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Leading Edge: One clear voice is needed in the din

Define priorities, concentrate efforts, and stay the course

By Rick DuFour

Journal of Staff Development, Spring 2002 (Vol. 23, No. 2)

Copyright, National Staff Development Council, 2002. All rights reserved.

What is the primary task of leaders in contemporary organizations? Consider the responses of some of the nation's leading thinkers on the subject:

Contemporary leadership is so complex that it is neither possible nor desirable to define it in terms of a single focus. Today's effective leader must tend to all of the above issues and myriad others. But, at the risk of oversimplifying, I contend the primary responsibility of educational leaders is creating and communicating the school's purpose and priorities in a way that connects with, and gives clear direction to, those in it. And this responsibility can be fulfilled only if the leader demonstrates a sustained, enthusiastic commitment to the direction in which the school is headed.

Educators have been bombarded with countless (and often conflicting) images and ideas of how schools should function and the purposes they should serve. Legislative initiatives wash upon us in waves. The business community calls on us to raise standards. Advocates for special education demand we accommodate the unique needs of every student. Parents, who often have widely differing views on schooling, demand a larger say in their children's education. The debates never seem to get resolved: back to basics vs. higher order thinking; phonics vs. whole language; cultural literacy vs. learning to learn; content vs. process.

The cacophony of mixed signals swirling around schools is tantamount to the discordant noise as scores of individual musicians in the orchestra tune up before a concert. It takes someone to step up to the podium to provide the focus that translates random noise into music. School leaders certainly must be willing to collaborate with others and delegate authority. They certainly must be willing to build consensus rather than impose their will. But the pendulum has swung too far. While we can caution against autocratic leadership and endorse shared decision making, we should not replace John Wayne with George Gallup. Schools need more than someone who polls the group on every question or leans whichever way the wind blows. It is difficult to look up to a leader who always has his ear to the ground.

Schools stumble when their leaders cannot identify priorities, or when they seem to say, "Pay attention to everything; everything is important." Schools will never have a widely shared sense of purpose and priorities until their leaders can help the educators within them cut through the noise and clarify "this is what is important, this is what we stand for, this is what we strive toward." While leaders can defer to others on the question of the best strategies to accomplish the organization's fundamental purpose, they must be responsible for defining that purpose clearly enough to give direction to the day-to-day decisions of every staff member in the school. School leaders must also acknowledge that the disconnected, fragmented change initiatives that have characterized school improvement efforts cannot be attributed solely to external forces. Educators must accept some responsibility for the fact that schools seem to pursue the latest fads so indiscriminately.

Many school leaders seem to embrace virtually every innovation available to educators in order to demonstrate their personal enthusiasm for change. They lose sight of the fact that it is the quality of a change initiative rather than the number of initiatives a staff is pursuing that is likely to bring about meaningful change. There is no prize for having the most innovations. Five new projects are not better than two. Six school improvement goals are not better than one. Meaningful, substantive changes in schools occur through focused, concentrated efforts.

It is equally important that educational leaders acknowledge that real change is real hard, an effort that will demand sustained commitment over an extended period of time. Why do leaders so often embrace new ideas with initial enthusiasm, only to abandon them a short time later? I contend that it is because leaders persist in their quest for the quick and easy solution to the complex challenges facing schools. Thus, when the inevitable difficulties of implementation occur, when the going gets tough and things get messy, they tend to quit and search anew for the quick and easy answer.

This tendency to bail out at the first sign of difficulty has at least two serious consequences. First, it is in working through the unavoidable mess of a profound change process that a school staff develops the capacity to improve. Retreat robs a staff of an opportunity to learn. Second, teachers who have been tossed first in one direction and then another have been conditioned to respond to calls for yet another new project or program with jaded resignation, the assumption that "this too shall pass." As Phil Schlechty observed, "Nothing is more destructive to the cause of school change than the tendency of schools to move by fits and starts, to reverse direction, to behave in generally erratic ways."

It has been said that the first rule of leadership is simple: There is no leader without followers. If school leaders will help clarify purpose and priorities, if they will concentrate precious resources of time, money, and energy on the core purpose and resist the temptation to be pulled in too many directions at once, and if they will stay the course when buffeted by ill winds, they will increase the likelihood not only of having followers, but also of helping them reach a better destination.

About the author

Rick DuFour is superintendent of Adlai Stevenson High School District 125. You can contact him at Two Stevenson Drive, Lincolnshire, IL 60069, (847) 634-4000 ext. 268, fax (847) 634-0239, e-mail: dufour@district125.k12.il.us.

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