Leading for Student Success by Shaping Culture

by Joe Schroeder, Associate Executive Director, AWSA

To improve things is to change things. Specifically, it means to transform a culture over time, as culture sets the foundation for all leadership effort in a school. Therefore, if your school’s current continuous improvement plan doesn’t address some aspect of growing a healthier organizational culture, perhaps it’s time to take a step back and assess where matters stand, so that a more productive soil for impactful strategies to grab hold can take root. This article is designed to help you do just that.

In his classic, Transforming School Culture, Anthony Muhammad distinguishes strong school cultures as places where people communicate their beliefs and behaviors very differently around these two key statements:

All students can learn.
All students can learn because of what we do.

Specifically, Muhammad asserts that -- through how they behave -- people in these strong school cultures live out what they believe, both of high expectations for all students and of high expectations in their collective ability to make strong achievement happen for every student under their care.

This distinction by Muhammad is powerfully underscored by the 2018 update of John Hattie’s ongoing research meta-analysis, which ranks these as the factors with the greatest effect on student achievement:

Collective Teacher Efficacy (1.57)
Self-reported Grades (Student Estimate of Achievement) (1.33)
Teacher Estimates of Student Achievement (1.29)

Said succinctly, then, beliefs and behaviors (which make up a school’s climate and culture) matter greatly to impact, more so arguably than any other instructional strategy known. And these beliefs and behaviors impact both the adults and the students in the culture powerfully. So, given this background, where is the work to do next in your school culture so that the local improvement strategies underway can best take hold?

In working with scores of school leaders over the years, here is a list of common ailments of organizational culture, one or more of which leaders often find themselves needing to address.

Lack of trust between ______ and ______
Lack of kindness, compassion, and/or appreciation of others
Little risk-taking or “safety” to do so
Fixed mindsets / low expectations
External locus of control
Us / them mentality
Low sense of efficacy / high “burnout”
Focus on “the individual” over “the team”
Focus on adult needs over student needs
Lack of honest, open communication
Ability / willingness to engage in difficult conversations
Rampant defensiveness to questions / feedback
Lack of urgency or press to do better for our most disadvantaged students

Do one or more of the above common problems of practice resonate with your current context? If so, what specific action can you (as key leader) or others in your circle (as a function of distributed leadership) take to begin shaping a stronger culture?

For some, the change journey starts with the self and may require a reconsideration of the “leadership stance” if one’s leadership role is to have more impact on shaping local culture. If so, this prior article about being strong and vulnerable at the same time provides some concepts for reflection.

For others, the core problem might seem rooted in a group dynamic which currently lacks safety, trust, and/or a sense of team. If so, Daniel Coyle’s The Culture Code: The Secrets of Highly Successful Groups provides some helpful tips. If you are pressed for time, a recent Main Idea summary of the book can provide a succinct overview of key considerations.

And yet for others, the biggest priority could be shifting minds and/or activating others around the sort of leadership needed to make deep change happen for all students. If this is the case, creating conditions for a guiding coalition to take hold in your school could be a worthy consideration. And if so, invoking an application process for potential teacher leader candidates to use could be a helpful, practical tool.

Regardless of the root problem of practice that leads to the current results in your system, know that shaping cultural change takes time. That’s why I recommend school leaders apply long-term cultural change efforts into ongoing cycles of action and inquiry that include clear goal-setting and regular monitoring efforts. In this way, you are most likely to stay focused and committed when the going gets tough, proceed productively through progressive leadership actions, and have the ability to adjust course as new data comes available along the way.

In summary, this article has aimed to provide a concise means to dig into whatever ails your culture -- thoughtfully, with others -- so that your students benefit from adults who well know the wisdom of a natural law that is as old as time: if you make your garden healthy, it will be productive! Best wishes to this end, and don’t hesitate reach out if I can be of assistance in thinking or planning through your efforts.

References

Coyle, D. (2018). The culture code: The secrets of highly successful groups. New York: Bantam Books.

David-Lang, J. (2018). Book summary of The culture code: The secrets of highly successful groups by David
Coyle. The main idea: Current education book summaries.

Hattie, J. (2009). Visible learning: A synthesis of over 800 meta-analyses relating to achievement. New York:
Routledge.

Muhammad, A. (2018). Transforming school culture: How to overcome staff division. Bloomington, IN:
Solution Tree Press.

Saphier, J. “The ‘Black Box’ of Leadership.” Unpublished Nov. 20, 2017 draft. Presented at the 2017
Learning Forward Annual Conference.