Understanding Effective Leadership Development

1

• Understanding Effective Leadership Development
• John West-Burnham

2
Components of Effective Leadership

• Strategic direction and ethos
• Teaching and learning
• Developing and managing people
• Networking and collaboration
• Operational matters
• Accountability
• (PricewaterhouseCooper 2007)

3
Why leadership?

• As far as we are aware, there is not a single
  documented case of a school successfully turning
  around its pupil achievement trajectory in the
  absence of talented leadership.
• Total leadership accounted for a quite
  significant 27 per cent of the variation in
  student achievement across the school. This is a
  much higher proportion of explained (two to three
  times higher) than is typically reported in
  studies of individual headteacher effects.
• (Leithwood 2007)

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Barriers to Effective Leadership

• Operational dominates strategic
• Problems with holding to account and developing
• Difficulty in modifying/changing behaviours
• PricewaterhouseCooper (2007)

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• Developing Leadership
• Authority derived from
• Status and position
• Knowledge and experience
• Relationships and qualities.

6
Outcomes of leadership development programmes

• Social interaction
• Access to information
• Motivation inspiration
• Skills development
• Behavioural attitudinal change
• Building confidence
• Personal growth

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Impact of Learning Strategies
Training components and combinations
Impact on job performance
Knowledge
Skill
Transfer
Theory Low Low Nil Theory and
demonstration Medium Medium Nil Theory,
demonstration and Practice High Medium
Nil Theory, demonstration, practice and
feedback High Medium Low Theory,
demonstration, Practice, feedback and
Coaching High High High
Joyce and Showers
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Development Methods and Impact on Pupil
Performance

• Theory, demonstration and practice have
  negligible impact on performance.
• The addition of feedback moves the mean of pupil
  attainment to the 66th percentile. (0.39 effect
  size)
• The addition of coaching moves the mean to the
  95th percentile. (1.7 effect size)
• (Joyce Student Achievement Through Staff
  Development)

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• Relating theory and Practice

Experience
Knowledge Creation
Practice
Academic
Training
Theory
West-Burnham 2005
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• Development Strategies

Non-directive
Mentoring
Action Learning
Facilitation
Teaching
Training
Directive
Generic
Personal
West-Burnham
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Leadership Learning (1)

• Shallow Deep Profound
• Means Memorisation Reflection Intuition
• Outcomes Information Knowledge Wisdom
• Evidence Replication Understanding Meaning
• Motivation Extrinsic Intrinsic Moral
• (West-Burnham 2005)

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Leadership Learning (2)

• Challenge
• Cognitive development
• Social interaction
• Theory ltgt practice
• Context based
• Review and reflection

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Effective Leadership Development

• Shared language
• Explicit criteria
• Non-chronological
• Personalized
• Cumulative
• Outcomes focused

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Principles

• Leadership as collective capacity
• Process not event
• Predict and Prevent not Find and Fix
• Targeted