Effective School Management

CEREBRAL ROLES
Plant. Advances new ideas and strategies with special attention to major
issues, and tries to initiate breakthroughs in the team’s approach to the
problems with which it is confronted. Traits: dominant, intelligent, introvert.
Monitor-evaluator. Analyses problems and evaluates ideas and suggestions
so that the team is better placed to take balanced decisions. Traits: intelligent,
stable, introvert.
Specialist. Provides team with scarce knowledge and skills. Traits: single-
minded, self-starting, dedicated.
The two most crucial roles are probably those of co-ordinator and plant, and
the incumbents need to relate to one another well: if they don’t, the plant’s
ideas never bear any fruit. The essence of skilfully employing a plant (a role
which some people prefer to think of as that of creative catalyst) lies in
recognizing the member’s potential, giving him or her scope and not allowing
him or her to pursue unrewarding lines of thought. Successful co-ordinators
do not have to be brainy: their characteristics are commonplace, but they are
put together in an uncommon way, which earns the respect of everyone in the
team. Often they are good shapers as well.
Different people are good at different team roles; although they may have
one dominant role, they may still be reasonably competent in another one. In
teams smaller than eight in number, people may have to play more than one
role. By contrast, two dominant shapers, two plants or too many monitor-
evaluators are apt to cause problems. Bowring-Carr and West-Burnham
(1994) have noted that members of school management teams score low on
both the monitor-evaluator and the completer roles: so beware of gaps as well
as duplication.
Associated with these team roles are personality characteristics such as
intelligence, dominance, introversion/extroversion and anxiety/stability.
Stable extroverts, who often excel in jobs that place a high premium on liaison
work and where co-operation is sought from others, are generally good team
members. Anxious introverts, on the other hand, usually lack cohesion in a
group, yet as individuals they are often very creative; they distinguish
themselves in jobs (such as teaching?) which call for self-direction and self-
sustaining persistence.
Anxious extroverts are commonly found in places where people need to
work at a high pace and exert pressure on others: they form good teams in
rapidly changing situations. Stable introverts plan well, are strong in
organization, but are slow-moving and tend to be blind to new factors in a
situation. They excel in bureaucratic occupations.
While co-operative stable extroverts form the most effective homogeneous
teams (i.e. in which all team members are of the same personality type), they
are excelled by heterogeneous teams (composed of different personality
types) because stable extroverts on their own are prone to complacency and

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EFFECTIVE SCHOOL MANAGEMENT
euphoria. The best teams also have a mix of mental abilities, usually with the
highest belonging to the plant, then the co-ordinator. The advantage of
having people of relatively low mental ability appears to lie in the fact that
these members tend to be willing to adopt the less ‘dynamic’ team roles.
Another type of successful team is one dominated by a co-ordinator who
has unrivalled superiority in intellectual or creative ability over his or her
colleagues, and whose office and natural talents reinforce each other in
establishing ascendancy. It is not a recommended formula because of the gulf
left when the co-ordinator leaves the team.
Whatever the composition of the team, all its members must learn
‘teamspeopleship’. This goes beyond fitness for any particular team role.
Good  ‘teamspeople’ time their interventions, vary their role, limit their
contributions (often difficult for teachers), create roles for others and do some
of the jobs that others deliberately avoid. Most of these behaviours can be
learned through training.
One of the problems in a hierarchical organization is that it is not always
easy to bring the most suitable people into teams. The wise manager avoids
building teams solely on the basis of ex-officio membership. Meetings of
heads of department, for instance, often lead to disappointing results. It is
often better to set up project or study teams of a mixed composition of people
at different levels in the hierarchy; what such a team may lack in structural
authority, it may gain in effectiveness, if the team roles have been well
chosen. To give it authority, let it report to a project steering group, e.g. heads
of department, which meets occasionally to advise on guidelines and
objectives; or let both report to the head independently.
Finally, you can rate your own preferred team role on-line by visiting
www.belbin.com, or by investing in e-Interplace, a programme that is widely
used in fitting people to jobs.
Knowledge of one’s colleagues’ preferred team roles, and of the roles that
have to be played in effective teams, assists the manager both in composing
teams and in helping them to work more effectively once they are formed.
For instance, if it is noticed that the team is missing its deadlines, it could look
to its completer to inject a greater sense of urgency.
TEAM-BUILDING
Team-building is the most widely used approach to the development of
individuals and organizations (Everard, 1995a). One widely used approach is
Coverdale training in ‘the practice of teamwork’ (Babington Smith and Sharp,
1990); as at 1996 over a quarter of a million delegates had undergone this
training and more than thirty LEAs had been clients. For the last thirty years,
one of the authors (Morris) has been training teams in both business and
educational contexts.
Teamwork depends on effective meetings, effective decision-taking,
effective communication, the identification of team roles and effective

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TEAMS
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delegation. Members of a team must be able to trust each other. The most
important work of a team will be done by individuals between meetings. It is
therefore vital to be clear on the three ‘W’s – Who must do What by When.
Team-building programmes will therefore enable participants to practise and
discuss their skills together before embarking on one or more major
exercises, success in which will depend on using these skills.
Because so much of the work of teachers is done alone with children in the
classroom, there may appear to be fewer opportunities for practising team-
work than is usual among professionals in industry. Moreover, there is less of
a tradition of using consultants or short courses for developing effective
teamwork. However, teamwork should not be confused with group therapy.
Its test is whether the individual members follow agreed team objectives
when they are apart! Teams are an essential part of healthy organizations,
especially those undergoing rapid change, and heads would do well to
encourage the formation of more teams such as task groups and working