Schools, Consultation to

School Improvement through Staff Collaboration and Staff-Initiated Organizational Change

Lambert (1998) stated that the most successful schools are those that use restructuring tools to help them function as professional communities. In these organizations, teachers work toward a shared goal, involving collaborative and cooperative efforts. These teachers also consider themselves to be members of a team that are collectively responsible for the learning of their students. Teachers are more likely to change the way they work in classrooms and continually improve their practice if they are supported in their own working environment by a group of colleagues who engage in professional development activities and by a culture that values collaboration, distributed leadership, and continuous improvement (Johnson, 1999).

The term leadership often evokes images of an authority figure, and thoughts of certain qualities such as “powerful,” “strong,” and “dominant” often come to mind (Lambert, 1998). In schools, the leader is usually equated with the principal, because there is a frequent tendency among school staff members to defer to or depend on the principal and/or other administrative figures with respect to decision-making issues. In addition, some administrative figures demand and need complete control over their systems and are reluctant to relinquish any part of them to their staffs. Gardner (1990), as cited in Powell (1993), however, conceptualizes leadership as the ability to inspire and motivate others to dedicate time and energy toward the achievement of goals, rather than controlling everything on one's own. Educational leadership occurs when there is learning. Learning happens when the principal and teachers in a school are willing to work together and instruct themselves and each other through continuous reflection, self-analysis, and constructive feedback (S. Powell, personal communication, June 2000).

...