The discursive performance of leadership in schools
What sort of leader are you?
What sort of leader are you?
Authors: Dave Hall, Helen M. Gunter, Joanna Bragg
(Institute of Education, Manchester University, UK)
How we talk about concepts informs how we imagine, envision and relate to them. The way we interpret ideas and practices directly impacts on how we enact them as individuals.
In sociological terms, this is called discursivity - whereby we talk something into existence.
To give you an example, if you are an organisation leader, or even an aspiring one, then if you imagine leadership to be about authority, control, direction and the centralisation of power, the chances are this is the type of leadership you will perform. Quite simply, you cannot imagine any other type – at least not for you.
Discursivity informs everything we do, from work to play, politics to pastimes.
So, no surprise then, when research reveals how ‘discursive performance’ informs school leadership.
This article by Hall, Gunter and Bragg is based on research which spotlights a particularly powerful and persuasive concept of school power and authority – distributed leadership. But as these authors point out, is it real or is it just a mask behind which a more traditional form of leadership lurks?
‘Distributed leadership has emerged over the last decade as a dominant discourse in school leadership in England…and is an officially sanctioned model of good practice.’ (p.32)
But what does it actually mean? One of the quotes in this article (from Simon, a school Principal) wraps it up quite nicely:
“Everybody in the building recognises that they are a leader and recognises their role in the strategic leadership within the organisation…Distributed leadership is everybody knowing that they’ve got a place in the leadership and what they do. They are the guardians of the mission and ethos and actually they are an important cog in the wheel” (p. 34)
But is this just discursive rhetoric by a leader or does it reflect reality in that leader’s school?
A clue is in a further comment from the same Principal:
“it is impossible for me…not to be a charismatic hero because I can’t do it. I can’t not go around touching people and asking questions and dominating situations and such, because I can’t do it because, actually, that’s what I am.” (p.35) (our emphasis)
Revealed in these two very contrasting quotes from the same Principal is the problem with distributed leadership – it sounds great in theory but it takes a particular type of person to put it into action and a great many current school leaders are not that type. Too many are like this principal – clever and astute enough to recognise that distributed leadership is what the school requires, but incapable of delivering it not least because they want to remain centre of the power circle - at the top of the hierarchy.
So how can such a contrast occur?
How can an individual believe in something and articulate it persuasively, yet be unable to put this vision into practice?
Part of the problem is maybe within the concept:
‘At present, distributed leadership is not about expressive dimension of the school; it is not about enabling social and emotional bonds of a community. It is mainly about accomplishing the organizational goals which comprise the instrumental tasks and targets set by officialdom. (Hartley, 2010: 281)’ (p. 32)
‘…radically different conceptions of distributed leadership are further complicated by the term ‘distributed leadership’ itself….Indeed, as Hartley (2007) has pointed out, it is a slippery and elastic concept.’ (p. 33)
Slippery or not, it would be a brave (foolhardy?) school Principal – anywhere in the world – who openly (and honestly) disclaimed against distributed leadership as a guiding discourse for their school and instead claimed it to be a non-starter and that all power should, ‘quite rightfully’ be held by him/her.
To do so would be counter-productive if not professional suicide.
School leadership is now expected to be distributed. Indeed, if you are a Principal of an international school which is inspected by any of the major validating bodies, or a Principal of UK school inspected by Ofsted, you better be articulating distributed leadership otherwise you’re in trouble.
Which takes us into the crux of the problem with distributed leadership – the external pressure on school leaders to align with it but without having the tools and experience (the will?) to do so properly.
The Principal quoted above was clearly told by an Ofsted inspector that if he didn’t change, didn’t become more distributive and less dominating as a leader, that he’d end up disempowering everybody, thereby putting his school, and his job, at risk.
“He said I had to change…so I spent the next one and half years…trying not to be a charismatic hero. It’s impossible actually because I am one...what you need to do is stop the disempowering factor and to build in distributed leadership.’ (p. 34)
This is ‘performativity’ in action:
‘Peformativity is a technology, a culture and a mode of regulation that employs judgements, comparisons and displays as a means of incentive, control, attrition and change based on rewards and sanctions (both material and symbolic).’ (Ball, 2003, p. 6). (.33)
Distributed leadership has now emerged at the top of the pantheon of possible leadership styles expected of school Principals. It is reinforced by performativity; external inspections, the expectations of staff, the mission of the school, all further embellished in social values which increasingly demand, quite rightly, inclusivity.
But to enact it one must be able to not only recognise it externally, but internalise its true values. To perform distributed leadership, you have to first be a distributive type of person.
The second of this article’s case studies turns to a woman school head teacher (Rita):
“[distributed leadership] is something that I am aiming for. It’s a sense in which, well my interpretation would be, that once you’ve given somebody responsibility to take something on that you’ve actually left them to get on with it.” (p.35)
‘Rita’s interpretation of distributed leadership was supported by many, although not all, teachers at the school, most especially by those designated as senior and middle managers. This was commonly explained approvingly in terms of changes enacted by Rita since she assumed the headship of the school.’ (p. 35)
What the authors of this article go on to point out is that these two case studies reveal two contrasting reasons for school Principals to discursively engage with distributed leadership.
1. The reason Simon engaged with this discourse was he felt externally pressured to do so by Ofsted. He recognised the value of distributed leadership but also recognised it was ‘not who he was’. Consequently, distributed leadership remained more rhetoric than reality in his school.
2. The reason Rita engaged with this discourse could also be because of the same performative pressures experienced by Simon, but there were strong indicators to suggest that she was personally comfortable with enacting distributed leadership, she internalised it, it was who she was as a person.
Conclusion
If you are a school leader and are aiming for distributed leadership don’t do so because Ofsted or indeed any other validating agency expects it of you. Do so only because it is who you are as a person.
Don’t just talk the talk, walk the walk – make it real and make it happen but for the best reasons.
Don’t use it as performative tool to wring more out of already disempowered staff. Allow the discourse to envelop the school, inform the school climate, and as leader, keep a watchful eye on ensuring it stays like that.
And perhaps most importantly, if distributing leadership amongst your staff all feels rather alien to ‘who you are as a person’, remember people can and do change. So maybe it’s time for you to get some professional development in how to advance your leadership skills.
Article summary by Dr Stephen Whitehead
reference
Hall D, Gunter HM, Bragg J. The discursive performance of leadership in schools. Management in Education. 2011;25(1):32-36.
link
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0892020610387756
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