LEADING COMMUNITIES

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• LEADING COMMUNITIES
• CREATING FUTURES
• Tony Pitman
• CEO
• Oz Child

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FOUR CRITICAL BOOKS FOR TRUE EDUCATIONAL LEADERS
IN AUSTRALIA

• Children of the Lucky Country?
• Fiona Stanley, Sue Richardson, Margo Prior,
  McMillan 2005.
• How Australian Society has turned its back on
  children and why children matter
• A Whole New Mind
• David H Pink, Allen Unwin 2005
• Moving from the information age to the conceptual
  age. The new needs of
• our children.
• Growth Fetish
• Clive Hamilton, Allen Unwin 2003
• Australias most amazing economist you will
  find it either exhilarating or deeply
  threatening.
• The Character of Leadership
• Sarros, Cooper, Hartican and Barker, Wiley 2006
• What works for Australian leaders making it
  work for you.

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ASSUMPTIONS

• Leadership should learn from history, act in the
  present and provide for the future
• Education is one part of our total community

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CURRENT CONTEXT - SACRED COWS ARE NOT SACRED
BUT THE IDEALS SHOULD BE

• With a booming economy Australias predicted
  major disability by 2020 is depression..
• How well are we travelling?
• Growing in equality between rich and poor is one
  of the major factors lowering scores in happiness
  and well being studies across the world.
• The size of the inequality gap is more
  significant than actual amount of income.
• Growth Fetish, Hamilton

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CURRENT CONTEXT - SACRED COWS ARE NOT SACRED
BUT THE IDEALS SHOULD BE

• Happiness and wellbeing studies go across all
  nations over some 50 years.
• High happiness scores come from people with
• high self esteem and belief in their own ethics,
  intelligence and ability to get along with
  others.
• feelings of being more in control of their lives
• higher levels of optimism
• higher indicators of extraversion
• The pursuit of happiness, Myers Diener

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CURRENT CONTEXT - SACRED COWS ARE NOT SACRED
BUT THE IDEALS SHOULD BE

• Hamiltons review of the studies found happiness
  depended on
• effective social relationships including family
  and friends
• job satisfaction
• committed leisure
• religious belief
• a sense of meaning and purpose
• Growth Fetish

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CURRENT CONTEXT - SACRED COWS ARE NOT SACRED
BUT THE IDEALS SHOULD BE

• Daniel Pink spends several pages explaining why
  in future western societies EQ will provide
  greater benefit than IQ A Whole New Mind
• Fiona Stanley et al conclude their book with a
  solution chapter Creating a Civil Society
• The new Victorian Act The Children, Youth and
  Families Act 2005, focuses on protection, well
  being and stability.

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CURRENT CONTEXT - SACRED COWS ARE NOT SACRED
BUT THE IDEALS SHOULD BE

• All of these aspirations and ideals exist within
  the school but are absolutely not the sole
  province of the school.
• All these quotes call for team work by all who
  hold the common agenda.
• Parents, all levels of government, clubs, schools
  etc. etc. etc.
• If education is to be forward looking to provide
  the best present and future for every child it
  must look beyond the school fence and join with
  other parts of the community.

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EXAMPLES THAT WORK

• Lift Off With Language CSO, school, parents and
  university
• Community VCAL - Local paper School
  dropouts,Schools, 2 CSOs, paper, local LLEN,
  industry
• Healthy Active Families parents, school, CSO,
  Kraft
• Bright Ideas - Melbourne University, Author,
  CSO, school

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EXAMPLES THAT WORK
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WHAT DOES THIS MEAN FOR YOU AS EDUCATION LEADERS?

• Inside or Outside the Box?
• Leadership/Innovator solution focus, long term
  vision, risk taker
• OR
• Manager/Administrator compliance to meet
  internal goals, short term, risk minimiser
• Position opportunity.
• Middle management can inhibit innovation but
  good managers DO deliver

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WHAT DOES THIS MEAN FOR YOU AS EDUCATION LEADERS?

• Don Werthiemer goals of leadership
• Strategic solutions, plans vision
• Sales for the organisations purpose
• Team builder of managers

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WHAT DOES THIS MEAN FOR YOU AS EDUCATION LEADERS?

• To become a community leader
• Find those with a common agenda (clarification)
• Convert others to see the agenda (articulation)
• Ensure the school performs internally and
  contributes externally (management teams and
  leadership)
• Each requires different skills.

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WHAT DOES THIS MEAN FOR YOU AS EDUCATION LEADERS?

• Challenge - Danger of the convenient life
• for the Principal 54 - 11
• for the staff
• for external network/community

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WHAT DOES THIS MEAN FOR YOU AS EDUCATION LEADERS?

• Sarros et al defined 15 characteristics of
  leadership that are successful in Australia, as
  those connected to
• universalism
• transformation
• benevolence

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QUALITIES NEEDED FOR TRANSFORMATION

• Transformation relates to bringing about change
  and requires four qualities
• Courage
• Courage is setting direction for the long term
  and taking people along without being hampered by
  fear.
• The people who do what you asked them to do they
  are employees. But the ones that have the
  courage to tackle challenging projects, to try
  something different despite the risks .. are the
  ones ultimately rewarded for exceeding
  expectations and doing a good job.

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QUALITIES NEEDED FOR TRANSFORMATION

• Passion
• passion is having a source of energy or
  enthusiasm from ones soul that enables one to
  produce extra-ordinary results. p. 143
• Why did you come into teaching?
• What do you believe will make a
• difference?
• Passion has a close link to osmosis.

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QUALITIES NEEDED FOR TRANSFORMATION

• Wisdom
• Wisdom requires experience and knowledge
  together with the power to apply them critically
  or practically. From class-room to coordinator
  to vice principal to principal to community
  leader.
• As the helicopter gets higher the vision becomes
  broader.
• When the values are clear the decisions are easy.

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QUALITIES NEEDED FOR TRANSFORMATION

• Competence
• The first and most important ingredient of
  leadership seems to me to be to possess a rounded
  and comprehensive knowledge of subject matter .
  About which you want others to act in a
  particular way.