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The second critical component of a leadership disposition is adaptivity.  As things change in the educational landscape, and be assured they will, an adaptive leadership disposition supports the teacher to remain effective and reduces anxiety.  Adaptivity is different from reactivity. Whereas reactivity focuses on a particular situation, adaptivity focuses on clarifying identity and changing form in order to build capacity (Garmston & Wellman, 2012).

Traditionally, schools operate in a reactive mode, and not always for negative reasons. For example, we often plan far ahead to give people time to prepare.  In turn, such planning makes it difficult to respond to a changing environment.  Professional development calendars were often planned in advance for the coming year, reducing the responsiveness to learning needs of staff as they arose, while personalizing learning to the interests of a few making the plans.  This practice has been replaced with using academic and implementation data for buildings to develop visions for a limited number of student-centered improvement efforts around which Building Leadership Teams can rally and bind their work.  This adaptability to identified systemic needs, rather than fast-paced reactions to live problems, led our district to the creation of different meeting schedules for the leadership teams, to allow for more regular assessment of their work. This has led to more meaningful and self-directed professional learning by teachers.

While a benefit from this work has been a clearer definition of needs and vision, a cost is that some teachers perceive there is seldom closure to the work being done. Since adaptivity requires continuous clarification and goal setting, the ability to celebrate task completion can be lost in the cycle. At first, this can appear as if we are accomplishing very little; when in reality it is a giant systems change. The cost is a larger burden on the intellectual capacities of teachers as they maneuver through their school year and move through lessons, but at the same time never feel their work as a teacher leader is “done”.  Seeing the work as connected, flowing, and related to the needs of students is powerful, but it requires a shift in the idea of what success looks like. Previously, success came from finishing a project. Now, it comes in the constant connection between the work we did yesterday, the work we do today, and the work we will continue tomorrow.

Garmston, R. & Wellman, B. (2012). Adaptive Schools Foundation Seminar Learning Guide. Highlands Ranch, CO: The Center For Adaptive Schools

The first attribute of the leadership disposition is problem solving.  As we work to empower a system, we must see ourselves and our roles clearly within the system. More than being productive members of the teaching community, teacher leaders are expected to see the forest and the trees. To build the capacity of teacher leaders, the skills and competencies must be more than theoretical.  Teacher leaders must have a clear vision for what work needs to be done; training and coaching on collaborative norms to facilitate meetings that are different classroom work or PD, as well as continual support on developing problem-solving strategies.  Successful teacher leaders use these skills and authentically approach issues at all levels of the system as problem solving, not credit grabbing or blame casting.

The basic problem-solving model is to identify and analyze needs, plan for action, implement the plan, and then evaluate for continuous improvement.  Teachers experience several benefits to working through this model.   Teams of teachers in our district have developed consensus-building strategies, clear goals in dealing with problems, as well as norms that have supported group work over individual behaviors. When a problem is personal, it generally receives deeper attention and so we’ve observed that when the teacher leaders are empowered to identify problems in curriculum, professional learning, or structures, there is higher commitment to resolution.  Subsequently, the problem analysis is richer with the contribution of multiple thinkers around a shared interest.  Essentially, the work of professional learning communities is, in many ways, problem solving.

These accomplishments, however, have not been without cost. Often there are several problems to address, and deciding which get priority and resources is difficult. In general, the time needed to solve complex, multi-faceted problems is hard to find, or fund. We have also found that in conditions where a clear vision is not established or readily apparent, the problem-solving model needs additional nurturing by objective teachers or administrative leaders.