Dean Fink

School Leadership Succession and the Challenges of Change.

Background: Throughout the Western world, the fallout from the standards/standardization agenda has resulted in potential leaders questioning educational leadership as a career path. Moreover, the aging of the baby boom generation has created a shortage of qualified principals in many educational jurisdictions. Policy makers have responded to these twin pressures by initiating major programs to identify, recruit, and prepare future leaders. Leadership succession, whether planned or unplanned, has become an accelerated and cumulative process that is including people of increasing levels of inexperience. Succession is now a chronic process rather than an episodic crisis. Purpose: This article argues that succession is not the key issue. What is crucial is the degree of autonomy that principals can exercise on behalf of their school community. Findings: During the 30 years of the Change Over Time? study (described elsewhere), we have seen this autonomy eroded to the point that leaders have become managers of systems’ agendas rather than serving their schools and students. Staff members have become cynical about both leaders and leadership succession in the face of cumulative and accelerated succession and perceived changes in their principals’ roles and obligations—increasing the degree of resistance to change. Only when young people begin to see that leadership roles in schools once again make a difference to students learning not just test scores, then quality leaders will emerge and effective succession planning policies developed.

Distributed leadership: democracy or delivery?

Purpose – This article aims to discusses the nature and benefits of lateral approaches to educational change, especially in the form of distributed leadership, that treat schools, localities, states, or nations, as “living systems” interconnected by mutual influence.Design/methodology/approach – The paper presents a conceptual discussion of the interrelated ideas of living systems, communities of practice and networks. Research examples from England, North America, and Finland are used to underscore the articles argument.Findings – The article underlines how, within this conception, distributed leadership operates as a network of strong cells organized through cohesive diversity and emergent development rather than mechanical alignment and predictable delivery. However, more deeply and more critically, the chapter also investigates whether, in practice, these lateral strategies are being used to extend democratic public and professional involvement in developing the goals and purposes of education or whe...

Principals' succession and educational change

A demographic time bomb is ticking in many school jurisdictions. Up to 70 per cent of present leaders in the private and public sectors will retire within the next five to ten years as the “baby boomers” move on. While succession planning has become a major initiative in the private sector, leadership succession in education tends to hew to old paths. Where are new educational leaders to come from? How should their succession be orchestrated? The traditional source of succession at the secondary level, the department headship, is no longer an attractive route for many teachers. Many potential leaders do not perceive the role of principal or assistant principal in a positive light. These roles are increasingly being associated with managing the standards/standardization agenda with which many professionals profoundly disagree. While it is premature to declare a leadership crisis in education, it is not too early to call on policy makers to attend to the growing need for succession planning at all levels in education. Based on an examination of change over times in four schools in Ontario, this article addresses issues of leadership succession in education and, more precisely, examines the influence of principals’ succession on the principals themselves and their schools.

Pipelines, pools and reservoirs: building leadership capacity for sustained improvement

Purpose – A crucial aspect of a schools capacity to promote and sustain change and improvement in student learning is the depth, breadth and endurance of both its formal and informal leadership. Shortages of willing leaders, however, have forced governments around the world to expend a considerable amount of time, effort, and money to fill up the leadership “pipeline” with qualified candidates for leadership positions. This paper aims to address these issues.Design/methodology/approach – This paper uses the examples of school districts in Ontario, Canada, in England and in the eastern United States to look beyond the common practice of merely filling up “pipelines” with credentialed leaders to an examination of the development of leadership “pools” and “reservoirs” of leadership capacity through distributed forms of leadership.Findings – It is found that there has been a subtle but important shift in thinking over the past few years. Where once money spent on leadership recruitment and development was co...

Succeeding Leaders: Supply and Demand

This chapter examines the crisis of leadership success, succession and capacity development by viewing it as a question of supply and demand. Drawing on our research in the United States , Canada , England , and high-performing Finland , as well as on other literature in the field, this chapter identifies challenges of leadership success and succession as issues that increasingly involve the supply of capable leaders. In tandem with this, unnecessary demands deter them from seeking or staying in leadership roles. This chapter looks at the trajectory of leadership success and succession over three ages of educational change culminating in an age of post-standardization. It then describes an alternative path to success and succession in high-performing Finland that differs starkly from dominant Anglo-Saxon models of leadership and change. Conclusions are drawn about how to reconfigure supply and demand aspects of highly capable leadership, and how to redesign educational change and reform processes in order to make this possible.