Something bold, ironic, and beautiful is happening in our schools. National teacher satisfaction surveys are showing decreasing satisfaction with the career (not the work, mind you, the job). We could have predicted this just by listening to teachers’ desires and ideas for how to boldly help kids improve, how to build up peers, and what basic features of human learning have been made too complex over the past few years. Ironically, many school leaders have voiced a concern that they want their staffs to participate in leading change. Administrators are concerned about how to manage the many different concepts, priorities, and initiatives coming at their staffs. At the same time, much of the school improvement literature showcases schools that have significantly improved their cultures and student learning were those whose leaders honored and supported staffs of teachers to solve the problems. The beautiful thing is that when you listen carefully, you begin to hear both administrators and staff subtly longing for the same thing.
I listened carefully to some school leaders discuss how a principal operates when teachers take professional ownership for deep personal and student learning and school-wide improvement. This made me envision the differences in two of my favorite extraordinary groups: pirates and cowboys.
Pirate ships had hierarchies based on specific skills and requisite duties. They actually operated with an early form of democracy, where the captain was elected based on his personality traits and skills. He was firmly at the wheel, steering the ship to his desired location. The captain could be overthrown, but generally the crew followed his determination of when to sail, when to fight, where to pillage, and what to plunder. While elements of pirate leadership have survived evolution, the model generally hasn’t lasted outside of role-playing fanatics.
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Cowboys, on the other hand, work in teams. One has ultimate responsibility that the herd arrives from one ranch to another, and he may be paid a little more for that role, but the collective of riders is responsible for keeping the mass of cattle moving forward. Occasionally, one cowboy will have a problem and a peer will help him back to the herd. A calf may stray and teams rope it back to safety. Cowboys are all around the progressing stampede. When they reach the corral at the end of their journey, you wouldn’t see that head cowboy leading the parade through the gates. Instead, you probably wouldn’t recognize which hat the leader is under because the team of cowboys is all still surrounding, problem-solving, and busily moving the herd until the last calf reaches their common goal. Cowboys still successfully exist and most, as I’ve heard, have relatively high career satisfaction.
What type of leadership do you want to create for your students?