Barry Smith - Learning about Learning

I’m doing a lot of reading at the moment about leadership. Both from the point of view of trying to understand myself better but also to understand the preferred styles of those around me and the effect they have on the community they inhabit.  It has given rise to some enlightening conversations with colleagues around the subject.  It seems to be one thing everyone has an opinion on.   I’d recommend Micheal Fullan’s Leading in a culture of change if you are interested in a discussion of the issues.

The interesting thing for me is that both our own preferred style of leadership and the style that we perceive from those around us in daily interactions can(if we allow it) heavily influence our job (and life) satisfaction.  (Think of your parents’ style of ‘leadership’ with you if you don’t believe me!)  One style may work briliantly in a particular context but fall flat in another or we may inspire some people and at the same time ‘turn off’ others.  Is there a perfect leadership style that works in all situations or is the perfect leader someone who can adapt their style intuitively to suit the context? 

What does distributed leadership actually mean in the school context and can we really dismantle the hierarchical model.  I think we are engaged in interesting times in East Lothian at present on that front. I am keen to see how this ‘virtual’ hierarchy-free model could translate to a physical entity like a school.  People take initiative in this environment and to a great degree do so unsupervised or directed.  If this happened in school would we have anarchy or unbridled creativity?  A Curriculum for Excellence may begin to ask, and answer, that question.