As leaders in schools, we are expected to collaborate. This is very evident in the Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership (AITSL) Principal Standard requirements. For example, for AITSL it is clear that:
- Effective leadership is distributed and collaborative, with teams led by the principal working together to accomplish the vision and aims of the school
- The school leader plays an instrumental role in creating and maintaining a collaborative professional learning culture
- Collaboration promotes change beyond individual classrooms, resulting in whole-school improvement, when educators increase their collective responsibility for the outcomes (AITSL, 2015).
Who wouldn’t want to see themselves as highly collaborative and embrace these requirements? Research is clear that authentic collaborative cultures enhance student outcomes, teacher satisfaction and well-being. (eg Meredith et al., 2023; Azorin & Fullan, 2022).
But what is an authentic collaborative culture, or better still, a collaborative leadership culture? It is one thing to say (and believe!) as a principal you are collaborative, and another thing for teachers to see and feel you being collaborative – in fact teachers may think you are definitely not…and research backs this up (e.g., Sahlin, 2023).
These differences in perception can in my experience come down to issues of power and trust and the extent to which a school leader has a conscious framework which guides their leading practices. These issues are significant as they can in turn affect school culture/school ‘climate’ and ultimately student outcomes (Veletic et al., 2023).
For example, principals often perceive themselves as fostering a collaborative environment through distributed leadership practices, but teachers may not perceive these efforts as genuine collaboration if they feel that decision-making power is not truly shared, but rather, tasks are merely delegated. This can lead to a disconnect where teachers feel their input is not valued or impactful. From a teacher’s perspective, there can be a culture of ‘being done to’ rather than ‘being done with’. This is so easy to slip into when the high expectation of the ‘heroic’ school leader to demonstrably improve schools is so pervasive within our education system and implied in the AITSL standards themselves.
It is clear collaborative leadership cultures matter, so to what extent do you deliberately, consciously, strategically orchestrate the conditions for a collaborative leadership culture to thrive?
The work of Woods and Roberts (2018) is one key resource to explore as they outline the why, what and how of collaborative leadership. I have extensively used and innovated on their evidence -informed process as I work with schools on cultural change. The ongoing process takes time, flexibility, openness to the unexpected. It also takes a reimagining of power – from power over to power with. It takes development over time of a culture of trust. Trust in the power of teacher autonomy combined with a sense of collective responsibility. It also takes a school leader’s own high level of awareness, consciousness, and sense of agency within the myriad constraints and pressures of a high regulatory environment. And it is worth it because….
Why: collaborative school leadership culture supports schools to meet the major challenges they face. Collaborative leadership culture:
- impacts learning outcomes in the broadest sense: not only academic, but engagement, well-being, love of learning – for the purpose of growing the whole person.
- creates conditions to increase likelihood of matching espoused values with actions, thus giving the best chance to foster innovation and democratic citizenship in our young people.
What: Collaborative leadership is leadership enacted by everyone. It is inspired by the concept that leadership is a distributed phenomenon (Woods &Roberts, 2018), and leadership can therefore be positional and non-positional. Teachers can actively contribute to leadership – non -positional leadership – by, for example, influencing colleagues, making changes, introducing innovate teaching practices, etc. but are often unaware that is what they are doing. Creating awareness is key and this leads us to the ‘how’.
How: There is a need for a range of supportive conditions for collaborative leadership cultures to grow and thrive.
- Strong coordination, resourcing and planning. Conscious and collective understanding of what it means to work collaboratively, without teachers thinking it means extra work, extra burden on an already impossible workload.
- Create structures so collaborative leadership can flourish. Roles, and procedures that support collaborative practice
- Processes e.g. consistent and transparent decision making, communication (is it linear communication or transforming dialogue?).
- Be clear on authorities embedded in roles (e.g. mentors, middle leaders)
- Maintaining a shared focus on school purpose, vision and values develop collective responsibility. This also enables an ongoing priority given to learning in its broadest sense (Woods & Roberts, 2018).
- Supporting teachers in capacity building in critique /critical reflection on pedagogy within professional learning communities. This is where leadership capacities also develop.
- Develop an open, social environment: trust and belonging
- Do not assume, however, everyone understands or has experience in collaborating, or even wants to lead / collaborate. Create conditions for leadership development, for people to learn about the nature of leadership through active leadership experience, collective discussion, reflective practices that become the norm in the school.
- In this age of accountability, transform your own understanding of accountability towards responsibility. In your principal role, actively develop a sense of shared responsibility, professional responsibility to obligations, values and codes of practice underpinning pedagogical practices in your school.
It is not as if you either have a collaborative leadership culture or you don’t. It can be present to a lesser or greater degree in school life, and can be grown (Woods & Roberts, 2018). And this growth starts with your own consciousness as a leader, as… all things change when we do.
If you’d like to have a conversation about how to develop collaborative cultures in your school context, email us at team@consciouseducation.com.au.
References
AITSL. (2015). Australian professional standard for principals and the leadership profiles. Melbourne: AITSL.
Azorín, C., & Fullan, M. (2022). Leading new, deeper forms of collaborative cultures: Questions and pathways. Journal of Educational Change, 23(1), 131-143. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10833-021-09448-w
Meredith, C., Moolenaar, N., Struyve, C., Vandecandelaere, M., Gielen, S., & Kyndt, E. (2023). The importance of a collaborative culture for teachers’ job satisfaction and affective commitment. European Journal of Psychology of Education, 38(1), 43-62. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10212-022-00598-w
Sahlin, S. (2023). Teachers making sense of principals’ leadership in collaboration within and beyond school. Scandinavian Journal of Educational Research, 67(5), 754-774. https://doi.org/10.1080/00313831.2022.2043429
Veletić, J., Price, H. E., & Olsen, R. V. (2023). Teachers’ and principals’ perceptions of school climate: The role of principals’ leadership style in organizational quality. Educational Assessment, Evaluation and Accountability, 35(4), 525-555. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11092-023-09413-6
Woods, P., & Roberts, A. (2018). Collaborative school leadership: A critical guide. London: Sage.