Dean Fink

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Sustainable Leadership
Welcome to

• Dean Fink

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ACTIVITY

• Find someone you dont know very well, or at all.
  
• Tell that person one thing in your school or
  organization that you are really proud of, and
• some reasons you think it has been sustained
  over time. If the thing you are proud of is
  relatively new, how you propose to sustain it
  over time.
• What have been some of the barriers, or what do
  you anticipate are some of the barriers to
  sustainability?

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Development of the term sustainability

• Term first coined by Lester Brown, founder of
  the World
• Watch Institute
• Sustainable development defined by Brundtland
  Report of
• the World Commission on Environment
  and Development
• Agenda 21, United Nations Conference on
  Environment
• and Development, Rio De Janeiro
  systematically
• addressed sustainable development
• United Nations Johannesburg Summit developed
  
• practical goals for sustainable
  development
• Beginning of UN Decade of Education for
  Sustainable
• Development

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Sustainable leadership

• Sustainable leadership matters, spreads and
  lasts. It is a shared responsibility that does
  not unduly deplete human or financial resources,
  and that cares for and avoids exerting damage on
  the surrounding educational and community
  environment.
• Hargreaves Fink 2003

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Educational Lessons of Environmental
Sustainability

• Rich diversity, not soulless standardization
• Taking the long view
• Act urgently for change, wait patiently for
  results
• Prudence about conserving and renewing human and
  financial resources
• Examine the impact of our improvement efforts on
  others
• All of us can be activists and make a difference
• Hargreaves Fink 2006

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Unsustainability

• Repetitive change syndrome is
• Initiative overload
• Change-related chaos
• Abrahamson 2004

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Initiative Overload

• The tendency of organizations to launch more
  change initiatives than anyone could ever
  reasonably handle
• Abrahamson 2004

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Change-related Chaos

• The continuous state of upheaval that results
  when so many waves of initiatives have worked
  through at the organization that hardly anyone
  knows which change theyre implementing or why
• Abrahamson 2004

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Seven Principles of Sustainable Leadership

• Depth
• Endurance
• Breadth
• Justice

• It matters
• It lasts
• It spreads
• It does not harm the surrounding environment

Continued
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Seven principles of Sustainable Leadership

• Diversity
• Resourcefulness
• Conservation

• It promotes diversity cohesion
• It conserves expenditure
• It honours the past in creating the future

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Principle 1 Depth
Sustainable leadership matters. It
preserves, protects and promotes deep and
broad learning for all in relationship of care
for others.
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What Matters?

• Test scores?
• Over subscribed schools?
• Customer satisfaction?
• Short-term achievement targets?
• Adequate yearly progress?

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Educational leadership

• is about a passionate, steadfast, obstinate
  commitment to the enhancement of deep learning
  for all students learning for life, learning
  for understanding, learning for an increasingly
  fluid, messy and risky world.

Leadership for Mortals Paul Chapman, 2005
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Standards and Sustainability

• Learning ? Achievement ? Testing
• NOT
• Testing ? Achievement ? Learning
• Hargreaves Fink, 2006

1. Depth
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The two hungers

• In Africa, they say there are two hungers, the
  lesser hunger and the greater hunger.
• The lesser hunger is for the things that sustain
  life, the goods, and services, and the money to
  pay for them, which we all need.

Commitment
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Deep learning

• 30 produce 50
• The Creative Class
• Florida, R. (2002). The Rise of the Creative
  Class. New York Basic Books

Commitment
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We need

• Entrepreneurialism
• Failure
• Questions
• Nonconformity
• Trust

• Creativity
• Imagination
• Diversity
• Innovation
• Passion

Commitment
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Present education delivers

• Predictability
• Control
• Compliance
• Conformity
• Stability

• Order
• Standardization
• Answers
• Apathy
• Distrust

Commitment
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Going deeper

• The greater hunger is for the answer to the
  question why, for some understanding of what
  life is for.
• Handy, C. (1997). The Hungry Spirit. London
  Hutchison, p.13.

Commitment
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Guided imagery

• Think of a country road that you know well
• Imagine how it looks in the Springtime

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Deep learning

• Our educational system does its best to ignore
  and suppress the creative spirit of children.
• It teaches them to listen unquestioningly to
  authority.
• It insists that education is just knowledge
  contained in subjects and the purpose of
  education is to get a job.
• Whats left out is sensitivity to others,
  non-violent behaviour, respect, intuition,
  imagination, and a sense of awe and wonderment.
• The Body Shop

Commitment
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Wide Learning Queensland

• Old basics
• Literacy
• Numeracy
• Obedience
• Punctuality

• New basics
• Multiliteracy
• Creativity
• Communication
• IT
• Teamwork
• Lifelong Learning
• Adaptation Change
• Environmental Responsibility

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The four pillars of learning

• Learning to know
• Learning to do
• Learning to be
• Learning to live together
• UNESCO 1996
• Learning to live sustainably
• Hargreaves Fink, 2006

1. Depth
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Slow Knowing

• The unconscious realms of the human mind will
  successfully accomplish a number of important
  tasks if they are given the time. They will learn
  patterns of a degree of subtlety which normal
  consciousness cannot even see make sense out of
  situations that are too complex to analyze and
  get to the bottom of certain difficult issues
  much more successfully than the questing
  intellect.
• Claxton 1997

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What does the doctor reply?
1. Depth
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Slow forms of knowing

• are tolerant of the faint, fleeting, marginal and
  ambiguous
• like to dwell on details that do not fit or
  immediately make sense
• are relaxed, leisurely and playful
• are willing to explore without knowing what they
  are looking for
• see ignorance and confusion as the ground from
  which understanding may spring
• are receptive rather than proactive
• are happy to relinquish the sense of control over
  the directions the mind spontaneously takes
• treat seriously ideas that come out of the blue
• Claxton, 1997

1. Depth
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Slow schooling

• starts formal learning later
• reduces testing
• increases curriculum flexibility
• emphasizes enjoyment
• doesnt hurry the child
• rehabilitates play alongside purpose
• Honore, 2004

1. Depth
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REFLECTION
Think of a recent staff development
experience that was successful or unsuccessful
(as assigned)
CONSIDER

• In what ways did it (or did it not) include the
  five pillars of learning?
• In what ways did it (or did it not) address the
  lesser and greater hungers?
• In what ways did it embody or obstruct elements
  of slow learning?

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DEANS CHALLENGE

• Does this policy, practice, custom, or decision
  contribute to deep, wide, and slow learning for
  all students?

Commitment
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Principle 2 Endurance

• Sustainable leadership lasts. It preserves and
  advances the most valuable aspects of learning
  and life over time, year upon year, from one
  leader to the next.

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Trajectories
INBOUND
PERIPHERAL
BOUNDARY
INSIDER
OUTBOUND
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Activity
Page 36

• Carousel topics
• Strategies to identify and recruit prospective
  leaders
• Strategies to develop their inbound trajectories
• Strategies to get from the periphery to the
  inside without being marginalized
• Strategies as an insider to remain proactive
• Strategies to appraise a leaders performance
• Strategies to ensure the important parts of your
  outbound trajectory are sustained

Trajectories
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Four Issues in Succession

• Succession Planning
• Succession Management
• Succession Duration Frequency
• Succession and the Self
• Successi0n and Politics

2. Endurance
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Succession Management
identify
recruit
transitions
appraisal
develop
support
celebrate
select
induct
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Succession management

• POTENTIAL
• NOT
• PROFICIENCIES

Succession
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Good succession plans

• Prepare early
• Give people proper time to prepare
• Incorporate into all school improvement plans
• Should be responsibility of many
• Should reflect the schools existing stage of
  development
• Are linked to clearly defined leadership
  standards

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Principle 3 Breadth

• Sustainable leadership spreads. It sustains
  as well as depends on the leadership of others

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Raising the temperature of distributed leadership

• Anarchy
• Assertive distribution
• Emergent distribution
• Guided distribution
• Progressive delegation
• Traditional delegation
• Autocracy

Too hot
Too cold
3. Breadth
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Traditional delegation

• Hand over some power
• Appoint good deputies and seek and rely on their
  counsel
• Respect their autonomy
• Make sure they report to you regularly
• Dont do everything yourself

3. Breadth
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Progressive delegation

• Extend and amend your structures, teams and
  communities
• Create new roles
• Focus peoples roles and responsibilities on
  learning and improvement
• Use the new structures to restrict the veto of
  the old ones
• Develop proper planning
• Consult with your teams and committees
• Audit the results

3. Breadth
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Guided distribution

• Rely on more than your structures
• Develop better relationships
• Bring people together
• Show interest in your staff members as people
• Improve the quality of professional conversation
• Concentrate on core purposes
• Always remember food
• Model the attentive behaviour you expect of
  others
• Be visible and vigilant, always steering
  conversation and relationships in a more
  productive and attentive direction

3. Breadth
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Emergent distribution

• Remain clear about purposes and values
• Ensure that they are genuinely shared
• Maintain a premium on relationships
• Encourage staff to innovate
• Develop a culture of professional
  entrepreneurship
• Demonstrate trust
• Step back from watching over all interactions and
  relationships
• Learn to let go
• Dont pour cold water on proposals when they are
  brought forward
• Praise initiative
• Celebrate good results

3. Breadth
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Assertive distribution

• Be even more steadfast and passionate about
  shared purpose and values
• Stimulate wide-ranging debate about important
  proposals
• Involve resisters early
• Include and listen to minorities
• Use processes that surface thoughtful divergence
  and disagreement
• Demonstrate the value of learning from
  differences
• Be prepared for criticism but insist on
  respectful dialogue
• Keep your sense of humour
• Ensure that the vigorous professional culture
  always moves you forward
• Never abrogate responsibility
• Always reaffirm your goals

3. Breadth
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ACTIVITY

• Position your self according to where you think
  your school or organisation is on the distributed
  leadership scale.
• You will be grouped into one of three larger
  groups. Find people from each of the other
  groups
• Discuss with your three colleagues why you chose
  the position on the continuum that you did, where
  you would like to be on the continuum, and what
  has to be done to get there.

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Principle 4 Justice

• Sustainable leadership does no harm to and
  actively improves the surrounding environment by
  finding ways to share knowledge and resources
  with neighboring schools and the local
  communities.

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Sustainability and Social Justice

• do not steal your neighbours capacity
• use multiple indicators of accountability
• emphasize collective accountability
• coach a less successful partner school
• make a definable contribution to the community
  your school is in
• pair with a school or district in a different
  social environment
• collaborate with your competitors

4. Justice
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Principle 5 Diversity

• Sustainable leadership promotes cohesive
  diversity and avoids aligned standardization of
  policy, curriculum, assessment, and staff
  development and training in teaching and
  learning. It fosters and learns from diversity
  and creates cohesion and networking among its
  richly varying components.

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Activity

• At the top of a blank piece of paper, write down
  one important issue that you will deal with when
  you return to your job, that your colleagues can
  help you with.
• It should be phrased - How do I (or we) etc.?

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Effective organizations are characterized by

• A framework of common and enduring values, goals
  and purposes
• Possession and development of variability or
  diversity in skills, talents and identities
• Processes that promote interaction and
  cross-pollination of ideas and influences across
  this variability
• Permeability to outside influences
• Emergence of new ideas, structures, and processes
  as diverse elements interconnect and new ones
  intrude from the outside
• Flexibility and adaptability in response to
  environmental change
• Resilience in the face of and in response to
  threats and adversity

5. Diversity
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Principle 7 Conservation

• Sustainable leadership respects and builds on
  the past in its quest to create a better future.

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CONSERVATION ACTIVITY
Draw a timeline for your group to represent your
districts past 30 years.
Identify on the timeline when each person in the
group joined the district.
Have each person in the group tell a story about
a critical incident or innovation from their
early years that still resonates with that
person today and briefly record the incident or
innovation the timeline.
What does the timeline tell you about your
district that has a bearing on its present and
the future? What should be continued, stopped,
restarted, or subverted?
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Stop, Start, Continue

STOP What is less valuable
START What is more valuable
CONTINUE What remains highly valuable
SUBVERT What is formally required but threatens
what is valuable
7. Conservation
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MORAL DILEMMAS
Depth How do we promote and protect deep and
broad learning that lasts in a climate that
insists on immediate, tested results? Length
How do we remain steadfastly committed to the
long-term goals for authentic improvement while
attending properly to the urgent needs of
underachieving children right now? Breadth How
do we distribute leadership more widely and more
wisely and also retain a sense of the distinctive
leadership gifts that we contribute
ourselves? Justice How do we help other
peoples schools and children without sacrificing
and short-changing our own?
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MORAL DILEMMAS
Diversity How do we accommodate, include and
connect the rich diversity of our students
learning and teachers teaching, and also retain
focus, direction and cohesion in our efforts to
improve? Resourcefulness How do we engage
peoples energy and motivation for urgent
improvement without wearing them out?
Conservation How do we innovate for a better
future by building on the firm foundations of the
past without staying stuck in the past or
wallowing in nostalgic memories of it?
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Principle 6 Resourcefulness

• Sustainable leadership develops and does not
  deplete material and human resources. It renews
  peoples energy. Sustainable leadership is
  prudent and resourceful leadership that wastes
  neither its money nor its people.

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The Ride of your life - George Carlin -
HOW TO STAY YOUNG 1. Throw out nonessential
numbers. This includes age, weight and height.
Let the doctors worry about them. That is why you
pay 'them.' 2. Keep only cheerful friends. The
grouches pull you down.3. Keep learning. Learn
more about the computer, crafts, gardening,
whatever, even ham radio. Never let the brain
idle. 'An idle mind is the devil's workshop.' And
the devil's name is Alzheimer's. 4. Enjoy the
simple things. 5. Laugh often, long and loud.
Laugh until you gasp for breath.
                                                  
                          

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6. The tears happen. Endure, grieve, and move on.
The only person, who is with us our entire life,
is ourselves. Be ALIVE while you are alive. 7.
Surround yourself with what you love , whether
it's family, pets, keepsakes, music, plants,
hobbies, whatever. Your home is your refuge.8.
Cherish your health If it is good, preserve it.
If it is unstable, improve it. If it is beyond
what you can improve, get help. 9. Don't take
guilt trips. Take a trip to the mall, even to the
next county to a foreign country but NOT to
where the guilt is.10. Tell the people you love
that you love them , at every opportunity. AND
ALWAYS REMEMBER Life is not measured by the
number of breaths we take, but by the moments
that take our breath away.
Enjoy the ride There is no return ticket 
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FOR FURTHER INFORMATION SEE
Hargreaves A. Fink, D. (2005) Sustainable
Leadership. San Francisco, CA
Jossey-Bass. Fink D. (2005).Leadership for
Mortals Developing and Sustaining Leaders of
learning London Paul Chapman/Corwin. Stoll, L,
Fink, D. Earl, L (2003). Its about Learning
and Its about Time. London Taylor Francis.
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Thank you
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WORDS THAT WORK
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CRAP DETECTING
Data-driven decision making (evidence-based) Tri-l
evel reform model Best practice Bottom
line Personalisation Choice Customer Targets
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The Long and Short of Change

• Hargreaves and Finks Proposition
• The urgency of targets is inversely related to
  the degree of power held by those responsible for
  implementing them.

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DESCRIPTIONS

SHORT
LONG
evasive, unaccountable
cynical, opportunistic

urgent, confidence-boosting
enduring, sustainable

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EXAMPLES

SHORT
LONG
Government-imposed short-term achievement targets
UN Millenium Goals

shared targets, quick wins
authentic transformations In practices and beliefs