Going from Third-Person, to First

Pause for a moment and reflect on the cumulative effect of the projects currently at play in Wisconsin: Common Core, RTI, PBIS, InTASC, SBAC, new district report cards, and a new educator evaluation system. Not to mention the fact that we are powering up these initiatives at a time of record-low revenue and depleted morale in Wisconsin. 

All these initiatives are worthy—there is no question about value or merit. However, to paraphrase Peter Drucker, culture eats projects like these for breakfast, and without considerable attention to the softer-side of organizations, our school districts will suffer and struggle to not only implement but also realize any student-performance benefit from these mass-scale reforms.

To a large extent, school leaders have little influence over any of these projects; in a practical sense, they are mandates—from the top, down. We must implement them, and we have trivial authority over the particulars.  While we have insignificant influence over the actual reforms, we have substantial inspiration in how we choose to implement them at the local level. 

School leaders today have direct affect on the climates in which these reforms come to fruition. If the quality of our partnerships aren't strong, if we aren't in agreement about continuous improvement, and if our vision isn't powerful and based on community values, these reforms aren't going to get very far.  No matter how innovative and research-based these reforms are, they will fall short without powerful work at the local level to inspire motivation, commitment, vision, and empathy. 

For teacher leaders, building principals, district administrators, and board members, we now are fortunate to have this flash of clarity. Yes, the limelight is on top-down reform and the white-hot spotlight is directed at us, yet this affords us the opportunity to direct the action.

Ironic as it may be after decades of efforts to lobby huge and impersonal education legislation, we realize that our most influential efforts are best played out on a local scale, with our own communities, on personal relationships and collegial trust. So today, we shift to calling forth the gifts of kids and colleagues, finding a way to let people’s light shine, and to go from third-person, to first. 

Other Things Being Equal

For a little more than a year, I've had the awesome opportunity to work with fellow administrators from across the state in helping them to better understanding digital-age tools. As a part of this effort, we've worked on social bookmarking, micro-blogging, blogging, and creating screencasts. We've delved into the concept of PLN creation, and we've looked at the ways that digital-age tools amplify administrative capacity to support PLCs. I have learned as much from these people as I hope they have learned from me.

The most striking realization with which I have come away from this experience is that technology know-how only matters so much. After the cursory proficiency in understanding how any digital-age tool works, other things matter. After someone knows how to log-on to twitter, and understands the concepts of a tweet, hashtag, RT, HT, and list, then what?

It is at this point in technology development that underlying leadership traits become very apparent since the way social media and other Web 2.0 tools are put into action depends largely on a given leader's philosophies about collaboration, empowerment, innovation, and learning. After the initial know-how of technology, other things matter.

This vitally modifies how I looked at development as it relates to technology. This type of development is not done separate from development associated with leadership; development in technology must be done simultaneously with leadership development, and the catalytic interplay between the two can amplify both positive leadership and negative leadership attributes of the person using the technology.

What do you think? Is the effective use of digital-age tools congruent with the quality of the leadership behind their employment? What leadership attributes are requisite for the effective use of digital-age tools, and how can we as a community cultivate those attributes in leaders around us and in pre-service leaders?