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Four Concepts That Can Enhance Your District's School Board Leadership in the 21st Century Some people believe that simply chairing a school board meeting is the essence of leadership. In many cases, that belief would be quite to the contrary of common practice – running a successful meeting is seldom as easy as it may appear. And for an elected body deeply involved in public education like a school board, essential concepts like “leadership,” “talent workers,” “customer care,” and “sustainable competitive advantage” are necessary and sufficient precepts which offer potential positive impacts for school board and school district direction, as well as favorable student and public outcomes. Leadership “Leadership” is a term often found floundering within a broad conceptual framework of flotsam and jetsam. I define it here to mean as it was described in Michael Fullan’s book, Leading in a Culture of Change, one which is egoistic and altruistic in focus, that is, “motivational pluralism”; or as described by Subir Chowdhury, in Organization 21c. Chowdhury suggested that leadership is that which utilizes one’s own abilities and personal integrity for positive outcomes . . . meaning there may be personal goals which lead to broader contextual reality, thereby positively affecting the attainment of organizational goals such as positive student, school, and district outcomes. Leadership is not “canned,” and is not generated from a single prescriptive definition. Being effective requires committed personal effort. One must create new ideas through applied analytical conceptualization. One must have an understanding of how to develop strategic goals; find ways to inspire, motivate or cajole other board members to meet specific goals; maximize creative strengths of the board and organization toward goal attainment; minimize potential internal distractions and factionalism; and finally, have the instinctive ability to separate the roles of policy-making from executive management. Twenty-first century school board leadership must have the ability to recognizeandenable talented workers and encourage their development because they can bring energy and stimulate change. In addition, school board leaders must understand and emphasize customer care, assist in the development of sustainable leadership, persist in the promotion of entrepreneurial initiatives, overlay GAP analysis (identifying discrepancies between the current position and desired future position) on school board policy-making, recognize the importance of maintaining the sustainability of effort, and most importantly, intuitivelyunderstand the reason for what we do is about students. Talent Workers Understanding that the role of the school board is to enable student achievementclarifies the realization that creatingpolicies and procedureswill not alonesuffice to positiveresults. Contemporary business organizational theory holds that organization change, innovation, and sustainability should occur because of leaderswho can infuse the organization with new ideas, approaches and culture. Understanding the importance ofputting into place proper expectations and policies,supporting the employment of individualswho exhibit these traits and tendencies iscritical to the change effort and toorganization sustainability. Chowdhury. in his book Organization 21c, states that talent and environment are qualities necessary to reach competitive advantage. He distinguishes between talent and knowledge workers, and emphasizes that an organization must seek, employ and retain the best, brightest, and most diversified individuals if it is to innovate. School board leaders must have a clear understanding that human resource recommendations by the CEO/Superintendent mightneed to be clarified within an organizational framework anchoredto a strategic plan with pronounced goals, timelines and metrics in order to improve student achievement. It is widely understood in theprivate sector that organizations that do not innovate have a high chance of failure. The reality is that the same is true forschool boards. Customer Care Effectiveleadership supports policies which attract talent workers whoview boardconstituencies -- mainly students -- as the most important "customers." In his book, The Goal (a business school primer), Michael Hammer explains that “to appreciate nascent change, you must put aside your own point of view and adopt your customer’s perspective”. In other words, what doesthe customer (your students) demand to be satisfied? Customer care is tied to ideas and traits which potentially may provideschool boards and districts with the precepts to achieve organization efficiencies and greater student results. Sustainable Competitive Advantage/Sustainable Leadership How is a customer care emphasis maintained within an innovative outlook? Once in place, the concepts of sustainability or sustainable competitive advantage become important for school boards and school districts for them to grow into distinguished functional organizational entities. Robert Grant states in Contemporary Strategy Analysis, “... an organization must seek a thorough and profound understanding of its resources and capabilities”, to gain sustainable competitive advantage. Because students can’t wait, it is doing something different (organizational and policy differentiation), not doing the same as your competitor which will lead a board, a school and a school district to improve sooner on behalf of its students. A major part of a district’sresources and capabilities lie within the board itself. That is why school board members’ continuous improvement is necessary to assist in gaining and maintaining a district’s sustainable competitive advantage. It must begin with board self-evaluation, linked to an overall focus on goals. The expectation is that to be true fiduciaries of the public trust in the 21st century, board members must find ways and means to gain new and innovative insights into policy potentialities. Possible examples include the potential clean/green grid neutral impact on the learning environment and potential energy costs savings to operations; creatively and aggressively searching for policy mechanisms which allow for alternative cash flow and public entrepreneurship; and continuously searching for ways to place greater emphasis on the alignment of operations to instruction. The utilization of economies of scale within district operations must further the purposes of the classroom. Additionally, all board activity must be aligned to an authentic strategic plan with goals and timelines, metrics and public accountability toward student success. Conclusion For a school district to remain effective and meaningfully supportive of student achievement,a school board must take a 21st century approach to implement consistent policies that are alternatives inextricably linked to innovation, effectiveness, economies of scale and metrics, to the benefit of the classroom . . . and above all tied to public accountability. Editor's Note: Roy Grimes has been a three time President of the Sacramento City School Board. He was a seven time President of the Sacramento County Board of Education. He has been a classroom teacher and Reading Coach in the Elk Grove Unified School District, and a highly qualified teacher. He holds the Educational Administrative Credential and Chief Business Official Certification (May ‘10). He is Educational Director for the Association of Government Accountants Sacramento Chapter, and has served on the board of numerous community organizations (including the Sacramento Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce and Urban League). Roy Grimes is President/CEO of a non-profit educational corporation. He holds the MPA, MBA, CGFM and is a member of two national academic honor societies, Pi Alpha Alpha and Pi Sigma Alpha. He may be reached at (916) 427-4238 or at leadership21@att.net. |
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