Effective School Management

Collegiate culture
There is one condition of successful change which seems more prevalent in
industry than in schools: industrial managers and professional staff get
together more often, whereas the cellular organization in schools means that
teachers struggle privately with their problems and anxieties. It is unusual
for teachers to observe and discuss their colleagues’ work, and there is little
attempt to build what Fullan (1982, p. 108) calls ‘a common collegiate technical
culture or analytic orientation’ towards their work. The processes of teaching
and learning are inadequately explored compared with the processes of
manufacturing, marketing and management in industry.
One of Everard’s most vivid experiences in the management of change
was bringing together ten senior managers off-site to meet Professor Trist, an
organizational consultant, with the request to come prepared to talk for five
minutes each on ‘the problems of the company’. For the first time, ten very
different people, from different departments, shared their concerns, only to
find that they were essentially the same. But they also shared a vision of how
things could be, and the professor explained why things were as they were,
and how they could be changed. The new, deeper understanding provided

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an immense store of energy for beneficial change, which was steered into
channels that enabled organizational improvements to occur.
In schools that wish to change, regular opportunities for such encounters
must be created, and the negative energy of disaffection must be transformed
into a positive will to make a difference to the way things are, to the benefit of
the teachers and the organization. You may not be able to get hold of a
professor, but it helps to invite someone from outside the system who knows
something about organizational, managerial or pedagogical processes.
Fullan  et al.  (1980), in their research on North American schools, report
similar findings. The schools good at change are characterized by openness
of communication, a high level of communication skills, a widespread desire
for collaborative work, a supportive administration, good agreement on
educational goals and previous experience of successful change.
In a later book, Fullan (2001) leaves his readers with a message that
resembles what progressive companies have been trying to do in creating
‘learning organizations’:
(1) Redesign the workplace so that innovation and improvement are built
into the daily activities of staff.
(2) Each individual should take responsibility for his or her own em-
powerment by becoming an expert in the change process.
(3) Collectively they should engage in continuous initiative, thereby pre-
empting the imposition of change from outside.
(4) Establish a ‘critical mass’ of highly engaged individuals working on the
creation of conditions for continuous renewal, while themselves being
shaped by these very conditions.
(5) The way ahead is through melding individual and  institutional
renewal.
Fullan (1993) also offers some practical lessons from his studies of change in
schools; they ring bells for us, although perhaps no. 4 is a little stark:
(1) You can’t mandate what matters (the more complex the change, the less
you can force it).
(2) Change is a journey, not a blueprint (change is non-linear, loaded with
uncertainty and excitement and sometimes perverse).
(3) Problems are our friends (problems are inevitable and you can’t learn
without them).
(4) Vision and strategic planning come later (premature visions and
planning blind).
(5) Individualism and collectivism must have equal power (there are no one-
sided solutions to isolation and ‘group-think’).
(6) Neither centralization nor decentralization works (both top-down and
bottom-up strategies are necessary).
(7) Connection with the wider environment is critical for success (the best
organizations learn externally as well as internally).

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EFFECTIVE SCHOOL MANAGEMENT
(8) Every person is a change agent (change is too important to leave to the
experts).
But it is the head who must start this ball rolling, notwithstanding the odd
fact that creating the conditions for continuous improvement is not laid down
as a specific professional duty under his or her terms of employment (DfES,
2003). It must surely, however, be accepted as an implicit part of the role of
any leader. As the NCE survey (1995b) of eleven once-threatened but now-
thriving schools noted, most had experienced inertia or had neglected to focus
on, or even to recognize, the need for continual improvement. The importance
of the head and his/her ability to foster a sense of shared purpose, emerged
as key. The right sort of leadership is at the heart of effective schooling, and
no evidence has emerged of effectiveness in a school with weak leadership.
Some years ago Her Majesty’s Inspectors concluded in Ten Good Schools (HMI,
1977):
The schools see themselves as places designed for learning; they take trouble
to make their philosophies explicit for themselves and to explain them to
parents and pupils; the foundation of their work and corporate life is an
acceptance of shared values.
Emphasis is laid on consultation, team work and participation, but without
exception the most important single factor in the success of these schools is the
quality of leadership at the head. Without exception, the heads have the
qualities of imagination and vision, tempered by realism, which have enabled
them to sum up not only their present situation but also attainable future goals.
They appreciate the need for specific educational aims, both social and
intellectual, and have the capacity to communicate these to the staff, pupils and
parents, to win their assent and to put their own policies into practice. Their
sympathetic understanding of staff and pupils, their acceptability, good
humour and sense of proportion and their dedication to their task have won
them the respect of parents, teachers and taught. Conscious of the corruption of
power, and though ready to take final responsibility, they have made power-
sharing the keynote of their organization and administration. Such leadership
is crucial for success and these schools are what their heads and staff have made
them.
Twenty-five years later, the message is the same (Ofsted, 2003).
PERSONAL APPLICATION
Rate the conditions in your school along the dimensions listed in this section, using
a 5-point scale (1 = favourable, 5 = unfavourable):
• Philosophy • Realism • Purpose • Environment • Structure • Collegiate culture
• Process • Quality of leadership • People • Balance
Pick out the three least favourable conditions. What practical things can you do by
the end of (next?) term to make these conditions in your school more conducive to
the implementation of successful change?

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MANAGERIAL QUALITIES NEEDED TO HANDLE CHANGE
‘The ability to create and manage the future in the way that we wish is what
differentiates the good manager from the bad’ (Harvey-Jones, 2003, p. 96).
Observation of people who are more successful than others at managing
complex organizations in which major changes have to be implemented
shows that they tend to have a distinctive mix of knowledge, skills, personal
attitudes and values, and the capacity to orchestrate these as they make a host
of personal decisions that lie at the heart of organization management. By the
very nature of their competence as educators, heads are well endowed with
some of the qualities that are required – more so, perhaps, than their
counterparts in industry. Other qualities, however, are more commonly
found to flourish in a business environment. Few people in schools or
industry are such paragons as to possess all the requisite qualities in full
measure. However, an understanding of the kind of person who is good at
handling change is helpful both in selecting senior staff and project leaders
and in assessing what qualities we need to develop.
Before describing the key qualities that seem to be needed to implement
change effectively, it is instructive to examine the characteristics that Peters
and Waterman (1995) found in the leaders of successful companies. The two
are related.
Such leaders listened to their employees and treated them as adults. They
saw that leadership, unlike naked power-wielding, was inseparable from
followers’ needs and goals. Caring ran in the veins of managers of the
‘excellent’ companies. They did not allow intellect to overpower wisdom.
They set and demanded high standards of excellence. As Henry Kissinger
said:  ‘Leaders must invoke an alchemy of great vision.’ But they had to
combine visionary ideas at the highest level of abstraction with actions at the
most mundane level of detail. They had the capacity to generate enthusiasm
and excitement, to harness the social forces in the organization and to shape
and guide its values: ‘Clarifying the value system and breathing life into it are
the greatest contribution a leader can make. Moreover, that’s what the top
people in excellent companies seem to worry about most.’ (Peters and
Waterman 1995, pp. 282, 291). A strong and coherent values base, coupled
with a vision of a networked learning community, are also benchmarks of
BCLP’s excellence.
Yet success in instilling values appeared to have little to do with
charismatic personality. None of the leaders studied relied on personal
magnetism. All made  themselves into effective leaders by persistent
behaviour and high visibility.
How different these characteristics are from the teacher’s stereotype of the
business tycoon! And how similar to those of many a highly respected head!
The heartening conclusion is that these people make themselves effective,
although Mant (1983) argues that there has to be in effective leaders a basic
orientation that enables them to see themselves as part of a higher purpose
external to themselves.

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Valerie Stewart (1983), a British psychologist and business consultant, has
listed the following characteristics of people who are good at managing
change:
(1)
They know clearly what they want to achieve.
(2)
They can translate desires into practical action.
(3)
They can see proposed changes not only from their own viewpoint but
also from that of others.
(4)
They don’t mind being out on a limb.
(5)
They show irreverence for tradition but respect for experience.
(6)
They plan flexibly, matching constancy of ends against a repertoire of
available means.
(7)
They are not discouraged by setbacks.
(8)
They harness circumstances to enable change to be implemented.
(9)
They clearly explain change.
(10)
They involve their staff in the management of change and protect their
security.
(11)
They don’t pile one change on top of another, but await assimilation.
(12)
They present change as a rational decision.
(13)
They make change personally rewarding for people, wherever
possible.
(14)
They share maximum information about possible outcomes.
(15)
They show that change is ‘related to the business’.
(16)
They have a history of successful change behind them.
We have used for training purposes (with minor modifications) a list of
qualities supplied by Beckhard in identifying successful managers of change
and indicating what further development was required. The qualities