When we talk about leadership in schools, we tend to cast our gaze upwards.
Leadership is often associated with people who hold formal authority: Principals, deputy principals and School Management Teams. They are responsible for setting direction, making decisions and creating the conditions in which teaching and learning take place.
So, what happens when we think about leadership development outside formal leadership roles? An experience in the Eastern Cape in September put this question on the table.
Much of what we consider leadership development is designed with formal leadership roles in mind. This is a familiar pattern in education. Citizen Leader Lab’s work offers one example. Since 2010, the organisation has worked with more than 2,000 schools. Through its Leaders for Education programme, school principals and business leaders come together in learning partnerships, with the Time to Think workshop traditionally forming part of their leadership development journey. The expectation is that the learning then reaches the wider school through the principal.
But for three days, more than 160 teachers experienced this workshop themselves. Time to Think draws on the work of Nancy Kline, author and founder of the Thinking Environment. It based on the premise that people think better when they can think for themselves. Through listening without interruption and reflection, participants develop their own thinking rather than passively receiving someone else’s answers.
These practices are usually discussed in the context of formal leadership. But why should it end there?
We know that teachers are already making judgement calls, managing relationships and influencing the environments in which they work. They do so without having formal authority beyond their job description.
A principal may establish a vision or set a direction, but the character of a school is established and maintained through the cumulative actions of many people. Culture is formed through everyday interactions: How conflict is handled, how decisions are made, how colleagues listen to one another and how people respond in times of difficulty and change.
Leadership, in this sense, is not only a function of position. It is a function of influence. This is one of the ideas behind distributed leadership: Leadership can be exercised across an organisation rather than residing exclusively with those at the top of it. Seen this way, developing teachers’ leadership capacity is not necessarily about preparing them for formal leadership roles. It is about developing their professional capacity and agency to lead from their own seats.
One of the teachers who participated in the Time to Think workshop reflected: “I have never enjoyed a workshop in my 33 years of teaching as much as this one. Isivule amehlo, yasixhobisa kangangoko mfundisi.”
Translated into English: “It opened my eyes and equipped me with valuable insights and extensive knowledge.”
That feels worth pausing on. After 33 years in the classroom, this seasoned teacher encountered a form of professional learning that created space for new thinking.
That should prompt us to broaden what we mean when we talk about professional development for teachers.
We ask what teachers need to know, what tools they need or what new practices they need to implement. Those questions absolutely necessary. The capabilities, however, that underpin the work are too.
These are leadership capabilities, through and through.
So, on World Teachers’ Day, perhaps we should cast our gaze differently. Instead of asking only what teachers need from leadership, what might happen if we invested more deliberately in their capacity to lead?
The Eastern Cape experience does not give us a definitive answer. It does, however, give us a useful place to begin the conversation.
About the author
Zah’Rah Khan is an editorial writer at Citizen Leader Lab, shaping how the organisation tells its stories, communicates its work and builds its brand.
About Citizen Leader Lab
Citizen Leader Lab is a leadership development and support non-profit organisation working across the public and private sectors. This experience was made possible through the support of the Trevor Noah Foundation.
