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Please read the article and comment below your two major takeaways that SRE could utilize to increase shared leadership.

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The demands facing today’s schools have grown. In the last century, schools settled for educating most students in the three Rs—reading, ‘riting, and ’rithmetic. Today, schools must educate every student to high levels in a much wider range of content areas, while also ensuring they are healthy, saf

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Building Team Relationship is KEY for Shared Leadership

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Building Team Relationship is KEY for Shared Leadership

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Link provided above, but focus is below:

1. Get the relationships in your leadership team right

Setting up a shared leadership team means putting together a group of people who are all used to running their own teams or being experts in their own areas. They’re good at what they do, but not necessarily good at doing it with colleagues.

You may be bringing together some of your most creative thinkers, specialists and experienced managers. Until now they’ve all had different objectives and are used to their success being measured as individuals, rather than groups.

It’s vital that the organization supports them to work together as a team – and that means building trust and helping them to communicate properly and openly. The leadership team also needs to learn how to hold each other accountable.

It’s a good idea to bring the team together to discuss objectives, working methods, possible problems and communication.

At Roffey Park we believe that good leadership is fundamentally ‘an inside job’; it rests on self-awareness and self-management, identifying clear goals, engaging others, being a role model, initiating change and demonstrating resilience in an increasingly turbulent organizational world.

Please comment below ideas on team building exercises that our Leadership Team can facilitate annually or periodically.

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If you've worked in more than one organisation, you'll know how much impact different leaders can have. Efficiency, productivity, morale and retention are all affected by how leaders operate, often more significantly than other factors such as salaries. Personality has an impact, but it's leadership style that makes the difference: how they work to drive the business, inspire the best from their staff and envision the future. So imagine how things might work if your business had not one leader, but a group - and you were one of them. The leadership stereotype of popular culture is the hero leader - dashing in and turning round failing schools, businesses and hospitals. Collaborating and making the most of different talents in shared leadership is less well known, even though the idea of shared leadership has been around since the Romans made use of it in their government system.

Mary Parker Follett was one of the first 20th-century thinkers to revive the idea of shared leadership back in 1924 when she wrote:

"Leadership is not defined by the exercise of power but by the capacity to increase the sense of power among those led. The most essential work of the leader is to create more leaders."

Research shows shared leadership works well. A study published by Wang, Waldman, & Zhang in 2014 in the Journal of Applied Psychology concluded that it had more impact on team effectiveness than traditional styles, with stronger effects on more complex tasks.

These days, shared leadership - and therefore shared leadership training - is thriving in many organisations, particularly those with complicated problems and projects, or those in the public sector.

What is shared leadership?

So what is shared leadership (sometimes referred to as distributed leadership, collaborative leadership or networked leadership)? What does shared leadership theory say? Here are three definitions from experts in the field:

In 2010 Michael D. Kocolowski, then vice president of Christian Financial Resources, Lake Mary, Florida, who was working for his PhD in Organisational Leadership at Regent University's School of Global Leadership & Entrepreneurship, completed a literature review of shared leadership research. He concluded that it was

" a relational, collaborative leadership process or phenomenon involving teams or groups that mutually influence one another and collectively share duties and responsibilities otherwise relegated to a single, central leader."

Marshall Goldsmith, who teaches executive education at Dartmouth College's Tuck School of Business, has coached CEOs from around 150 companies and pioneered the use of 360-degree feedback. For Goldsmith, shared leadership

" involves maximizing all of the human resources in an organization by empowering individuals and giving them an opportunity to take leadership positions in their areas of expertise. With more complex markets increasing the demands on leadership, the job in many cases is simply too large for one individual."

A different take comes from Daniel Goleman, author of best-selling books on emotional intelligence, who says it's a stereotype that leaders are solitary and the reality more often involves collaboration:

" Examples of these shared leadership projects include a task force composed of members from different divisions of an organization, a collaborative project between two or more organizations, and a public-private partnership to meet a community goal. Whatever the specifics, leaders work collaboratively and share power with other leaders who bring their own perspectives and skill sets."

Implementing shared leadership: eight tips to make it work

For most organisations, it will take some thought, leadership development programmes and focused work to reap the full rewards of shared leadership.

Members of the shared leadership team have to understand their group mission, how they and their colleagues work, how to make collective decisions and much more. And that can involve leadership training courses as well as time and energy.

But it can be worthwhile.

A project in the US introduced shared leadership to 27 non-profit organisations. After two years, an evaluation discovered that 78% of the participants had increased their awareness, knowledge and ability to develop staff as leaders at all levels. It also revealed significant increases in staff involvement in decision-making and clear, effective accountability structures.

"Many of the organisations discovered that they were able to do more effective work with less or the same amount of funds, and reported that shared leadership eased the stresses on executive directors," reported the Nonprofit Quarterly.

1. Get the relationships in your leadership team right

Setting up a shared leadership team means putting together a group of people who are all used to running their own teams or being experts in their own areas. They're good at what they do, but not necessarily good at doing it with colleagues.

You may be bringing together some of your most creative thinkers, specialists and experienced managers. Until now they've all had different objectives and are used to their success being measured as individuals, rather than groups.

It's vital that the organisation supports them to work together as a team - and that means building trust and helping them to communicate properly and openly. The leadership team also needs to learn how to hold each other accountable.

It's a good idea to bring the team together to discuss objectives, working methods, possible problems and communication.

At Roffey Park we believe that good leadership is fundamentally 'an inside job'; it rests on self-awareness and self-management, identifying clear goals, engaging others, being a role model, initiating change and demonstrating resilience in an increasingly turbulent organisational world.

2. Coach the team to develop their shared leadership

It's a good idea, particularly when setting up shared leadership teams for the first time, to coach them to work effectively together. Researchers have identified two types of team coaching that are useful in this situation:

Supportive coaching to reinforce shared leadership

Interventions to identify particular problems

Many organisations already have coaches on staff who can support leadership teams to work better and encourage independence and competence among individuals as well as collective commitment to the team and its objectives.

It can also be useful for members of the team to coach, according to Ruth Wageman and J Richard Hackman's research published in What Makes Teams of Leaders Leadable?

"Leadership teams do not get much coaching from their own leaders...of four possible functions that could command team leaders' attention (external activities, structuring the team, coaching individuals, and coaching the team), team coaching came last. But... teams that scored highest overall on our three criteria of team effectiveness had leaders whose focus was evenly balanced between external matters and attention to the team itself."

They found that hands-on coaching accounted for significant variance in the effectiveness of top management teams, and a large proportion of their sample thought they would benefit from more of it. Particularly useful for teams of leaders was direct intervention into team processes, which could help them "deal constructively with differences in their individual interests".

3. Measure the team's performance

You measure individual leaders' performances with clear targets and measurable objectives, and it's important to do something similar with your shared leadership group. How you do this is up to your particular organisation and its needs, but possible methods include client ratings, team member reports, or a previously agreed scale to rate how a task was completed.

A meta-analysis of previous research in 2014 found that shared leadership appears to improve performance, possibly through increasing team confidence. It also found that it worked best when the work of team members was more complex.

Members can feel more empowered through their perceived responsibility, leading to more engagement and better teamwork.

4. Help your team to learn how to make collective decisions

When setting up your shared leadership team, it's important to spend time discussing how they'll find consensus on the many tricky decisions they'll have to make. This can include talking though team attitudes, priorities and different approaches.

It's important for teams to learn how to disagree. In a study of shared principalship in New Zealand primary schools, there were power struggles and "contrived congeniality" - the manipulation teachers felt when forced to participate in decision-making without any guarantee their ideas would be heard, reported Michael Kocolowski in his paper Emerging Leadership Journeys.

He cited research by Adrianna Kezar, published in a 1998 paper Trying Transformations; Implementing team-oriented forms of leadership, which found: "when members of leadership teams did not fully embrace the principles of fostering differences and encouraging multiple opinions, most teams slipped into groupthink."

Decisions can also take longer to make in shared leadership. Researchers Miles and Watkins, cited in Kocolowski's Emerging Leadership Journeys, found shared leadership could slow decisions down.

Roffey Park's Clear Leadership programme is specially designed to help leaders work through these types of issues.

Michael Covert, who sent executives on the course, says it had a significant impact on the conversations his team had with each other, enabling them to get to the heart of issues, do a lot more problem-solving, have more cogent discussions "and I think we're more honest with each other."

5. Ensure the rest of the organisation understands the new structure and how to engage with it

If your new shared leadership team members are finding it tricky to work together, how easy do you think it is for the rest of the organisation to work with them? It's important that the new structure isn't just dropped into place: there needs to be discussion about lines of responsibility and reporting with everyone involved.

In the Harvard Business Review, Declan Fitzsimons, adjunct Professor of Organizational Behaviour at INSEAD, writes: "On the road to shared leadership, you may find that the top team begins relating differently across its boundaries, especially with managers one or two levels below. By implication this could affect teams at all levels as the impact cascades downwards. For starters, you may notice attempts to export conflicts. Difficult conversations that the team is avoiding may get acted out in the level below. The classic sign is that while your team celebrates its harmony, those who report to them develop increasingly acrimonious relationships among each other. Your job is to ensure that good feelings in the senior team do not come at the expense of confusion and frustration in the level below."

Katrina Hourd, head of business development at Dimensions, who took part in the Roffey Park Clear Leadership programme, discovered it helped working relationships. "This element of the wider programme involved four intense days of learning and whilst at times it was challenging, it gave me a new way of thinking about the challenges we face at work. It's fair to say it has encouraged a better quality of understanding and conversations within the business, which as a result has helped to change the way we work for the better."

Cindy Cox, Programme Manager at Roffey Park, said: "This programme helps leaders understand how to develop the skills needed to nurture partnership and collaboration."

6. Emotional intelligence

It can be tough for individuals to work together in this way, especially if each of them is used to performing in a more conventional leadership role.

Daniel Goleman Describes six emotional awareness competencies useful for shared leadership teams and says that leaders strong in a number of these will be more effective when leading collaboratively.

The competencies are:

Emotional self-awareness - helping you to understand the effect of your colleagues' actions on you

Emotional self-control- allowing you to pause before responding

Adaptability

Empathy

Organisational awareness

Conflict management

All Roffey Park leadership development programmes encourage self-reflection and for individuals to improve their understanding of themselves and colleagues.

"After attending the Clear Leadership Programme, yesterday I attempted my first learning conversation with a colleague. They hadn't been on the programme but I shared the approach in advance, explained the idea and, of course, it was a trusted relationship. I was really pleased with the outcome of the conversation. We did not try to solve the issue, just gain clarity and both of us agreed that we each walked away with one lightbulb moment that has significantly helped to reduce the mush!" said Chris Rawlings of Perrigo Company PLC.

7. Ensure there's a clear group mission

What are you trying to achieve? Is it shared leadership of a particular project, a new way of doing things to effect change, or to tap into individual expertise?

Whatever your shared leadership team intends to do, it's important that everyone is on board and understands both the short- and long-term goals. Leadership skills development training in strategic leadership would be particularly helpful here.

8. Understand the different leadership styles needed to make shared leadership work

Where there's different leaders, there's different leadership styles. Researcher JZ Bergman discovered in 2012 that shared leadership teams enabled their members to express their different abilities and so different leadership behaviours - and that each leader effectively used only one type. "Teams with shared leadership experienced less conflict, greater consensus, and higher intragroup trust and cohesion than teams without shared leadership," says the paper.

While putting the team together, it's important to spend some time exploring how each individual works, what their preferred leadership style is, and how they can best work with each other.

Creating your shared leadership team: next steps

It can be simultaneously exciting and daunting to put together a shared leadership team in your organisation, whether it's for a one-off project or a process of longer term change.

It can also be a worthwhile move, unlocking much more of the potential of your leadership team and bringing on more employees whose specialist knowledge could be used more widely.

However, to reap the full benefits, it's important to get it right - and that means careful thought about how to set up the team, its objective and team members' training needs.

At Roffey Park we're always keen to help and believe our unique approach can support organisations to bring out the best in all their people.

Whether you choose a programme for emerging leaders, a postgraduate certificate in leadership, one of the more specialist options mentioned above, or something tailor-made for your organisation, we can help develop you and your colleagues to make the most of shared leadership and other challenges.

Why not contact us today on 01293 854059 or email us to find out more? Our programmes cover a wide selection of management and leadership skills, and if you require something more our consultants can customise an existing programme, or create a totally new one to meet your needs.

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Shared leadership tips: how to do it right - Roffey Park Institute

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If you've worked in more than one organisation, you'll know how much impact different leaders can have. Efficiency, productivity, morale and retention are all affected by how leaders operate, often more significantly than other factors such as salaries.

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Which two of the eleven ways can we use to improve our school culture? Please give ideas for each one chosen. Don't forget to comment below and provide examples from other resources if possible. You can choose more than two ways if desired.

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All Posts

How do you want teachers and students to feel when they walk into school every morning?

Are your teachers dreading coming to work in the morning? Do students walk into the building with their heads down, trying not to interact with others?

Or are your teachers excited, starting each class with enthusiasm? Do you hear laughter in the hallways when students are coming in? Having a positive school culture has an impact, not just on the attitudes of students and teachers, but on the entire learning experience.

You, as a school leader, have a vital role in creating a positive school culture.

What is 'school culture'?

Culture, ethos, atmosphere, climate...

What do these words mean for your school?

Basically, a school culture consists of the underlying influences and attitudes within the school - based on the norms, traditions and beliefs of the staff and students.

How important is school culture? In short, the prevailing atmosphere in your school will affect everything that goes on inside its walls.

This goes beyond the student body: it also involves how teachers interact with each other, their students, and the parents.

Toxic vs. positive school culture

A toxic school culture has been described as a place where "staffs are extremely fragmented, where the purpose of serving students has been lost to the goal of serving the adults, where negative values and hopelessness reign." ( Realizing a Positive School Culture, 1998)

Anthony Muhammad -- a high school principal and the author of Transforming School Culture: How to Overcome Staff-- describes a toxic school culture as an environment where school staff "fails to figure out what's needed to cultivate the characteristics necessary for student growth and learning."

Obviously, this is not a good environment for any school.

On the other hand, a positive school culture is a place where your efforts are translated into positive experiences for both staff and students. Success, joy, and accomplishment are all main features of a positive school culture.

When your school has a positive culture, teachers are excited to work because they see the bigger picture, and students are in a better position (mentally and emotionally) to learn.

How School Leaders are Involved

What is your role in creating a positive school culture?

our role as a school leader can be defined in three basic steps:

Read the culture of your school: Analyze and understand the current culture of your school. This means observing the attitudes of teachers in the classroom and in staff meetings, and understanding the general feeling of students towards the school and the staff.

Identify which aspects are toxic and which are positive: Write down the aspects of your school that improve the atmosphere and those which cause negative feelings in teachers and students.

Reinforce positive elements: From that list, pull out the positive aspects of your school culture, and include other values, attitudes, or qualities that you would like to see in your school. Then, take action to reinforce those positive qualities and create a positive school culture.

What are some specific ways to reinforce a positive atmosphere in your school?

11 Proven ways to build a positive school culture

1. Create meaningful parent involvement

Generating clear, open communication with the parents of your students can help you avoid misunderstandings and remove feelings of mistrust or hostility.

To involve parents in your school culture, give them a platform for feedback on classroom activities or school programs. Ask them about their hopes or concerns regarding their children's education. Go beyond parent-teacher meetings and organize workshops where teachers and parents can discuss homework, study skills, and tests.

Involving parents in school activities in a meaningful way also helps foster positive feelings between the school and the parents. You can ask parents to be on event committees or to participate in school fundraisers.

Developing educational programs for parents can also help involve them in their children's schooling, and thus build a more positive atmosphere in your school.

For example, Hollibrook Elementary in Spring Branch, Texas, developed a "Parent University" to get parents more actively involved in the school -- helping build trust and rapport between the school and the families of the students.

2. Celebrate personal achievement and good behavior

This means more than the occasional "good job."

Complimenting kids helps them to feel that they are cared for individually. Both you and your staff play a huge part in this aspect of your school culture.

One way to generate more positive reinforcement from your staff is to set goals for the number of compliments each member has to give during the day or week. Encourage them to give specific compliments that highlight what each individual student has done well.

An example of a ceremony recognizing students for outstanding achievements -- in this case, Waresboro Elementary recognized 17 students for excellence in "scholarship, responsibility, leadership, and service." Image source: Waresboro Elementary School

Celebrating the achievements of your students can be done on a larger scale as well.

For example, Joyce Elementary School in Detroit started holding an honor ceremony for students. Here, they presented medallions for students and praised specific achievements. This event includes not only school members, but hundreds from the community.

3. Establish school norms that build values

Your school and classroom rules should be clear to all students, and should be well-regulated.

However, this doesn't mean that you need to establish rules for every possible situation.

Instead, create school norms that focus on building positive values in your class. This helps kids to learn, not just what they should and shouldn't do, but why they should or shouldn't do it.

For example, instead of creating specific rules about chewing gum, use of water bottles, or electronic devices in the classroom, you could create a classroom rule that states: "Be respectful of the people around you."

To help students apply these norms, there should be consistency across the entire school building, inside and out.

4. Set consistent discipline

When rules are not followed, discipline must be administered. However, broadening the range of discipline methods can help encourage a positive school culture.

Instead of constantly putting out fires, trying a more proactive approach to discipline. Giving a student detention after bad behavior teaches him that he did something wrong. But giving him a task that helps correct the wrong teaches him what he should've done instead.

For example, imagine one student started a fight. His discipline could include having to write a letter of apology to the student he hurt, and then to take a shift as "hallway monitor".

Having students work to correct their own wrongs helps encourage them to take responsibility for their actions.

Getting your teachers to internalize the subtle and tactful arts of classroom management consistently is critical for a school culture of mutual respect and adherence to rules -- both by teachers and students.

Also, it's essential that all discipline is presented consistently across the school. When all students are treated equally and bad behavior is disciplined in the same way in different classrooms, this helps removes feelings of mistrust among students.

5. Model the behaviors you want to see in your school

You have a list of qualities and values that you want to see in your teachers and students.

But how well do you present those same aspects of your school culture?

All changes have to start from the top. That means when you interact with teachers and students, you need to be an example of the behavior that you want to see in your school.

6. Engage students in ways that benefit them

When in school, your students are learning more than just secular instruction. They're also developing their social skills, and learning how to become successful adults.

Schools that help students develop essential social skills are preparing them on an even deeper level for their future after graduation.

One way to engage students and develop these types of skills is through social-emotional learning (SEL). Throughout the day, encourage teachers to include activities that help students develop qualities such as empathy, reliability, respect, concern, and a sense of humor.

In the research brief Social Emotional Learning in Elementary School, researchers found that SEL programs helped students make more ethical decisions, maintain positive relationships, set and achieve goals at school and at home, and manage their emotions. These programs promoted achievements at school, and reduced substance abuse and emotional distress.

7. Create rituals and traditions that are fun for students and teachers

The school day - and school year - should be punctuated with time for fun. This helps students engage with each other in positive events and builds morale in school.

For example, one school created a weekly event called 'Fabulous Friday', which opened students up to a variety of fun activities. Why not create your own version of Fabulous Friday?

Using technology in the classroom -- as a reward or simply to supplement learning -- is a cost-effective way to introduce positive rituals for students on the level of the individual classroom.

For example, you can create special rituals and traditions for the first day of school, or for the first day of a new month.

Creating appropriate times to have fun and laugh breaks up the day and gives students a chance to relax in between learning. This helps them become more refreshed when returning to the classroom.

8. Encourage innovation in the classroom

Innovation in the classroom starts with you - the school leader.

When talking with teachers, encourage them to try new methods of teaching. You can even set up regular meetings to discuss new research on teaching methods or new teaching tech, and how these can be implemented in your school.

These meetings will help the whole teaching staff to brainstorm and implement new ideas, bringing teachers into the process of building your school culture.

For example, why not try game-based learning?

Students playing Prodigy - a game-based math platform - on their tablets

Particularly popular for improving results in topics like math, video game based learning has been shown to heighten the level of interest, concentration, and enjoyment of educational materials among students.

And teachers tend to agree: in one study by the Joan Ganz Cooney Center, almost 80% of K-8 classroom teachers surveyed agreed that digital games have "improved student mastery of curricular content".

Plus, it's fun!

9. Professional development for teachers

Students are not the only people in your school who should be learning. Helping your teachers to develop their skills will encourage a positive school culture by giving them the ability to improve their craft.

For example, the Mooresville Intermediate School in North Carolina pairs each new teacher with a mentor at the beginning of their career at the school. This helps teachers to be fully aware of school policies and rules, and gives them specific instruction in how the school uses tech in the classroom.

Supporting new teachers in this way can help promote a consistent atmosphere across your school.

Also, it's good to make sure that you as the school leader are aware of what your teachers think and feel in their work. Set up regular times to ask for feedback, hear out concerns, and get suggestions for improvement.

10. Maintain the physical environment of your school

Surprisingly enough, the physical surroundings of students and teachers has a huge impact on the culture of your school.

The HEAD Project(Holistic Evidence and Design) took evidence from over 3,700 students in 27 diverse schools. They found that the physical space where students are learning can account for a 16% variation in the learning process over a school year.

What aspects of a classroom have the most impact?

The novelty, stimulation, and freedom of movement students enjoy in a flexible seating classroom setting positively impacts behavior, according to educational researcher Sheryl Feinstein's book From the Brain to the Classroom.

It was found that half of the learning impact came from light, temperature, and air quality. The other half of learning impact came from factors such as individualization of the environment and color of the room. For example, the ideal classroom was found to have light-colored walls with one accent wall of a brighter color.

Adopting a policy that allows for flexible seating in classrooms is one step school leaders are taking more frequently.

Adjusting these seemingly insignificant factors isn't difficult, and can result in an increase in student engagement and improvement in learning.

11. Keep tabs on your school's culture, and make adjustments when necessary

Unfortunately, creating a positive school culture isn't just a matter of following a checklist. As a school leader, you need to stay informed of what's going on in your school, and understand the attitudes and atmosphere that permeate the hallways and classrooms.

As we mentioned above, starting the process of improving your school culture involves analyzing the current situation of your school. This analyzation process should become a regular part of your schedule.

Set aside time every few months to analyze your school culture. Keep on the watch for the specific factors that indicate a positive school culture, and keep using the steps above to reinforce those aspects. Also, be aware of any negative factors that have started to seep in, and take decisive action to remove those.

Above all, take time to listen to feedback from both teachers and students in order to understand the experience that they are having in your school.

Conclusion: Building a positive school culture will take time and effort, but it's worth it

If you've already started efforts to build a positive school culture but aren't seeing the results you expected, don't worry.

Changing the attitudes of all the staff and students within your school won't be an overnight process. However, it will be worth the wait.

Remember: this change process starts with you. So, make an effort to mimic the behavior and attitudes that you want to see displayed in your school.

Keep working patiently at building a school culture that fosters positive action, and your students will be better prepared to learn better and become more successful now and into the future.

Try Prodigy Math Game - the engaging, curriculum-aligned math platform used by over 50 million students, teachers and admins.

Culture, ethos, atmosphere, climate...

Plus, it's fun!

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11 Real Ways to Build a Positive School Culture

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All Posts How do you want teachers and students to feel when they walk into school every morning? Are your teachers dreading coming to work in the morning? Do students walk into the building with their heads down, trying not to interact with others? Or are your teachers excited, starting each class with enthusiasm?