LEADERSHIP IN EDUCATION

 
                                                                                                                                      Crisis in Education
                                                                              The Need for Systemic Change

       Education in the United States is in a state of crisis. Most of the problems that we now have in society from the economy to health care to the collapse of our long standing institutions, banks, businesses and organizations can be traced to our system of education in this country. We are not developing the collaborative leaders of tomorrow with the ability to build our organizations and a better society. We are creating self-serving graduates who are always looking for their competitive advantage instead of how they can serve others and work well together as a team. However, it is not only a problem with the teachers and helping them to teach our students in a way that will produce the service-oriented collaborative leaders of the future that is the main concern for education. Many of our teachers are doing a good job and some even a great job under very difficult circumstances. The problem lies primarily with systemic change that is long overdue in the approach to leadership and curriculum development in our school systems (See Learning Organizations).

       In higher education we have so-called “Educational Leadership” Programs in which are taught many of the raw technical skills involved in the administration of our schools, but the Collaborative Leadership, team building, curriculum and organizational development skills are rarely addressed in most of these programs. As a result, instead of collaborative leaders, we have many pass-it-down-the-line administrators in the hierarchy of education that support a self-sustaining bureaucracy far removed from the classrooms of our schools from K-12 through higher education. There are also many other difficulties that contribute to this situation including the over-abundance of procedures and regulations in public education as well as problems with unions. However, until we are able to work together with the teachers in a way that produces a richer curriculum of collaborative context based on democratic values, the problems of our educational system producing self-serving graduates with little ability to put the mission, team or organization first, will continue. And, the impact of this on society is devastating as we can now see with the increase of golden parachutes of executives from businesses and schools they have run into the ground and from the increase in bonuses and rewards for leaders who hop from one school or business to the next with little concern about the future of their organizations (See Collaborative Teamwork).          

       This situation has become epidemic and yet very few people want to acknowledge the changes that are necessary to improve education. Just blaming the teachers is not the answer. We need to do something very soon about helping our leadership in education to build real collaborative learning environments in which the students, employees and faculty are safe and free enough to take the risks necessary to learn. And, we need to focus our curriculum on how we are educating our young people with values that will sustain them and help them to lead others by putting the mission and the team effort ahead of their own selfish interests. These values can be taught to our students along with the collaborative learning, critical thinking and team building skills necessary to help them to cope with the complexities of leadership. Raw technical skills are just fundamental and are not enough to enable graduates to lead others and work collaboratively in ways that will lift the performance of the organizations and build cooperation among faculty and staff across disciplines and departments. Also, in business just teaching the raw financial engineering skills and vacuous economic concepts without the understanding of democratic and collaborative values and social impact is so dangerous it can help to bring down the economy. We only have to look at what has just occurred with the creation of the CDS (Credit Default Swap) system that was developed by graduates of our most prestigious institutions without concern about the impact it would have on the economy or society. This obsession with self-serving profits over the well-being of organizations and others has become catastrophic with even distorted philosophies and pundits willing to promote it in the midst of the disaster it has helped to cause. Recently, one such advocate, committed primarily to the support of the rich, wrote an article, “Greed is Good." This attitude has now become both dangerous and frightening considering the fact it is based on a very self-serving philosophy that is at the root of our problems in every area of society. And, now even the rich are concerned (See American Dream).

       It is still not too late. If we want to build a better society, we must be willing to make the systemic changes that are necessary in the areas of leadership, curriculum and organizational development. We need collaborative leaders who can work together as teams putting the organization first and not just perpetuating a failed bureaucratic system that blames the teachers for all of the problems. The teachers will need more than just pay by performance incentives to make the changes necessary to the curriculum in every area of education (See Collaborative Leadership and Performance). Our school leaders and administrators can help by becoming more collaborative leaders and working to create a core curriculum that will help to build a greater understanding of teamwork, collaborative learning, critical thinking and democratic values. This new core curriculum can be added to the existing list of essential core courses in literature, math and the sciences to build a support system and a learning environment for the students that will help them and sustain them long after graduation. The results of this effort to transform education in the United States will begin to resonate in every area of global society as we develop the Collaborative Leaders of the future with a social conscience and a greater appreciation of teamwork and democratic values.

 Copyright 2009, Global Leadership Resources: For teaching or classroom use only.

 Note: This article is based on the concepts, examples and ideas found in the books, Collaborative Leadership and Global Transformation and The Price of Freedom by Timothy Stagich, Ph.D.

                                                                                   Discussion Questions

1. Why is education in the United States in a state of crisis? What are the problems with leadership that need to be solved to reform education?
2. What is systemic change and what are the elements that can help to bring about this change in American Education? What elements of leadership are involved?
3. What are some of the difficulties in bringing about systemic change and how can they be overcome?
4. Why are environments that are “safe enough” necessary for learning. And, what has prevented such environments from being developed?
5. Why is the practice of teaching the raw technical skills not enough to prepare students to be future leaders? How are Collaborative Leaders developed?
6. What values are associated with Collaborative Learning and Leadership Development? How can these values improve curriculum?
7. Discuss the essential elements of teamwork, collaborative learning and cultural context and how they help to teach values and enrich curriculum.