“If you want to build a ship,” wrote Antoine de Saint-Exupery in his memoir The Wisdom of the Sands, “don’t drum up the men to gather wood, divide the work and give orders. Instead teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea” (1952, p. 135). While never intending to build a ship, one Learning Leader at our school has been particularly successful in demonstrating to colleagues excellent leadership qualities while sharing a vision for personalized, twenty-first century learning. With an affiliative leadership quality, she has invited, encouraged, and motivated others to share her vision for quality teaching and learning supported by innovation; she has introduced a “vast and endless sea” of possibilities.
Synthesizing leadership styles, by choosing features that best fit unique situations, is common practice for this Learning Leader. However, many characteristics of affiliative leadership often complement the strong emotions and complexities of technology implementation; new initiatives that require new skills have the potential to elicit fear, lower confidence, and create feelings of inadequacy. Even amidst success, an individual able to focus on relationships, people, emotions, and sensitivities is necessary to mitigate an overwhelmed and cautious workplace (Fullan, 2001, p. 40-41). It becomes necessary for open and honest dialogue to continually take place, both in person and with online assistance.
While implementation is one area that requires intentional and empathetic leadership, so too is longer term sustainability. With new initiatives, many teachers do not initiate substantial professional learning; even fewer sustain learning after an initiative’s onset. This Learning Leader would be aware that even those most successful at accessing meaningful professional development are often not able to connect understandings in actual everyday classroom practice (Fullan, Hill, & Crevola, 2006, p. 22-23). Creating and encouraging relationships are important leadership outcomes of affiliating so that meaningful conversations can be sustained as part of a reflective, collaborative practice.
Our Learning Leader is on the frontline of implementing and sustaining at least two related educational initiatives: an inquiry-driven model, as well as learning that takes place with rather than about technology (Alberta Commission on Learning, 2005, p. 108). It is daunting to know that getting deeper than a surface-level understanding of either complex initiative takes years to grasp and requires professional learning that is both focused and sustained (Fullan et al., p. 86-87).
Because this leader is also a practicing teacher-librarian, she models best practice. Simultaneously, she takes on the learning required to be an effective twenty-first century teacher while encouraging and motivating colleagues to do the same. She can be seen as both a facilitator and a participant throughout the year in professional learning that takes place at the school, within leadership development, within board and provincial initiatives, and online with electronic professional development. Student learning is at the heart her professional growth, and conversations during and after coursework.
It becomes evident that a divide the work and give orders approach to leadership could neither achieve nor conceive of this level of professional transformation. Instead, our teacher-librarian Learning Leader chooses a more harmonious, affiliative means of accomplishing objectives. By showing awareness for relationships and people, changes in instruction and a push for achievement can be initiated and sustained.
References
Alberta Commission on Learning. (2005). Every Child Learns, Every Child Succeeds. Retrieved June 8, 2009 from http://education.alberta.ca/
Fullan, M. (2001). Leading in a Culture of Change. San Francisco: Wiley & Sons.
Fullan, M., Hill, P., & Crevola, C. (2006). Breakthrough. Thousand Oaks, CA.: Corwin Press.
Saint-Exupéry, A. (1952). The Wisdom of the Sands. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
