Sustainable Leadership

The last two chapters on lasting leadership and creating a culture of sustainability in leadership prompted some reflection on my part. The last chapter in the text resonated with me, especially concerning how many organizations now are doing either the same amount of activities or more activities with less financial and human resources. Hargreaves (2006) stated that "Renewal and restraint are not either-or choices in our challenge to develop resourceful, sustainable leadership" (p.461). The question becomes how do organizations balance renewal and restraint? What are the priorities based on the mission and vision of the organization and how does the leadership of the organization define priorities?

When the economic crisis first occured last year, many organizations were figuring out how to go forward and what to put on hold to make sure their organizations survived. Some organizations scaled back production, permanently cut their staffs, or implemented furlough programs to reduce their operating deficits. At this point, organizations displayed how they embodied concepts of trust, ethics, collaboration, and the other characteristics we discussed in class. It is an interesting process to watch. Some of my questions and thoughts are - how do organizations, higher education and K-12 schools, create a culture of sustainable leadership? What programs or other processes are in place that encourage this? What characteristics influence employee retention? Although this isn't my primary research interest, I know these would definitely be good topics of study.

Teacher Preparation Programs

The two readings we completed for last week on principal preparation and programs was interesting. In chapter 23, one particular area I really enjoyed reading about was the considerations for program design in principal preparation programs. Kelley and Peterson (2002) noted "The development of effective school leaders cannot occur in any single program or time period. Rather it must be part of a long and complex process that builds and accumulates skills and knowledge over time and in different ways." (pp.372-373). The model programs listed afterwards, although still undergoing assessment for effectiveness, reviewed classroom knowledge and field placements in different areas.

As I was thinking about higher education, one of the classes I took at another university, had us complete a project on the future of student affairs as a profession. In the K-12 arena, there are boards for licensure, standards, and tests to complete as entrance into the profession. Although student affairs does have master's programs required for entry into the profession, a master's in student personnel isn't the only degree that will allow one to enter higher education. There are several documents in student affairs that indicate a code of ethics and bodies of knowledge useful for the field, but there isn't one overall exam or criteria for the profession. I am not suggesting their should be one either, but these last two chapters along with a previous course started me thinking about it again. Any other thoughts?

Diversity paradigms

In Chapter 19, Thomas and Ely (1996) talk about three different paradigms for managing diversity, the discrimination-and-fairness paradigm, the access-and-legitimacy paradigm and a new approach which the authors have termed the learning-and-effectiveness paradigm.

The discrimination-and-fairness paradigm, the authors note, has been one of the most prominent ways of understanding diversity. When leaders view diversity through this paradigm, they typically look at issues of equal opportunity, fair treatment, recruitment, and complying with equal opportunity laws with the main goal of increasing the demographic diversity in the workforce. One of the key problems with this paradigm occurs when all individuals are viewed the same, which consequently masks the important differences existing in the workplace (Thomas & Ely, 1996).

The paradigm that emerged during the 1980's and 1990's was the access-and-legitimacy paradigm which basically recognized the increasing multicultural diversity in the country and consequently diversified the workforce to reach different segments of the population. One key limitation of this paradigm is that different individuals are hired for the workforce, new market niches are established and maintained, but the results of these efforts are not fully integrated with the rest of the company. For example, the company, Access, asked the question ... "If the French team resigned tomorrow, what would we do?" (Thomas & Ely, 1996, p.277).

The learning-and-effectiveness paradigm, or the emerging paradigm, looks at all employees in the company and opportunities for how diverse perspectives can be integrated throughout the organization. For example, the law firm of Dewey and Levin ended up expanding the issues and cases they looked at from the diverse perspectives in their workforce. The main theme of the emerging paradigm is integrating the diverse perspectives of all employees so the company and others can learn from these diverse viewpoints.

I do look at what Thomas and Ely (1996) are arguing for is the recognition and integration of diverse viewpoints in the workplace, that all views have legitimacy, and need to be integrated in the day-to-day operations and values of the workplace. I did enjoy the article and would be interested to see how this type of leadership not only manifests itself in organizations, but higher education as well.

Educating with strenghts in mind

As I read the past two chapters for this week, I kept thinking about one particular factor in Chapter 20 that plays a role in school performance, but it can also play a role in organizational performance as well. One of the reasons given for understanding disappointing school performance was, "The traditional paradigms for understanding learning differences focus on exposing and fixing deficits, often neglecting the latent or blatene talents within struggling learners" (Levine, 2003, p.291). In public schools and even with organizations, we often focus on the deficit model ... what is the problem with the individual student, employee, or even with the organization rather than trying to decipher and focus on strengths as springboard to school and organizational success. Is it the culture that inhibits the view on strengths or do we always tend to look for what's wrong and try to "fix it" hoping it will be the cure to everything else?

Even in Chapter 19, the African American female who was promoted at the company, Mastiff, and had worked there for 15 years did not think she could use the strengths and leadership abilities she learned in her church community because it would not have been valued at Mastiff. She stated that she knew the style she used could be effective, but also noted, "But I've been at Mastiff for 15 years. I know this organization, and I know if I brought that piece of myself - if I became that authentic-I just wouldn't survive here" (Thomas & Ely, 1996, p.284).

These chapters made me think about organizational culture in terms of the creativity certain cultures allow as well as those that constrain individual talents and different ways of thinking about teaching and learning, criteria for success, and valuing diversity in all forms. I started thinking of questions in terms of are there elements of an organization's culture that constrain change or promote it, what criteria need to be present, what leadership style(s) does one need to exhibit in order to embrace change and diverse perspectives?