Key points:
A ship is safe in a harbor, but that’s not what ships are for[1]
Successful educational transformation in contemporary times is like courageously navigating from where you are to where you know you need to be–not just a desired location but given the increasingly complex nature of the world and the kind of competencies young people now need, an essential location.
Depending on the starting point, the challenges encountered in making the required policy and practice changes can be considerable. Leadership in and for this context is not for the faint-hearted.
There are two options, though, both of which are easily observable in the rhetoric and actions (or inaction) of different kinds of leaders you see in education today.
One of these options is to anchor within or retreat to a safe harbor. There are many examples of jurisdictions across the globe selecting this option, where “reform” is portrayed along back to basics lines and promoted or justified using reductionist rhetoric.
It is where the risk-averse leader relies on the articulation of education decisions drawn from a time when the world was viewed as less complex–a nostalgic popular perception of teaching, learning, and schooling. It is where teachers deliver “the knowledge,” students sit and consume and retain it, are tested on it, and improvement at individual, school, and jurisdictional levels are, supposedly, the outcomes. Like an imaginary world where AI doesn’t exist, where life and career trajectories can be neatly and confidently planned, where change is gradual and moderate and where canonical knowledge is primarily all one needs.
An explicit focus on knowledge is a predictable winner with mainstream media, conservative groups, and think tanks. The argument goes that schools are rife with attention drawn to faddish interests, progressive fantasies, and the teaching of peripheral content.
Teachers will be generally puzzled at being characterised as having been captured by fads and practices portrayed as lacking rigour. However, the messages are unequivocal that a focus on the familiar basics is, in its sweet simplicity, what is needed.
The world beyond this safe harbor, while far from simplistic and requiring young people to have an extended set of competencies (and additional foundational basics) to live and work in a rapidly changing world, might be so–but a safe harbour is what it is for those who prefer things unchanged and unchallenging in schools.
The other leadership option is to venture out beyond the sanctuary of a safe harbor to undertake genuine transformational change.
The risk appetite required of such leaders is comparatively high, for they will inevitably encounter turbulence and “choppy seas” (push-back and back-lash). Despite this, the journey will be worth it from an altruistic perspective, but it won’t be easy sailing.
It is important to understand that rough times are not just expected, but inevitable. Like any change, there will be internal and external opponents to reform, particularly those comforted in and by safe harbor. Some opponents will have vested or commercial interests in maintaining the status quo, some will feel unprepared for or are simply unwilling to change, and others will have an ideological or emotional bent towards past times.
Yet, while the challenges are varied and many, there are examples where the kind of transformational leadership that engages in genuine change has happened and is happening in both high-performing jurisdictions and those seeking to leap-frog others rather than be steered unhelpfully towards “catch up” reductionist strategies. By way of example, Singapore, Indonesia, Kenya, South Korea, some Canadian provinces, a few Australian states/territories, Portugal, Bermuda, Scotland, Wales and, despite its circumstances, war-torn Ukraine demonstrate what is possible when led by transformational leaders regardless of the extent of opposition mounted or the conditions faced.
Indonesia’s Director General of Education, Iwan Syahril, a truly transformational leader, describes leadership with genuine purpose in the interests of young people as being like a ship at sea in a storm:
You can get redirected, easily put off course–but we know the destination, we know where we are going and so we get back on course.
For those considering the safe harbor option, the rhetoric is highly predictable. In essence, you are focussing on “the basics,” you are justifying and pitching what you are doing on “the evidence” or “the science” and providing a bulwark to the “trendy” topics, practices, and ideas that you claim have seized control of the curriculum and teaching practices in your schools. In other words, create the problem you are solving and through a few well-chosen anecdotal examples assure the public that all is now in hand. Most of the mainstream media will swallow it whole, no hard questions asked.
However, those looking to truly undertake reform in a substantial and transformative way hold to the moral purpose of educating young people not only based on evidence, but also on a true recognition that the world has changed, is changing, and will continue to change. Anyone in the workplace or encountering the challenges of the VUCA[2] world we now live and work in will understand this. It is, after all, a world that young people are inheriting from today’s adults.
Transformational leaders have both vision and insight and accept the obligation to equip young people for this VUCA world. These leaders have a set of qualities that enable them to navigate reform where others don’t or can’t. Transformational leaders:
- are open, not closed in their thinking
- take responsibility for decisions and make the difficult decisions
- enable others to consider alternatives and stimulate their thinking
- model active listening and communicate well
- have an appetite for the right risks
- generate a sense of trust
- are adaptable and know when and how to act
- are clear about the direction, the processes required and the desired outcomes
As Sinek[3] puts it, transformational leaders understand and work from the why (purpose) and then to the actions (the how and the what) rather than the other way around.
What is crystal clear is that in choosing to set out and navigate through turbulent waters, transformational leaders are not only blessed with abundant courage but also have a much greater sense of purpose than personal survival. And their understanding of the why is based on a true appreciation of the reality of today and tomorrow and the risk of not acting. Peter Drucker’s analysis of this is highly relevant:
The greatest danger in times of turbulence is not the turbulence—it is to act with yesterday’s logic
[1] Attributed to William Shedd (1820-1894), theologian and professor of English literature.
[2] VUCA (volatile, unpredictable, complex and ambiguous).
[3] Sinek, S. (2011). Start With Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone To Take Action. United Kingdom: Penguin Books Limited.
