The Journey to Excellence in Leadership

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The Journey to Excellence in Leadership

• Graham Donaldson
• HM Senior Chief Inspector
• Friday 8 September 2006

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• what is leadership?

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becoming an excellent leader which manual to
choose?
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empathetic leadership?
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high quality leadership develops a team approach
to improvement Journey to Excellence
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leadership a working definition

• leadership implies
• influence impact (high leverage activities)
• direction setting (compass in your pocket)
• developing people (capacity building)
• change, redesign improvement

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an interesting definition of leadership

• People have to make an active decision to be a
  leader it is not achieved merely by virtue of
  position. An individual must choose to do
  leaderly things and think and feel in a leaderly
  way. In other words, people volunteer that
  discretionary effort of their full engagement in
  the task required and this is quite distinct from
  the minimum level of movement or compliance
  required to do the job (Lawson)

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being leaderly

• clear focus on big picture
• distinguish technical from adaptive
• an understanding of people and how to get best
  from them - the ability to build confidence
• resilience it will rarely be a smooth and easy
  path
• bravery
• the ability to make connections and build
  partnerships
• the ability to manage change
• the ability to manage risk
• to be demanding and painstaking
• hungry to learn

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• effective leadership is situational

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• educational leadership
• what does it involve?

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educational leadership tricky situations

• multiple expectations
• unpredictability of the human process
• not being in control of key variables
• high level of personal accountability
• risk and innovation

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• The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide
  your sources
• Einstein
• Proudly found elsewhere
• Proctor Gamble slogan

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• what are the major leadership challenges for
  Scottish education?

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Where are we now with leadership?findings in
Improving Scottish Education

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Known Agenda

• Achievement
• Curriculum, Learning and Teaching
• Inclusion
• Underperformance
• Innovation

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future world

• The challenge of
• globalisation
• moving up the value chain
• changing demographic balance
• increasing health inequalities
• impact of technology
• employers need for generic and soft-skills
• sustainability
• demand for quality and customisation

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global issues affecting education

• School students graduating into the changing
  world will experience
• greater accessibility of travel, study or work
• constant and changing communication
• increasing knowledge
• more volatility (political, economical social)
• Peter Mortimore

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• How can Scotland meet these challenges?

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What are our strengths?

• Attainment
• Teaching
• Curriculum
• Resources
• Climate relationships
• Self-evaluation

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• It does not matter if a cat is black or white so
  long as it catches mice
• Deng Xiaoping

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• Every morning in Africa, a gazelle wakes up
• It knows it must run faster than the fastest lion
  or be killed
• Every morning a lion wakes up
• It knows it must run faster than the slowest
  gazelle or starve
• It does not matter if you are a lion or a gazelle
• When the sun comes up, you better start running
• African proverb