Capacity-Building Strategies
This article has been adapted from Chapter 6: Building Middle Leadership Capacity of Michael Iannini’s book, Hidden in Plain Sight: Realizing the Full Potential of Middle Leaders.
To develop a middle leader’s capacity, schools have several strategies they can use. Renee Rehfeldt, one of the most experienced PD Coordinators I have met and worked with, defined the four strategies I list below to categorize the numerous PD offerings available to staff:
INTERNAL PROFESSIONAL LEARNING
Teacher to teacher or staff to staff; conducted by the school for the school staff and guided by the school’s needs; i.e., PLCs, observations, book clubs, visiting consultant workshops (in-service PD) and mentoring.
NETWORK PROFESSIONAL LEARNING
School to school (or multiple schools); organized by schools for schools, guided by what each school needs; i.e., job-a-likes, school visits, visiting consultant workshops (shared cost) and conferences with staff facilitating.
EXTERNAL PROFESSIONAL LEARNING
Provided by an outside organization or specialist and provides an external certification; i.e., public registration workshops, conferences with professionals facilitating and visiting consultants.
PERSONAL LEARNING NETWORK
Coordinated by the individual for their own needs, interests, and professional growth; likely to involve other professionals; i.e., self-directed learning and online learning.
As highlighted in the table below, each strategy has a variety of positive and negative attributes that Renee and I have observed across hundreds of schools. These attributes are by no means a hard and fast rule and there are many exceptions, but they tend to be typical when there is no full-time PD Coordinator. Additionally, common areas of concern that schools need to consider for all four strategies are: (1) participant learning needs aren’t formerly assessed or surveyed in advance, (2) staff aren’t held accountable to any learning objectives, and (3) there are no tools to evaluate the application of learning. In the table, I also try to highlight some dependencies, as in what is required to ensure the PD is effective for that respective strategy.
Leaders that are assigned the role of coordinating PD for middle leaders often have full-time teaching or administrative responsibilities, and in addition to a lack of time also have budgetary and resource constraints. For this reason, they are normally limited to one of the four strategies for professional learning, with internal professional learning being the most commonly employed strategy. An additional obstacle to coordinating effective PD is that PD Coordinators limit the scope of their role to specified periods of time, PD Days, which hinders staff from effectively scaffolding professional learning. PD days could be utilized more effectively if more time was allotted to plan productive sessions, which should include revisiting and bridging to past con- tent as well as ensuring facilitators are well prepared. Unfortunately, though, these PD periods often devolve into unproductive discussions about work or are used to catch up on work. The greatest limitation of the most commonly used form of PD is the inability to demonstrate good leadership, evidenced by thoughtful planning and strong facilitation skills.
What I propose, and have been very successful in implementing with schools over the past 5-years, is a hybrid approach to utilizing all 4 strategies, aligned to practical learning objectives that I hold senior leaders accountable to understand and assess. Over the years I have learned, as an administrator and training provider, that what ever I can’t do for lack of time or knowledge, I can outsource. This said, outsourcing comes at a high cost, so I can’t outsource everything. Many schools un- fortunately take an all or nothing approach to developing their middle leaders, either by sending them to very expensive programs or not training them at all. The latter is justified by the belief they will learn on the job. The former fails to realize even though you pay a high cost to develop leadership capability, if you don’t create an environment to apply what is learned, you are failing to develop the desired capacity. I know a lot of educators that understand the basic elements of good leadership but are incapable of demonstrating it. Which then begs the question, ‘what did we get for all that money we invested?’
The hybrid option for developing middle leadership capacity re- quires every stakeholder involved in the process to be held accountable:
SENIOR LEADERS: Ensure buy-in, assess needs, provide networking opportunities, mentor middle leaders and assess impact of learning.
MIDDLE LEADERS: Demonstrate agency by seeking out additional resources to deepen understanding of relevant content, demonstrate application, reflect and hone new skills.
FACILITATORS: Clearly communicate learning objectives, create interactive learning environments, understand participants leadership goals and provide tools to assess application.
The hybrid approach, when bolstered by all stakeholders being held accountable to the objective of capacity-building middle leaders to lead transformative collaboration, will prove to be the most effective. A simple example of taking advantage of all four professional learning strategies might look like this:
INTERNAL PROFESSIONAL LEARNING
Have cohorts meet to assess needs and identify training options; and
Invite in professional facilitators to ensure all middle leaders gain a broad perspective of multiple facets of effective leadership.
EXTERNAL PROFESSIONAL LEARNING
Nominate or invite middle leaders to enrol for open registration leadership programs in groups of 2-4 per division and present key learnings to colleagues.
NETWORKED PROFESSIONAL LEARNING
Encourage middle leaders to host job-a-likes with peers in other schools to explore specific leadership topics.
PERSONAL LEARNING NETWORKS
Encourage middle leaders to document their leadership journey and publish it in relevant forums;
Supplement the purchase of leadership literature and online courses with the expectation that recipients of school funding will present key findings to colleagues; and
Encourage action learning projects bolstered by personal research.
A well-documented and thoroughly researched hybrid development strategy is the 70-20-10 rule of leadership development, where research has shown that 70% of leadership development comes from on-the-job work experience, and specifically overcoming challenges. 20% is support provided by superiors or coaches, and 10% is formal, structured learning. However, for on-the-job experience to be an effective form of professional development, senior leaders need to understand the requisite capacity that must be developed so that they can monitor and provide support as needed, which is largely what the 20% entails. Lastly, leadership development is not only a matter of being able to demonstrate the requisite skills, but also being able to develop those same skills in their team members.
An important consideration to understand to ensure the 70-20-10 rule is successful, is that of time. Proportionally, structured learning would appear to have a very small role, such as external workshops, conferences and diploma programs. However, they probably play the most significant role in the beginning, as this is where the seeds for development are planted and over time senior leaders need to tend to those seeds and cultivate them into a flourishing culture that will propel the school to realizing its core purpose. The 10% in the first one to two years of capacity-building will actually be the bulk of the development activity, largely because middle leaders have full-time responsibilities to attend to and opportunities to apply lessons will be few and far between. Opportunities to apply content will also need a large amount of support from senior leaders. It will take time for middle leaders to process all the new information. During this period senior leaders are reaffirming the learning objectives and helping middle leaders to understand the new content within their school context. At the beginning senior leaders clearly also have a larger role. Over time though, as middle leaders become more effective at seeking out learning opportunities, reflecting on what they are learning and honing their new knowledge and skills through application, the pro- portions take their proper shape.
Developing leadership capacity, in parallel with attending to regular work responsibilities, is a long process. In fact it is a life-long process. The 70-20-10 rule for developing leadership capacity is the most effective process, but it takes a few years before these proportions can be sustained. This rule utilizes the positive attributes of all four professional learning strategies, emphasizes application and makes the role of all relevant stakeholders clear. There are obviously many components to each part of the rule to ensure it is not only effective, but also sustainable. Some of these I have mentioned throughout this chapter, such as:
Assessing learning needs;
Reflecting on how new knowledge can be applied in the current working environment;
Reflecting on the application of new knowledge; and
Honing this knowledge through repeated application.
These latter components, specifically that of reflection, is too easily overlooked. Learning is a continual process. In the beginning new or aspiring leaders rely on the facilitator to help them reflect on learning. This responsibility is then passed on to senior leaders. But if the aspiring leaders never take responsibility for this component, then their development can’t be self-sustaining.
