A Flawed Question
I encountered a thoughtful comparison in a recent magazine article. A futurist had written about how difficult it had become to explain one’s job to one’s parents. He wrote, “I think you have to treat the world like one of those drone flights. Drones are small and, although quite feisty, can be blown about by the wind. Getting one to where you want to go involves setting a course, yes, but also reacting to the local conditions as you fly. Sometimes you’ll be blown one way, and sometimes you’ll be blown another, and you’ll never really ever be directly on course” (Business Life, June 2017, 26).
Measure the Treasure: Leadership Transition
Now begins the second, and arguably the most important, phase of the search process: schools and the newly-appointed head of school need to confront the realities of the appointment. Too many heads and boards consider the process as being ‘in the past,’ but, in reality, nothing could be less accurate…or less dangerous, as a perspective. Now is the crucial moment when boards and heads must chart the best way forward, relative to what we might term the FQ, the fit quotient.
Digital Lipstick
It's akin to stating that you've got a 1:1 (iPad, laptop, etc) programme, yet any visitor to any classroom would see students doing the same exercises as before, just on a computer instead of with pencil and paper. One of my personal favourites: "we have a learning management system." Look at how it is used. If teachers are required to post homework and/or a syllabus there, and share the odd announcement, what do we have? Lipstick on a legacy pig.
The Ethics of Leadership Search
Discourse and communication are powerful aesthetic features, to be sure, when it comes to influence and persuasion. The responsibility for evaluating the epistemic and ethical legitimacy of these features, including the epistemic and ethical legitimacy of engaging the emotions of potential candidates, rests with three groups: the board (the progenitor of the position description), the search consultant (the framer of culture and opportunity, involved to varying degrees in the presentation of the position description), and the candidate her/himself (the interpreter of the position description, with an eye to securing the position and leading the school).
The Stream of Now
Curriculum providers, accreditation agencies, and recruitment agencies need to pay attention to the stream of now as well, as should those commercial enterprises that provide products and services to schools. The stream of now isn’t some notion from science fiction; it is already available. It is the nature of our age that everyone is already in the stream of now. Question: how are we responding to it?