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A study of teachers offers lessons on how to get employees on board with reforms.

Yevgenia Nayberg

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But getting teachers to adopt this new curriculum and reform-oriented way of thinking and teaching is no small feat. And it is a challenge that likely sounds familiar to anyone who has tried to bring about a change in thinking and practice inside a large organization.

"Many teachers expect the traditional approaches that worked for them will work for everybody," says James P. Spillane, a professor in learning and organizational change at Northwestern's School of Education and Social Policy who has a courtesy appointment in Kellogg's department of management and organizations. Yet cognitive science research suggests that children benefit from learning mathematical principles and concepts, and not just procedures, at a young age.

Spillane and his collaborators wanted to understand how school leaders worked to get elementary teachers to adopt the new curriculum in ways that engaged their students. They were particularly interested in whether teachers' beliefs about teaching math were influenced by interactions with their peers.

To find out, the researchers examined survey and interview data from teachers at 14 elementary schools in one school district that was in the midst of adopting a reform-oriented curriculum.

The researchers found that there was no magic bullet-no single strategy that helped teachers change their beliefs about teaching. Rather, it was a network of strategies-changing the organizational structure, adopting a new curriculum that was so different from how teachers had been teaching that it created a need for them to talk to one another, and offering professional development opportunities-that led a majority of teachers to change their beliefs over time about how to teach math.

The results have implications for other organizations looking to change their members' behavior, Spillane says.

"There may be people out there selling magic bullets," he says, "but organizations need to take a more holistic approach and think about how various components of their infrastructure work to shape interactions among employees."

Understanding How Teachers Interact with Peers

The researchers, which included Megan Hopkins at the University of California-San Diego and Tracy Sweet at the University of Maryland, conducted annual surveys in the 14 elementary schools that were adopting the new mathematics curriculum in the school district between 2010 and 2013.

As part of the effort, teachers with leadership responsibilities were offered professional learning opportunities, including a master's program in mathematics education. The district also implemented several organizational routines at both the district and school levels so that teachers worked regularly with math teacher leaders and school leaders in order to help other teachers understand the curriculum and analyze student work.

The surveys annually measured more than 300 teachers' beliefs about math instruction (how students should learn, and how teachers should facilitate instruction) and asked the teachers whom they turned to for advice about the new curriculum. The researchers then followed up with in-person interviews with around 30 teachers and school leaders.

Peer Attitudes Can Shape Behavior

The researchers found that by 2015, 60 percent of teachers had developed more reform-oriented beliefs.

Next, they wanted to understand why teachers developed these beliefs.

They found that the best predictor of whether a teacher would develop reform-oriented beliefs was whom they interacted with. Teachers developed more reform-oriented beliefs about teaching math when they interacted more with their peers who reported more reform-oriented beliefs. The opposite was also true.

"This shows that peers matter," Spillane says. "If we want to change how workers practice, then thinking about how they interact with peers is really important."

Additionally, those who reported having conversations with peers about the ideas behind the curriculum and new ways of teaching math-rather than just logistics-became more reform-oriented.

"Some teachers would seek out other teachers and say, 'I have an activity, it's not working, is there something else that might work?'" he says. "That's important, but the more important thing is they never went beyond that. They never tried to dig deeper to ask, 'Why am I using this activity in the first place? Or why are kids struggling with this particular concept?' Those are the sort of conversations that are fundamental to changing beliefs about teaching math and how kids learn math."

Instead of simply letting the teachers choose with which peers they discussed the curriculum, the district created organizational routines at both the school and district levels that increased the odds that teachers would interact with those who felt differently about the new curriculum than they did.

For example, the district developed a mathematics leadership committee, which worked across schools to figure out how to support teachers as they implemented the new curriculum.

The district also required every teacher to participate in a professional learning routine along with fellow teachers at a particular grade level, mathematics leadership committee members, and teacher leaders. Within these routines, teachers discussed implementing the new curriculum, efforts to adopt more reform-oriented approaches, and student work.

While previous research by others showed that teachers generally seek out interactions with peers who hold the same beliefs about instruction as they do, that did not happen in this study. Instead, the various components of the district's educational infrastructure influenced who talked to whom about mathematics instruction.

"This is important, because traditionally in U.S. public schools, the formal organization has been relatively weak in terms of influencing whom teachers talk to about their teaching," Spillane says. "This work documents that school districts can build formal organizational infrastructures that can influence teachers' interactions about their teaching. Of course, in order to do that, the school district has to agree on an approach to teaching mathematics to anchor their designing of an organizational infrastructure."

No Magic Bullet for Changing Organizational Behavior

Various components of the school system's new organizational infrastructure got teachers talking to their peers and teacher leaders about mathematics. This was key to encouraging change in teachers' beliefs about their instruction, Spillane says.

Additionally, the new curriculum created a sense of dissonance about mathematics instruction, nudging teachers to reach out to colleagues for help and guidance. The organizational routines and teacher leaders provide structured paths for these interactions.

"Peers are a potentially powerful source for improving practice in organizations, but organizational leaders have to work to support, engage, and channel this," Spillane says. "To do that leaders have to think about how they can get different components of their organizational infrastructure to work together to enable particular types of interactions among the organization's members."

Featured Faculty

Spencer T. and Ann W. Olin Professor in Learning and Organizational Change; Professor of Management & Organizations (Courtesy)

About the Writer

Emily Ayshford is a freelance writer in Chicago.

About the Research

Spillane, James P., Megan Hopkins, and Tracy M. Sweet. 2018. "School District Educational Infrastructure and Change at Scale: Teacher Peer Interactions and Their Beliefs About Mathematics Instruction." American Educational Research Journal. 55(3): 532-571.
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Organizational Change Is Often a Tough Sell, but Encouraging Peer Interactions Can Help

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Skip to content A study of teachers offers lessons on how to get employees on board with reforms. Yevgenia Nayberg We'll send you one email a week with content you actually want to read, curated by the Insight team. But getting teachers to adopt this new curriculum and reform-oriented way of thinking and teaching is no small feat.

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Organizational leadership is a management approach in which leaders help set strategic goals for the organization while motivating individuals within the group to successfully carry out assignments in service to those goals.
The company CEO, army general, political party leader, school superintendent, department head, team coach - these are but a few examples representing the two fundamental components of organizational leadership. First, there is the organization, which can be defined as "a group of people organized for some end or work." Then, there is the leader, the person responsible for directing or guiding that group.

According to Jessica Dihn and her co-authors in a 2013 article for "The Leadership Quarterly," the role of the leader is "to structure the way that the inputs of others are combined to produce organizational outputs." But what distinguishes an organizational leader (OL) from, say, a functional manager or an executive with other leadership qualities?

The key difference is that organization leaders combine business understanding with their roles as "future visionaries and forward-thinkers who lead broad initiatives using integrity and ethics," according to Dr. Linda Ellington, faculty lead for organizational leadership at Southern New Hampshire University (SNHU). Organizational leadership, then, is a management approach in which leaders help set strategic goals for the organization while motivating individuals within the group to successfully carry out assignments in service to those goals.

"You have to be people-oriented," said Dr. Lowell (Chris) Matthews, associate professor of organizational leadership at SNHU. "Organizational leadership is about leading and managing individuals toward achieving a strategic organizational goal. So, an OL is a change-agent, someone who sees the big picture but also understands the processes or steps to making change happen."

Learning Organizational Leadership Skills and Mindsets

"If your goal is to influence people and impact the organization at the highest level possible, then you want to learn about organizational leadership," said Deborah Gogliettino, faculty lead for human resources at SNHU.

It's one thing to learn about a subject. But can the key skills and mindsets of organizational leadership be learned? According to Ellington, these include:

Problem-solving and decision-making

Communicating (especially listening) effectively

Relationship- and team-building (including developing leadership potential in others)

Identifying future innovations and opportunities

Understanding your business environment and operations

Using integrity and ethics

Thinking strategically, system-wide, and holistically

Spreading the organization's vision, and inspiring others to share in that vision

"People are not empty vessels," Ellington said. "They have unique experiences, talents and knowledge." And if they have the drive, commitment and passion to learn about organizational leadership, "we can teach them those OL skills and mindsets while also sprinkling in the business understanding," she said.

Of course, some people learn organizational leadership skills through real-world experiences. Yet the benefit of an education, either at the undergraduate or graduate level, is the chance to study theories about motivation, strategy and leadership, and then put those theories into practice without the same level of risk.

"After all, the practice is when you make mistakes - and we all make mistakes." said Ellington. "The difference is that in an education setting, no one is going to get fired or lose their company or go into debt. We provide a safe sandbox or playground for our students to try simulations and develop confidence in their abilities."

Ideally, theory and practice go hand in hand. "The analogy that I use for my students is that of a medical doctor who goes to medical school and obtains their degree," said Matthews. "They know the theory, but until they start practicing medicine with patients, the theory only gets you so far." Conversely, of course, patients generally want a doctor who also has the theoretical training, not just medical knowledge that comes from learning "by doing."

Organizational Leadership Jobs and Careers

"A person with a degree in organizational leadership can be expected to fill a management or leadership role in an organization that has to constantly be prepared for change," said Matthews. "These roles may be in human resources or more supervisory positions that are industry-specific. The good thing about OL is that it's needed for all types of organizations."

These include organizations, businesses, and enterprises in the:

Public and private sectors

For-profit and not-for-profit realms

Centralized and decentralized institutions

New start-ups and global conglomerates

As a result, it's possible for organizational leaders "to work in places that fit who they are in terms of their core values," said Gogliettino.

The other potential benefit of work in this field is with regard to compensation. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the "median annual wage for management occupations was $102,590 in May 2017, which was the highest wage of all the major occupational groups."

While some jobs have "organizational leader" in the title, more often than not, OL isn't the title on your employee ID, according to Ellington. Instead, she said, "it's the mindset, the talent, the love of people, and the courage and desire to drive and influence change. An OL has the ability to look wider and deeper, and to bring an advanced skill set to company's decision-making and strategic thinking."

"The OL is that person who is going to be in a position of influence," Gogliettino said. "That can be an HR person or someone in benefits, it could be an administrator for a not-for-profit or a small business owner. There are lots of titles for which a person could be the OL. The real question is: Does this job or position help the organization move forward?"

Looking ahead, Gogliettino said the job and career prospects in organizational leadership are "constant and long-term. There is always going to be a need for skilled organizational leaders - today, tomorrow, and afterward. Organizations will always embrace someone who can bring a vision, especially one of growth and sustainability. That's a trend I don't ever see going away."
Susan Bogle is a marketing and student recruitment specialist in higher education. Follow her on Twitter @Suze1776 or connect on LinkedIn.

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Organizational leadership is a management approach in which leaders help set strategic goals for the organization while motivating individuals within the group to successfully carry out assignments in service to those goals. The company CEO, army general, political party leader, school superintendent, department head, team coach - these are but a few examples representing the two fundamental components of organizational leadership.

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Simply put, organizational culture is the collective result of how people on the team think and behave, their shared values and how they react to internal and external stimuli. A company culture is either decisively created and nurtured from the very beginning or - more typically - it develops haphazardly over time through the beliefs and experiences of those on the team.

But when an organization is facing the need for some kind of change to remain competitive, cut costs, develop new products, become more efficient or improve quality, often times the culture is going to have to transform as well. Almost always. Because a new way of doing things requires a new way of thinking, especially from the leaders at all levels. And many studies show that the majority of significant organizational change efforts fail.

Leaders must lean on the values of the organization to drive performance, especially during times of change. An organization's values should be the bedrock of why the company exists, how it makes decisions and its true purpose. They must be authentic and relatively specific so they actually resonate with the team.

So what is values-based leadership? Essentially, this just means leading the team and evaluating performance - both your own and the team's - based more so on the organization's set of values rather than specific metrics and milestones. Don't get me wrong, managers still have to oversee their team member's ability to execute and be accountable for their role in mission success, but values-based evaluations can't be an afterthought.

Many organizations will charge ahead for years with relative success while not having ever truly defined - and written down - their mission, vision, values and purpose for existence. At some point however, all great organizations have to define these things if they want to maintain that positive trajectory.

As a former Navy SEAL, I can assure you that we have a well-defined mission and culture, but it wasn't until 2005 that the senior leadership team within the Naval Special Warfare community came together to develop what is now the Navy SEAL Ethos. Our guiding statement that defines our culture, who we are, why we exist and what we expect of ourselves and each other.

We were over four years into two different wars and realized that things were changing and changing rapidly. Our "way of doing things" hadn't evolved enough to continue moving at the speed of war. There was no time for complacency nor ambiguous ways of thinking and acting. It was time to define who we are.

Our ethos clearly articulates our values and culture. Everything we do is guided by our ethos. It is a part of us. It always had been really, but once an ethos becomes memorialized on paper, it takes on a whole new meaning. Why? Because it means that senior visionary leaders have come together to ensure alignment on what the organization stands for. What the long term vision is. For SEALs, it guides decision making, recruiting and selection, how we train, how we fight and the overall expectations.

Once an organization's values are clearly defined, they should also be the guiding light for how performance is evaluated - at the team and individual level. This is especially true when organizations are facing change. Usual performance metrics shouldn't be tossed out the window but when new behaviors must be learned, values-based leadership is required. And values-based performance evaluation systems need to be put in place. If the team is being asked to learn new things and adjust to organizational and cultural transformation, their criteria for "great performance" needs to be adjusted. New HR mechanism and performance review systems can be a powerful supporting tool for improving or changing a company culture. If major changes are being made but the team is still measured against old metrics, problems will occur.

Values-based leadership also requires the need for constantly communicating those values at every opportunity possible. In every company meeting, every time a person is publicly recognized and in every coaching moment when mistakes are made.

Values-based recruiting is also imperative for protecting a company culture. This is the cornerstone of the Navy SEAL selection process. Evaluating new candidates purely based on technical ability can backfire in a big way. And it will cost the company two times that person's salary to replace them when things don't work out.

The bottom line is that through values-based leadership, alignment on the company's mission and vision is more likely and helps the details more readily fall into place.

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Simply put, organizational culture is the collective result of how people on the team think and behave, their shared values and how they react to internal and external stimuli. A company culture is either decisively created and nurtured from the very beginning or - more typically - it develops haphazardly over time through the beliefs and experiences of those on the team.

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It is simply impossible to become a great leader without being a great communicator. I hope you noticed the previous sentence didn't refer to being a great talker - big difference. The key to becoming a skillful communicator is rarely found in what has been taught in the world of academia. From our earliest days in the classroom we are trained to focus on enunciation, vocabulary, presence, delivery, grammar, syntax and the like. In other words, we are taught to focus on ourselves. While I don't mean to belittle these things as they're important to learn, it's the more subtle elements of communication rarely taught in the classroom (the elements that focus on others), which leaders desperately need to learn. In today's column I'll share a few of the communication traits, which if used consistently, will help you achieve better communication results.

It is the ability to develop a keen external awareness that separates the truly great communicators from those who muddle through their interactions with others. Examine the world's greatest leaders and you'll find them all to be exceptional communicators. They might talk about their ideas, but they do so in a way which also speaks to your emotions and your aspirations. They realize if their message doesn't take deep root with the audience then it likely won't be understood, much less championed.

I don't believe it comes as any great surprise that most leaders spend the overwhelming majority of their time each day in some type of an interpersonal situation. I also don't believe it comes as a great shock that a large number of organizational problems occur as a result of poor communications. It is precisely this paradox that underscores the need for leaders to focus on becoming great communicators. Effective communication is an essential component of professional success whether it is at the interpersonal, inter-group, intra-group, organizational, or external level. While developing an understanding of great communication skills is easier than one might think, being able to appropriately draw upon said skills when the chips are down is not always as easy as one might hope for.

Skills acquired and/or knowledge gained are only valuable to the extent they can be practically applied when called for. The number one thing great communicators have in common is they possess a heightened sense of situational and contextual awareness. The best communicators are great listeners and astute in their observations. Great communicators are skilled at reading a person/group by sensing the moods, dynamics, attitudes, values and concerns of those being communicated with. Not only do they read their environment well, but they possess the uncanny ability to adapt their messaging to said environment without missing a beat. The message is not about the messenger; it has nothing to do with messenger; it is however 100% about meeting the needs and the expectations of those you're communicating with.

So, how do you know when your skills have matured to the point that you've become an excellent communicator? The answer is you'll have reached the point where your interactions with others consistently use the following ten principles:

1. Speak not with a forked tongue: In most cases, people just won't open up to those they don't trust. When people have a sense a leader is worthy of their trust they will invest time and take risks in ways they never would if their leader had a reputation built upon poor character or lack of integrity. While you can attempt to demand trust, it rarely works. Trust is best created by earning it with right acting, thinking, and decisioning. Keep in mind people will forgive many things where trust exists, but will rarely forgive anything where trust is absent.

2. Get personal: Stop issuing corporate communications and begin having organizational conversations - think dialog not monologue. Here's the thing - the more personal and engaging the conversation is the more effective it will be. There is great truth in the following axiom: "people don't care how much you know until they know how much you care." Classic business theory tells leaders to stay at arms length. I say stay at arms length if you want to remain in the dark receiving only highly sanitized versions of the truth. If you don't develop meaningful relationships with people you'll never know what's really on their mind until it's too late to do anything about it.

3. Get specific: Specificity is better than Ambiguity 11 times out of 10: Learn to communicate with clarity. Simple and concise is always better than complicated and confusing. Time has never been a more precious commodity than it is today. It is critical leaders learn how to cut to the chase and hit the high points - it's also important to expect the same from others. Without understanding the value of brevity and clarity it is unlikely you'll ever be afforded the opportunity to get to the granular level as people will tune you out long before you ever get there. Your goal is to weed out the superfluous and to make your words count.

4. Focus on the leave-behinds not the take-aways: The best communicators are not only skilled at learning and gathering information while communicating, they are also adept at transferring ideas, aligning expectations, inspiring action, and spreading their vision. The key is to approach each interaction with a servant's heart. When you truly focus on contributing more than receiving you will have accomplished the goal. Even though this may seem counter-intuitive, by intensely focusing on the other party's wants, needs & desires, you'll learn far more than you ever would by focusing on your agenda.

5. Have an open mind: I've often said that the rigidity of a closed mind is the single greatest limiting factor of new opportunities. A leader takes their game to a whole new level the minute they willingly seek out those who hold dissenting opinions and opposing positions with the goal not of convincing them to change their minds, but with the goal of understanding what's on their mind. I'm always amazed at how many people are truly fearful of opposing views, when what they should be is genuinely curious and interested. Open dialogs with those who confront you, challenge you, stretch you, and develop you. Remember that it's not the opinion that matters, but rather the willingness to discuss it with an open mind and learn.

6. Shut-up and listen: Great leaders know when to dial it up, dial it down, and dial it off (mostly down and off). Simply broadcasting your message ad nauseum will not have the same result as engaging in meaningful conversation, but this assumes that you understand that the greatest form of discourse takes place within a conversation, and not a lecture or a monologue. When you reach that point in your life where the light bulb goes off, and you begin to understand that knowledge is not gained by flapping your lips, but by removing your ear wax, you have taken the first step to becoming a skilled communicator.

7. Replace ego with empathy: I have long advised leaders not to let their ego write checks that their talent can't cash. When candor is communicated with empathy & caring and not the prideful arrogance of an over inflated ego good things begin to happen. Empathetic communicators display a level of authenticity and transparency that is not present with those who choose to communicate behind the carefully crafted facade propped-up by a very fragile ego. Understanding the this communication principle is what helps turn anger into respect and doubt into trust.

8. Read between the lines: Take a moment and reflect back on any great leader that comes to mind... you'll find they are very adept at reading between the lines. They have the uncanny ability to understand what is not said, witnessed, or heard. Being a leader should not be viewed as a license to increase the volume of rhetoric. Rather astute leaders know that there is far more to be gained by surrendering the floor than by filibustering. In this age of instant communication, everyone seems to be in such a rush to communicate what's on their mind that they fail to realize everything to be gained from the minds of others. Keep your eyes & ears open and your mouth shut and you'll be amazed at how your level or organizational awareness is raised.

9. When you speak, know what you're talking about: Develop a technical command over your subject matter. If you don't possess subject matter expertise, few people will give you the time of day. Most successful people have little interest in listening to those individuals who cannot add value to a situation or topic, but force themselves into a conversation just to hear themselves speak. The fake it until you make it days have long since passed, and for most people I know fast and slick equals not credible. You've all heard the saying "it's not what you say, but how you say it that matters," and while there is surely an element of truth in that statement, I'm here to tell you that it matters very much what you say. Good communicators address both the "what" and "how" aspects of messaging so they don't fall prey to becoming the smooth talker who leaves people with the impression of form over substance.

10. Speak to groups as individuals: Leaders don't always have the luxury of speaking to individuals in an intimate setting. Great communicators can tailor a message such that they can speak to 10 people in a conference room or 10,000 people in an auditorium and have them feel as if they were speaking directly to each one of them as an individual. Knowing how to work a room and establish credibility, trust, and rapport are keys to successful interactions.

11. Bonus - Be prepared to change the message if needed: Another component of communications strategy that is rarely discussed is how to prevent a message from going bad, and what to do when does. It's called being prepared and developing a contingency plan. Again, you must keep in mind that for successful interactions to occur, your objective must be in alignment with those you are communicating with. If your expertise, empathy, clarity, etc. don't have the desired effect, which by the way is very rare, you need to be able to make an impact by changing things up on the fly. Use great questions, humor, stories, analogies, relevant data, and where needed, bold statements to help connect and engender the confidence and trust that it takes for people to want to engage. While it is sometimes necessary to "Shock and Awe" this tactic should be reserved as a last resort.

Don't assume someone is ready to have a particular conversation with you just because you're ready to have the conversation with them. Spending time paving the way for a productive conversation is far better than coming off as the proverbial bull in a china shop. Furthermore, you cannot assume anyone knows where you're coming from if you don't tell them. I never ceased to be amazed at how many people assume everyone knows what they want to occur without ever finding it necessary to communicate their objective. If you fail to justify your message with knowledge, business logic, reason, empathy etc., you will find that said message will likely fall on deaf ears needing reinforcement or clarification afterward.

Bottom line - The leadership lesson here is whenever you have a message to communicate (either directly, or indirectly through a third party) make sure said message is true & correct, well reasoned, and substantiated by solid business logic that is specific, consistent, clear and accurate. Spending a little extra time on the front-end of the messaging curve will likely save you from considerable aggravation and brain damage on the back-end. Most importantly of all, keep in mind that communication is not about you, your opinions, your positions or your circumstances. It's about helping others by meeting their needs, understanding their concerns, and adding value to their world. Do these things and you'll drastically reduce the number of communications problems you'll experience moving forward.

Thoughts?

Follow me on Twitter @MikeMyatt
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10 Communication Secrets Of Great Leaders

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It is simply impossible to become a great leader without being a great communicator. I hope you noticed the previous sentence didn't refer to being a great talker - big difference. The key to becoming a skillful communicator is rarely found in what has been taught in the world of [...]

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Graziadio Business Review | Graziadio School of Business and Management | Pepperdine University

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When we think of what makes someone a great leader, one characteristic that comes to mind is decisiveness. We do not envision successful leaders standing around appearing unclear and uncertain. Instead, we view them as people who are able to quickly arrive at their decisions and communicate the goals to others.

Leaders often have to make challenging decisions, such as what direction to move their company in; whether to keep an employee, reposition them or let them go; whether or not to share "bad news" with stockholders, and many other such challenges.

Great leaders understand how to balance emotion with reason and make decisions that positively impact themselves, their employees, their customers and stakeholders, and their organizations. Making good decisions in difficult situations is no small feat because these types of decisions involve change, uncertainty, anxiety, stress, and sometimes the unfavorable reactions of others.

Great leaders also know when to move quickly and proceed with the available information, versus when to take more time and gather additional information. When leaders opt to pursue additional information or avenues, they must also know when to stop. While a large amount of data may be desirable in a perfect world, the data gathering process can utilize too much time, and the vast amount of data can also be paralyzing and take attention away from the big picture or key data points.

This article will explore three crucial qualities that great leaders must develop to become great decision-makers: emotional intelligence, the ability to handle uncertainty, and the ability to weigh evidence with intuition. The article concludes with a step-by-step process employing these characteristics to arrive at the best possible decision given the many variables that can and will come into play.

Emotional Intelligence

Emotional intelligence, the ability to understand and manage your emotions and those of others, is one of the most important qualities a leader must possess. According to the authors of Primal Leadership, a leader's emotions are contagious. This is why resonant leadership is so important-a leader's mood will resonate with others and set the tone for the emotional climate in an organization.[ 1]

Emotional intelligence consists of self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, and relationship management. Self-awareness is the foundation for all aspects of emotional intelligence. It involves being able to accurately assess yourself. Before you can change, you must be aware of your thoughts, feelings, and actions. Self-management entails the ability to understand and control your emotions, adapt to change, and adopt an optimistic outlook. Social awareness is similar to self-awareness but the focus is external and involves understanding the thoughts, feelings, and actions of others, as well as how to relate to other people. Relationship management is crucial for great leadership and includes qualities such as being influential and inspirational and developing others.

Here we will focus on one of the core components of self-management: emotional self-control. When you have developed this skill, you will recognize your emotions, be influenced by them, but not blinded by them, and be able to calmly and clearly express your decisions to others even when you experience intense emotions within yourself and from others.
Emotional Self-Control and Decision Making
Imagine that you were presented with a critical high-stakes situation with a significant potential downside and you needed to make a decision and take action right away. You would likely have a significant emotional reaction, including feelings such as anxiety, fear, or anger. Unfortunately emotions such as these cloud our ability to make good decisions. When we get into the emotional part of our brain, our innate reaction is to protect ourselves. We get an adrenaline rush or flight-or-fight response, and short-term survival is the immediate goal. As you can imagine, being in this state is not particularly conducive to making strategic, long-term decisions. This is why emotional self-control is so important. Great leaders are aware of their emotional state and are able to manage intense emotions so they can make smart decisions.
Reigning in Emotions for Strategic Decisions
In order to make strategic, long-term decisions, we must know how to bring down the intense emotional reaction so that we can engage a different part of our brains (the prefrontal cortex), which is responsible for looking at the big picture and long-term planning. Paradoxically, the way to do this is to accept and allow whatever emotional reaction we are having and choose to focus on the facts as much as possible.[ 2]

Trying not to experience an emotion is like trying to pull a rollercoaster backwards as it heads down the hill. It takes a lot of effort, which ultimately backfires and we feel worse. Instead, simply jump on board and ride it out. The intensity of the emotions will quickly pass and then you can think logically. The goal, however, is not to take feelings out of the decision-making process. It is simply to keep them from taking over and losing emotional self-control.

Managing Uncertainty and Choices

Why is it so difficult to make decisions? Perhaps it is because the variables and the outcomes are often uncertain. We do not like uncertainty. Uncertainty creates discomfort and analysis paralysis. We try to analyze the situation from every angle to alleviate the sense of uncertainty. These efforts are often futile and waste valuable time and energy because so often we must make decisions in the face of uncertainty.
The Lengths We Go to Avoid Uncertainty
In a 1992 study conducted by cognitive scientists Amos Tversky and Eldar Shafir, college students were asked whether they would purchase a great deal on a trip to Hawaii over their holiday break. They were told that they would receive the grade on their most important exam before they had to decide. Of those who were told that they passed the exam, 57 percent said they'd go for the trip. Interestingly, a similar percentage (54 percent) of those who were told that they failed also said they'd go.

When researchers designed uncertainty into the mix, results changed dramatically. Students were told that they would not receive the exam grade for two days and that they could buy the trip now, pass on it now, or pay $5 to wait for two days until they received their grade. The majority of students (61 percent) said that they would wait. The first part of the study showed that students for the most part wanted to go if they passed or if they failed the exam, but here they were willing to pay to wait and find out their grade.

This study shows the lengths that we will go to avoid uncertainty. Students seemed to think that knowing their grade would help them make a good decision when in reality it would not make a difference in their decisions.

We are often paralyzed by uncertainty and end up basing our decisions on things that aren't even related. Question your attempts to find certainty before making decisions because you may be seeking a false sense of security. Much like the aforementioned method to reign in negative emotions to achieve emotional self-control, acceptance is a crucial starting place. If we are able to accept the uncertainty rather than try to resolve it, we can focus our limited time, energy, and money on making the best decisions in the face of an uncertain outcome.

This does not mean that you should not bother to analyze a situation before making a decision. Various analyses can be helpful in providing the information necessary to make the best decisions in the situation. The key is to know when what you don't know is important, and if so, how to go about gathering the necessary information to resolve the uncertainty. If what you don't know is not important, then the next step is to accept the uncertainty and proceed in spite of it.

If, however, you find yourself getting stuck or investing too much time or other resources in the analyses, ask yourself if the uncertainty that you are attempting to resolve is truly resolveable. If not, it would be best to accept the uncertainty and move on.
Limit Your Choices
One of the decision-making mistakes we commonly make is to give ourselves a lot of options. We figure that if we consider every possible alternative, we will have better choices and make the best decision. Sometimes we do this exhaustive search as a way to resolve uncertainty. We assume that if we go through everything, no stone will be left unturned and there will be no uncertainty. The problem is that we are likely to get overwhelmed and make no decision.

In 2000, Sheena Iyengar of Columbia Business School and Mark Lepper, chairman of Stanford's psychology department, conducted a study in which two tasting displays of gourmet jams were set up in an upscale supermarket. They had 24 jams set up for tasting in one display, and just six jams in the other. They found that more people were attracted to the table with 24, an equal number tasted at both tables, and a huge difference in purchasing resulted: only 3 percent of those who had tasted at the table with 24 jams bought a jar, whereas 30 percent of those who had tasted at the table with six jams bought a jar.[ 4]

This study and various others like it show that when there are more than five or six options, people have a more difficult time deciding and often opt not to make a decision. To help yourself and others effectively and efficiently make decisions, limit your options. Keep options fewer than five and you will find it much easier to make a decision.

Trusting Your Intuition

Excellent leaders often say that they go with their gut to make decisions. They are able to trust themselves and their expertise and not get stuck in the cycle of over-thinking. The more you know about a subject, the more reliable your intuition will be. Make yourself an expert in your field and your intuition will be your best guide.
Intuition Leads to Satisfaction with Decisions
Participants in a study conducted by Timothy D. Wilson and his colleagues at the University of Virginia and the University of Pittsburgh were asked to choose a piece of art to hang in their homes. Half of them were asked to think rationally about their choice, and the other half were instructed to go with their gut. Those who went with their feelings rather than their analysis were happier with their selection. We can rationalize our way into anything, but our first impressions often tell us how we really feel.[ 5]
How to Hear Your Intuition
You may have heard intuition described as a nagging little voice inside you. It typically speaks softly rather than screaming out at you. Unfortunately in our non-stop, busy, technology-filled worlds, it can be easy to not hear our intuition. It is always speaking, but we are often not listening.

Hone your skills at listening to your intuition by building some form of meditative practice into your daily life. It doesn't have to be actual meditation; it can be a few moments of reflection, a warm bath, a walk with your dog, and so on. We are typically so bombarded with information all day (television, radio, Internet, cell phone, Blackberry...) that we miss out on opportunities to notice ourselves thinking and feeling. To hear your intuition you must have some time when you're a human being, not a human doing. Build periods of quiet into your life and you will be surprised at what you hear.
Decide Your Way to Great Decisions
Great decision making takes practice. As you now know, this process requires a certain level of comfort with discomfort. We could play it safe and defer important decisions to others, spend hours and hours analyzing and agonizing over every option, or we could accept the level of risk and go for it. Many people are afraid of making a bad decision or the wrong decision. We can only do our best with the information we have available to us at the time. There is typically not a right or a wrong answer. In the worst-case scenario, however, you select the wrong option. Even if you choose an option that reveals itself to be inferior in the short-term, you will learn that you can handle the outcome and make the best of it. You may even find unexpected opportunities by going down the "wrong" path.

Practice this process using the following steps:

1. Decide whether to take action quickly or gather additional information. If you decide to gather additional information, create parameters to determine what information is essential and when to cease your information-gathering process.

2. Be aware of the emotions that come up as you proceed with your decision. Accept the emotions and allow them to guide you without controlling you.

3. Recognize the uncertainty elements in the situation and decide how much of the uncertainty needs resolution. Know that most situations cannot be calculated with complete certainty and, even though it may be uncomfortable, it is often necessary to accept the uncertainty and proceed.

4. Allow yourself to hear your intuition. Do not over-think important decisions because you may talk yourself into something that goes against your instincts and experience.

5. Seek out opportunities to thoughtfully and proactively make challenging decisions. Recognize that even "negative" outcomes may be better than you expect, and gain confidence in your ability to make great decisions.

Be a leader in your personal life and career by committing to make difficult decisions in a timely manner. The best way you can inspire others to change is by making changes yourself. Practice this process and become a confident leader of yourself and others. Just think of all of the time and energy you will save in the process, and how great you will feel as you remain calm, trust yourself, and make great decisions.

[ 1] Daniel Goleman, Richard E. Boyatzis, and Annie McKee, Primal Leadership,(Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 2004).

[ 2] Daniel H. Barlow, Anxiety and Its Disorders, Second Edition: The Nature and Treatment of Anxiety and Panic, (New York: The Guilford Press, 2004).

[ 3] Amos Tversky and Eldar Shafir, "The Disjunction Effect in Choice under Uncertainty," Psychological Science, 3 (1992): 205-209.

[ 4] Sheena Iyengar and Mark Lepper, " When Choice Is Demotivating: Can One Desire Too Much of a Good Thing?" Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 79 (2000): 995-1106.

[ 5] Timothy D. Wilson et al., " Introspecting about Reasons Can Reduce Post-Choice Satisfaction," Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 19 (1993): 331-339.

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Kenneth Ko, PhD, GUEST EDITOR, Associate Dean, Graziadio School of Business

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Jerry Biberman, PhD, Professor Emeritus, University of Scranton

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When we think of what makes someone a great leader, one characteristic that comes to mind is decisiveness. We do not envision successful leaders standing around appearing unclear and uncertain. Instead, we view them as people who are able to quickly arrive at their decisions and communicate the goals to others.

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Transforming a school is a long, hard, and often lonely task. Some people want change, others don't, and some simply aren't prepared to wait for results to show. As a school leader sets off on this journey, how do they know what to do, when to do it, who to listen to, and how to manage critics along the way?

Our study of the actions and impact of 411 leaders of UK academies found that only 62 of them managed their turnaround successfully and sustainably transformed their school. While other leaders managed to create a school that looked good while they were there, but then went backwards, these 62 leaders built a school that continued to improve long after they'd left. We call them Architects, because they systematically redesign the school and transform the community it serves.

We studied them over eight years, using 64 investment and 24 performance variables to identify what they did, when they did it, and the impact they had. We visited the schools to see first-hand their actions and results. And we interviewed the leaders and their teams to understand the challenges they faced, when they occurred, and how they overcame them.

We found the Architects sustainably transformed a school by challenging how it operated, engaging its community, and improving its teaching. They took nine key steps over three years, in a particular order. Each step represented a different building block in the school performance pyramid. But it was a bumpy ride, with 90% almost fired at the end of their second year. Here's what they did, and how they did it.

The school performance pyramid

Building Block 1-Challenge the system: stay for at least 5 years. The first step is to develop a 10-year plan, clearly showing how you aim to transform the school and the community it serves. This shows everyone you're committed to the long haul - like your students and their families - and are prepared to make tough decisions and manage their consequences. As one Architect said, "No one trusts you at the beginning. They've been let down too many times by too many people. That's why I moved to the local area - to show I was committed to the school, the community and to making it work. I wasn't going to walk away halfway through, like the other Heads before me." In our study, it took at least five years to engage a school's community, change its culture and improve its teaching. The most successful leaders stayed for the whole of this journey, and often longer, with test scores increasing by an impressive 45-50 percentage points in the first eight years after they took over. This doubled, or even tripled, the number of students graduating with five or more grade Cs, increasing their projected lifetime earnings by £140,000.

Building Block 2-Teach everyone: expel less than 3% of students. Once you've committed to the journey, then you need to commit to the community. You can't just kick kids out to improve test scores. You need to show parents and students you want to help them. Show you want to fix the problem, not give it to someone else.

This doesn't mean you can ignore poor behavior, be nice to everyone, and expect them to like you. But you should only expel students as a last resort - when everything else has failed. In our study, the most successful leaders suspended 10-15% students in the first three years after they arrived, but expelled less than 3%. As one Architect told us, "If you start kicking kids out as soon as you arrive, then your community wonders if you're trying to help or get rid of them. Instead of expelling students and passing the problem to someone else, we created multiple pathways inside our school - so we could manage and improve behavior ourselves."

Building Block 3-Teach for longer: from ages 5 to 18. Of all the changes made by the leaders in our study, teaching kids for longer was the one with the most consistent impact. It took five years to see results, but test scores then suddenly jumped by nine percentage points and continued to improve by five percentage points each year after that.

Teaching kids from a younger age meant the schools could embed the right behaviors earlier on, teach the kids in a consistent way for longer (for 13 years, rather than 5) and create valuable resources (as revenues increased by 30-40%). And teaching them up to age 18 gave the younger kids something to aim for. As another Architect explained, "Setting up a sixth form was one of the best things we did - even though it still loses money! Last year, 51% of our sixth formers went to university - compared with only 27% four years ago. This sends a great message to our younger students, and we use the older ones to mentor them as they progress through the school." (In the UK, " sixth form " is a final, sometimes optional phase of secondary education in which students prepare for college entry exams.)

Building block 4-Challenge the staff: change 30-50%. Now it's time to start changing how the school works. That usually means changing staff. "Too many Heads duck the issue of firing poor teachers," one Architect told us. "But you have to ask yourself: who are you here to help - the students or the teachers? I believe you let down 30 students a year by protecting one incompetent teacher. Once you start thinking like that, the tough decisions become easier to take."

In our study, the most successful leaders changed 30-50% of staff in the first 3 years by clarifying teaching and marking targets, displaying real-time performance (such as attendance, behavior and test scores) on video screens in corridors and staff rooms, and managing out poor performers. Typically, a half of this change came from recruiting new staff to resource growth, a quarter from reducing the number of supply teachers and a quarter from managing out poor performers. Leaders who changed less than 30% of staff had little impact, while more than 50% created too much disruption. As another Architect told us, "The culture in the school suddenly tipped when we had 30% new staff, people who were serious about trying to transform the school and the community it serves."

Building block 5 - Engage students: keep 95% in class. It's pretty simple really. You can't teach your kids if they're not there - or don't care. However, it's easier said than done. As one Architect explained, "Half our students live in poverty, in communities that have been let down by their schools for generations. That's their starting point, so you can see why they're not interested. But, after two years of hard work, things suddenly started to change. They started believing in themselves - and that we could help them. Instead of saying 'there's no point' or 'I can't be bothered', they're now saying 'I aced that test' or 'I'm going to be a doctor'."

The turning point in the schools we studied occurred when at least 95% students attended all their classes. And the most successful leaders achieved this in the first 3 years-by bringing in external speakers to inspire students, asking students to evaluate teachers, so they felt part of the process, and getting older students mentor the younger ones, so they had someone to look up to.

Building Block 6 - Challenge the board: manage 30-60% of them. It doesn't matter what your governors say, they all want test scores to improve as quickly as possible. (In the UK system, "governors" are the school's board of directors.) They'll give you one year's grace, but then they want some hard evidence that the school is improving. If you can't do this, then you're often out of a job. But the most effective, most sustainable actions take three years to show results. So, how can you show you're on the right track when test scores are still the same?

In our study, the best early signs of sustained improvement were teaching students from ages 5 to 18, having 95% of students in class, 50% of parents at parents' evenings and 70% of staff with no absence. Leaders who achieved all this in the first three years subsequently improved test scores by 45-50% in the following six years. However, 90% of them were almost fired at the end of the second year, as test scores hadn't improved fast enough. They survived this challenge by moving the discussion away from this year's test scores to the progression of students aged 11 to 13.

Architect leaders can also emphasize other metrics, such as more students attending classes, more parents coming to parents' evenings, and fewer staff member absences. As one Architect told us, "Too many boards simply fire their Heads when there's a problem. Instead, they need to make sure the Head is around long enough to have an impact and help them make the right decisions along the way." A strong, healthy board was critical to the success of all the schools in our study, with the best leaders challenged by 30-60% of governors on key decisions in their first three years. Poor decisions were made if the challenge was less than 30%, and the leader lost control of the school if the challenge was greater than 60%.

It's important to take time to get to know your governors, build relationships with them and understand their needs-so they trust you and understand why you're not focusing on this year's test scores. Their concerns are legitimate and need to be managed. Use their challenge to help improve decision making-to better explain why decisions are made and the impact they'll have.

Building Block 7 - Engage parents: have 50% at parents' evenings. You need to start engaging your parents right from the start, but it can take a while to happen. This is particularly true in rural or coastal schools in the UK, where people are less mobile and parents and grandparents may have attended the same school. As one Architect explained, "Our parents and grandparents had very strong views about the school based on what it did for them. It took a long time to change these views. But, if we hadn't, then all our hard work would have disappeared when our students went home."

Attendance at parents' night was as low as 10% when many leaders first arrived - but the most successful ones increased it to more than 50% by the end of the third year. They did this by making it a social event with food, drink, and student performances, offering education and support services such as IT skills and career advice, and providing similar services at home through outreach programs.

Building block 8 - Engage staff: 70% with no absence. Engaging your staff also takes time. "You walk into a very stressful environment," one Architect explained. "Your staff have just been told they've failed and you're here to sort them out. You need to convince them that you're here to help. That their jobs will get easier and become more fulfilling if they work with you, rather than against you. In the year before I took over, we had 14 staff on long-term sick leave and only 20% of staff with no absence. Now it's up at 90% - that's a big shift in three years!"

In our study, the most successful schools had more than 70% staff with no absence by the end of the third year. They did this by reducing the number of supply teachers, asking teachers to evaluate each other (through informal observations), team teaching, visiting other schools (to see how they worked) and simplifying processes to reduce administration and paperwork.

Building Block 9 - Teach better: 100% capable staff. Anyone can fire staff. The real question is: How do you replace them? "Good teachers don't apply to work in failing schools in deprived areas," one Architect told us. "They want to work in good schools with engaged students. So we contacted the good schools near us who'd recently advertised jobs and had more applicants than places. We asked them who else they'd employ, if they could. We then contacted these teachers and asked them to join us! We got some of our best teachers this way. Teachers who didn't apply to work with us, but love being part of what we're doing." The most successful schools in our study all had 100% capable staff by the end of the third year. They achieved this by recruiting capable teachers, increasing informal teaching observations (through mentoring programs within and across subjects), and sharing best practices within and across schools. As another Architect said, "Too many poor teachers are simply moved from one school to another. We need to develop them, rather than simply passing them on to someone else."

Building the pyramid in practice

Pick six building blocks out of nine: the 90/60 principle. We found it wasn't always possible to put all nine building blocks in place in the first three years, no matter how hard you try. Sometimes, the board won't support you, parents won't engage with you, or you can't find the right teachers. The good news is our research clearly shows there's a tipping point in each transformation when six of the building blocks are in place - not all nine. The last three blocks help to sustain the transformation, but there are diminishing returns. Leaders who put all nine blocks in place in three years increased test scores by 50 percentage points in the following five years. But leaders who put in six blocks increased results by 45 percentage points. In other words, test scores increased by seven percentage points for each of the first six blocks put in place, but only by one percentage point for the three after that.

So, ask yourself: which are the six easiest, or most urgent, blocks to put in place first? And which can wait until later? If you can't engage parents, then engage students. If you can't engage students, then teach the ones you can, better and for longer. Find the right pattern of actions for your school; see the pyramid as a menu, rather than a recipe. Select, mix, and match the ingredients that work best for you.

Take your time. School leaders are often under huge pressure to turn the school around quickly, but sustainable transformation takes time. In our study, the schools that improved the most in the long term didn't see test score improvements until year three, and continued to get better through year five and beyond. You need to explain this to your board, so you don't get fired along the way. Fast improvements can only be achieved by expelling poor performing students or attracting better ones from other schools. And neither solution benefits the community in the long run. Instead, try to put 6 of the 9 blocks in place in the first three years. But, don't worry if it takes longer - the improvement won't be as fast, but it will happen. And it will be sustainable.

No single action or combination of actions is more significant than any other. Eighty percent of the best leaders stayed at the school for more than five years - but not all of them. And all the best schools taught kids from ages 5 to 18 - but so did 40% of the poor ones. Rather than searching for a silver bullet, put as many blocks in place as you can. Remember, the number is more important than the type.

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Research: How the Best School Leaders Create Enduring Change

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Transforming a school is a long, hard, and often lonely task. Some people want change, others don't, and some simply aren't prepared to wait for results to show. As a school leader sets off on this journey, how do they know what to do, when to do it, who to listen to, and how to manage critics along the way?