future. At the present time therefore we do not have enough good quality evidence to allow us to draw even tentative conclusions about whether or how engagement can be measured in a valid and reliable way.

Engagement is nothing new or different 

Briner poses two questions about whether engagement is a new or different concept

Engagement is not a new and different idea: If this is the case then the term and idea should be immediately discontinued because using a new term to describe existing concepts is confusing and unhelpful. 

Engagement is a new and different idea: If this is the case then there is a huge amount of work to be done first to define engagement in a way that shows precisely how it is new and different and second to gather good quality evidence to show that measures of engagement are measuring something new and different. 

There is lack of good quality evidence about employee engagement

As Briner states '

There is almost no good quality evidence with which to answer the most important questions about engagement:
Fundamental Question 1: 'Do increases in engagement cause increases in performance?' 
Fundamental Question 2: 'Do engagement interventions cause increases levels of engagement and subsequent increases in performance?' 

Over-claiming and misclaiming

Briner argues that these four challenges raise serious challenges about the usefulness of the idea of employee engagement.  Nevertheless, there is an additional challenge;

That the proponents, supporters and advocates of engagement both over-claim by exaggerating the quantity and quality of evidence and mis-claim by making statements about engagement that, on closer inspection, seem to be about something else.

What are the implications of this discussion for school leaders who wish to monitor job satisfaction and engagement.

• It will be a waste of time and resources for the school to try and develop its own valid and reliable measures of employee engagement
• Staff surveys are highly likely to tell you very little, indeed as Argyris (1994) states may even get in the way of learning what needs to be done.
• Multiple proxy measures of employee engagement are going to be required to help school leaders make a judgement about employee engagement.

And finally

How school leaders tackle the challenge of employee engagement comes down to a choice as to type of school leaders they want to be.  Are they school leaders who carefully examine the evidence on a particular, being explicit about what they know or don't know and then act accordingly. Or do they want to be school leaders who are not overly bothered about the quality of the evidence, subsequently misclaim and misrepresent the evidence for their own purposes and come up with superficial solutions to complex issues.  The choice is yours! (Amended from Briner)

References

Argyris, C. (1994). Good Communication That Blocks Learning. Harvard business review. 72. 4. 77-85.
Bamford, S. and Worth, J. (2017). Teacher Retention and Turnover Research. Research Update 3: Is the Grass Greener Beyond Teaching? Slough. NFER
Briner, R. (2014). What Is Employee Engagement and Does It Matter? An Evidence-Based Approach. The Future of Engagement Thought Piece Collection. 51.

The School Research Lead and Teacher Journal Clubs - Summarising the evidence

In this post I look at how a school research lead might wish to summarise the evidence about teacher journal clubs.  In doing so, I will try and make we have a format that allows the including of four sources evidence and also takes into the context of the individual.  However, given the workload pressures, it is recognised that whatever report or document is produced, can be produced relatively quickly and without being burdensome.  As such, whilst the example uses a Word based tabular format, the same information could also be presented on 10 - 12 slide PowerPoint or through the use of some kind of mind map

The template

The following example has been produced for a fictional school, which is considering introducing a teacher journal club into its professional learning programme.  As will be seen from the example, the school is relatively new to research and is just beginning to put its 'toe in the water'.

Title	Teacher Journal Clubs
Background question	How can teacher journal clubs contribute to teacher professional learning and the use of evidence-based practice?
Summary	Teacher journal clubs appear to have the potential to contribute to the increased use of evidence-informed practice.   Initial discussions with stakeholders suggest there is support for piloting a journal club within the school.   Although, no-one within the school – be it teaching assistants, teachers and senior leadership – have experience in running journal clubs, adequate resources are available on the internet to support their introduction.
Description of the best available evidence
Research	Although there appears to be no systematic reviews in educational settings about use of teacher journal clubs, a systematic reviews in a health setting (Deenadayalan et al., 2008) provides guidance on how to run a successful journal club.  This guidance suggests: regular and anticipated meetings, mandatory attendance, clear long- and short-term purpose, appropriate meeting timing and incentives, a trained journal club leader to choose papers and lead discussion, circulating papers prior to the meeting, using the internet for wider dissemination and data storage, using established critical appraisal processes and summarizing journal club findings. (from abstract) Recent research in education (Sims et al., 2017)involving two 11-18 mixed secondary schools (Ofsted – outstanding) indicates that journal clubs are a viable, scalable model of teacher-led professional development, capable of creating sustained increases in evidence-informed practice
School Data	The school is a mixed 11-18 school and is currently rated by Ofsted as good.  The school has an extensive programme of professional learning – though little or none is focused on research use.  The school has recently recruited a number of new staff who are at the beginning of their career.  However, there are also a number of staff who have been at the school for over twenty years. Although in recent years the professional learning budget has been squeezed – there is still sufficient time in the programme for half-termly journal clubs
Stakeholders’ views (pupils, staff, parents, community)	A number of teachers within the school are active on Twitter and are aware that the school currently provides few opportunities for teachers to engage in research evidence.  Successful schools in the locality have introduced journal clubs and it is perceived that this has contributed to those schools’ reputation for innovation.  However, there are other teachers who do not see the value of educational research and are aware of schools which have introduced journal clubs – and then have quietly dropped them after a year.  Nevertheless, there is a general consensus amongst the teaching staff that it may be worth undertaking a small pilot with volunteers.
Practitioner expertise – key leaders	None of the major decision-makers within the school – the HT, 2 DHTs and the newly appointed School Research Lead (SRL)– have experience of running or participating in a journal club.  However, the SRL has attended a number of researchED events and has seen presentations on how to successfully run a journal club.  The SRL is also aware of resources available on the Internet and produced by teachers – which give clear advice on how to ensure a journal club is successful.  In addition, the SRL is currently studying for a post-graduate degree in education.
Questions for consideration	·      Can we access suitable research journals? ·      How do recruit volunteers for the pilot? ·      Do teachers have the capacity and capability to understand and apply research findings? ·      Do we have someone of sufficient knowledge and expertise to lead the journal club? ·      Can desired changes in teaching practice can be identified? ·      Is sufficient time available for the implementation of journal club? ·      How will the impact of the journal club be measured?
References and resources	·      (Deenadayalan et al., 2008) ·      (Sims et al., 2017) ·      http://www.edujournalclub.com
Appraiser/author	·      School research lead
Dissemination	·      To be shared by email and to be discussed at the next staff meeting ·      Prior discussion of paper at departmental meetings
Update and review	·      When is it likely that new relevant evidence be available? ·      During 2018 as reports on the efficacy of Research Learning Communities and the School Research Leads are published by the EEF. ·      End of the academic year