From the director
Blogs and organizational balance: the power of focus and voice in leadership
Ann Zweber Werner
Significant and substantial listening to the people of our communities, our districts
and our schools can be a challenge for each administrator but is also one of the
most important as well as difficult of our leadership responsibilities. Web logs,
commonly referred to as blogs, may prove to be a significant tool to increase opportunities
for voice (the product of addressing a topic verbally or in writing), listening
and focus. Over the past few decades, educational organizations have been exploring
avenues to increase voice and listening between and among various groups with the
goal of increased success in teaching and learning, not only for students but also
the providers and supporters of educational services.
Substantial
opportunities for voice and listening are core tools to create a balanced organization,
one that shares a common spirit or focus. In Leading with Soul, Lee Bolman
and Terrence Deal identify the moral precepts that balance organizations as compassion
and justice. They posit that there are four gifts that a leader gives an organization
to serve as practical rules guiding behavior leading to the institutionalization
of compassion and justice. They are: love, authorship, power and significance. As
part of the University’s journey of creating more substantial listening techniques
that will assist in preparing learners to lead balanced organizations, we first
turned to the ongoing work of creating a common spirit or focus.
Clarity of focus
During the 2003-2004 academic year, as part of the ongoing improvement process of
the University of Minnesota’s licensure and leadership development program, we more
clearly defined our program’s mission, vision, and beliefs. A guiding light, from
which all of our tools for leading the learning process flow, our vision statement
is:
The University of Minnesota is committed to the integration of professional wisdom,
inquiry, and authentic practice in the preparation of educational administrators.
This statement is the embodiment of our long-standing beliefs
but is now communicated so that all members of the administrative licensure learning
community, including students, instructors, mentors, and program advisers, can clearly
focus and proceed with one vision while welcoming many voices. Our success with
operationalizing the licensure program’s foundational elements of mission, vision,
and beliefs was noted by Marc Boehlke, executive director of the Minnesota Board
of School Administrators in his remarks following the Board’s April 2004 review
of the University’s program. Citing a shared focus as one of the strengths of the
University’s program he stated, “It is clear that everyone including your students
and instructors are going in the same direction, a strength that is hard for most
organizations to accomplish.”
Web logs (blogs)
In October, 2003, three elementary principals including one from a rural demographic,
one suburban and one urban, were asked to provide daily reflections addressing four
questions for a period of one year. To do this they logged onto a secure asynchronous
Web site. All identities, other than to the participants themselves, have been carefully
guarded to allow for open discussion. The four questions addressed were: “What were
the questions of the day?” “Who were the participants?” “What were the emotions?”
And, finally, “What did you do?” Each participant logged on almost every day from
October through June and has returned to the process in August. To date, approximately
250 single spaced pages of dialogue have been compiled that are profoundly rich
with information and insights.
The original intent was to design a voice and listening process
that would substantially adhere to the intent of Minnesota Rules 3512 that states,
explicitly in parts and implicitly in others, the essential nature of the partnership
between the licensed practitioner and the university in the preparation of educational
administrators. The goal to gather real-time information and insights into the work
of the elementary principal was far exceeded. Not only has rich material been gathered
with actual happenings from which to write case studies, but also insights have
been gained into the categories of work and their time frames, the enormous work
load, the intensity of a range of emotions that ebb and flow during the course of
a year, the importance of heart and passion in successful leadership, and the essential
nature of delegation and ongoing substantial professional development, among many
others.
This information will enable the University to create extensive
project options that will allow for the creation of authentic practice sets, in
the form of project-based learning, to support specific courses including the field
experience. This increased set of options, aligned with state competencies and the
learner’s pre-assessment, allows each learner as well as university and field mentors
to laser focus the preparation of our educational leaders in both pre-service and
ongoing professional development programs. In addition, the blogs provide information
that will allow the University to shape questions that will guide aspiring administrators
into avenues of inquiry that will not only help them develop the knowledge base
that is essential to lead learning organizations but also provides examples of quality
practice that demonstrate the application and synthesis of competencies required
in the licensure rules.
While the commitment made by these three professionals will be
fulfilled in one month, two have asked to extend their full involvement for another
year. The third participant would also like to continue, with a commitment of two
to three days per week rather than five. A fourth participant, who would be selected
from the same area as this third participant, may also be added to the blog. This
adjustment, in the second year, will add another dimension from which we can learn
about usefulness and sustainability for the participants as they pair in reflection
with individuals having regionally similar challenges. The two asking to continue
every day said that in order to have this work for them they found that they had
to make the reflection part of their day. In response to another’s comments, one
participant stated: “Yes, I would like to continue too. I, too, have made it a part
of my day and by putting my day into words, it has helped me to analyze my leadership
style and actions. It has also been helpful to read the others’ postings as well
-- works as a great support system and it gives me great ideas.” Note that in these
comments, each participant not only sees value in their contributions to the University
but also to themselves.
So, how does this relate to the four gifts of leadership? Motivational
theory from the lens of behaviorists asserts that individuals perform because of
intrinsic and extrinsic rewards. Aubrey Daniels, Ph.D., founder of
Aubrey Daniels International,
espouses his belief that the more powerful motivational elements are the intrinsic
rewards, that these should comprise 80% of what we do to reinforce individuals to
perform as desired. The four gifts offered by Bolman and Deal are excellent examples
of intrinsic rewards to move participants to perform and continue with work that
adds to their plate of responsibilities and includes no financial compensation.
The following addresses how the gifts become intrinsic rewards to participate in
the blogs.
Love - Throughout the process the participants have given each other the gift
of love by modeling caring and compassion to each other in supportive comments and
tidbits of advice through challenging and sometimes difficult and emotional situations.
They also modeled for each other love as each worked with children, families and
staff in a myriad of examples.
Authorship - The blog process for giving voice and substantial opportunity to
listen has been successful because it possesses the gift of authorship. In the process
no one asks another to solve a problem for the other. They simply address the questions,
identifying the topic of the reflection; reflect on what happened and how they handled
it. Frequently they were congratulated or shown empathy. Sometimes a suggestion
would be made but in all cases each participant owned his or her entries. They embraced
the gift of authorship.
Power – “Hoard power, dampen spirit”. Each of the blog participants believe that
they have the power to make a significant difference in the content of the preparation
program at the University of Minnesota. This is one source of voice in a University
and program that accesses many voices but, asking the members of the blog to give
such meaningful voice gives them the power to shape our thinking, which moves program
developers to deeper understanding of the roles for which they are preparing leaders.
By giving the blog participants the power to identify content for the licensure
program, it is believed that the authenticity of the practice sets will increase
in quality. As a primary source of power for the University is derived from its
quality, the higher the quality of content and delivery provided by the licensure
program the greater its power. This underscores Bolman and Deal’s premise, “You
can give power away and wind up with more” (Bolman and Deal p.92).
Significance – In the case of these blogs, this is probably the most powerful
of the gifts. What is the gift of significance? It is “...the power of shared emotion.
Creating a common spirit that touched everyone.” Significance is what good rituals
are made of, and in order for the blog to sustain itself for one year, let inspire
the desire to continue, it had to become a ritual. According to Bolman and Deal,
you can’t impose significance, you have to create it together. “Significance comes
for working together with others, doing something worth doing, making the world
better.” (Bolman and Deal p.92).
Implications for future uses of the blogs as voice and listening
tools
Ahead we face the great task of synthesizing the information received from the team
of elementary principals. We will be adding three to four new groups in 2004-2005.
Eventually we will extend this voice to middle level principals, high school principals,
directors of special education, directors of community education, directors of Area
Learning Centers and directors of charter schools. These are examples of uses to
help inform the University.
But what if superintendents, principals, or directors formed
blogs to listen to grade-level teachers incorporating a new curriculum adoption
while facing all the routine duties of teaching each day, or formed a blog made
up of special education teachers in a specific disability area? How would these
voices inform our district and school practices and how would the act of listening
in such a substantial way impact one’s ability to lead? Is there a possibility for
using blogs for severely challenged children to create a home, teacher, administrative
team, and medical provider real time asynchronous daily dialogue that could appreciably
improve the capacity of each to provide better individualized service for a child?
Examples might be medical assistance where accurate accounts of daily behaviors
are so important for the identification of kinds and dosages of medications, or
to provide insights into to how behaviors at home or school affect the other area
of the child’s life.
Compassion and justice in balanced organizations are possible
through the utilization of significant voice and listening techniques. There are
many possibilities as long as the participants are willing to make deep and sustained
reflection part of their day using the wonderful supports that technology can provide.
Source:
Bolman, L. and Deal, T. (1995). Leading with Soul. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
Send comments to:
Ann Zweber Werner, Ph.D.
Program Director
werne023@umn.edu
612-626-8647
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