Walter H. Warfield is a scholar in residence and J. Gregory Reynolds is a visiting professor, both at the University of Illinois at Springfield.
When looking for new school leaders, boards of education regularly look outside the organization in search of people with fresh ideas and a different perspective. This approach works in many cases, but the fact is that every outsider is someone else's insider; and this raises the question as to just how much local talent has been overlooked by boards of education in search of their next superintendent of schools?
In searching for your next superintendent, a number of key decisions will be made, with the issue of career experiences high on the list. A candidate's career experiences, external and internal to the school district, are significant factors in the discussion and decision-making process. These experiences will ultimately provide the district with a leader possessing a unique background of academic preparation, career experiences and personal characteristics from which the next superintendent will make recommendations to the board of education and administrative decisions.
Internal candidates possess first-hand knowledge of a school district's strengths and weaknesses. They have a sense of organizational history and tradition. They also have a proven commitment to the school district by virtue of their time in it and a continued interest in advancing their career from within the organization.
A major factor to be considered by the board, when contemplating external versus internal experience, is the degree to which a candidate for a leadership position is able to balance the needs of the district against the urge to use the position as a stepping stone to the next position. A person with ownership in the school and the community, who has a vision to the future of the school district of which they intend to be a part, will have a vision different from someone who does not see themselves in it.
Internal and external candidates for superintendent often possess very different views on career goals. These goals can be significant factors in the search for the "best fit" school leader.
From the experts
The phrase "servant leadership" was coined by Robert K. Greenleaf in his 1970 essay, "The Servant as Leader," where he stated:
"The servant-leader is servant first … . It begins with the natural feeling that one wants to serve, to serve first. Then conscious choice brings one to aspire to lead. That person is sharply different from one who is leader first; perhaps because of the need to assuage an unusual power drive or to acquire material possessions … . The leader-first and the servant-first are two extreme types. Between them there are shadings and blends that are part of the infinite variety of human nature.
"The difference manifests itself in the care taken by the servant-first to make sure that other people's highest priority needs are being served. The best test, and difficult to administer, is:
In their 1994 book, Built to Last, Jerry Porras and Jim Collins purposed a leadership blueprint based on research into the development of some of the most successful corporations in the United States. They wanted to answer the question, "What makes the truly exceptional companies different from the other companies?" with an emphasis on timeless management principles instead of trends and innovations such as employee empowerment and shared values.
Jim Collins, in his 2001 follow-up book Good to Great, used empirical research to study companies categorized as transitioning from good to great. One of the major factors in these two studies was to look at the effect leadership had on the directions of the organizations studied.
In his 1995 article, "Building Companies to Last," Collins reported: "In more than 1,700 years of combined history, we found only four cases in our visionary companies in which an outsider was hired as chief executive — and that in only two of the 18 companies! In contrast, our less successful comparison companies were six times more likely to go outside for a CEO. Our findings simply do not support the widely held belief that companies should hire outsiders to stimulate change and progress. Indeed, as great companies grow, a common trend is that of continuity and order in management tenure and succession. Insiders preserve the core values, understanding them on a gut level in a way that outsiders usually cannot. Yet insiders can also be change agents, building on the core values while moving the company in exciting new directions.
"Bob Galvin spent years learning from his father, Paul Galvin, founder of Motorola, before becoming CEO. Bob Galvin then kept Motorola's core ideology intact and simultaneously revolutionized the company. At the very moment he began that revolution by moving the company out of television sets and into solid-state electronics, integrated circuits, and cellular communications, Bob Galvin also began succession planning for the next generation of leadership — a full quarter of a century before he would pass the reins — to maintain a lineage of homegrown leaders to preserve Motorola's core values."
The comparison of companies frequently showed management gaps that could be attributed to egocentric leaders who simply could not conceive of the organization without themselves at the helm. "Commander" Eugene F. MacDonald Jr., the brilliant founder of Zenith, never planned for his succession. Since his death in the late 1950's, Zenith has been beset by leadership, frequently from outside the organization, that allowed it to drift from its founding values. Conversely, Motorola has grown and expanded over the years into a world class competitor and leader in the area of communications guided by an unbroken string of capable, long-tenured, homegrown leaders.
Further, consider that the founders of Ford, Hewlett-Packard, Johnson & Johnson, Marriott, Merck, Motorola, Nordstrom, Philip Morris, Procter & Gamble, Sony, Wal-Mart and Disney remained in the role of chief executive for an average of 37 years each. They were more than founder-entrepreneurs. They were visionaries to an organizational future beyond the days of their own leadership. Their immediate successors, all developed from within the company, remained in office for 24 years on average.
What does it mean?
When we talk of leadership, what are we talking about? In the school setting, it means the ability to improve on the quality of educational programs and services provided to the students to the end that every student achieves to individual maximum potential. More specifically, the bulk of a school superintendent's time, energy and expertise should be spent improving the quality of teaching and learning.
Teaching is listed before learning, not because it is more important, but because to achieve improved learning you must first achieve improved teaching. Educational programs and services must become more potent than all of the forces that stand between students and their quest for learning.
An educational leader needs a clear, deep understanding of teaching and learning, including "best practice" teaching methods and new research on how students learn. An educational leader must possess a strong commitment to success for all students, and be especially committed to improving instruction for those who are not succeeding in the current learning environment.
The journey to school improvement and ultimately educational excellence takes on different forms in different districts. In some school districts, superintendents are a common presence in school buildings, classrooms and school events. In other districts, the superintendent sets the vision and goals for teaching and learning with a lesser degree of hands on experiences, leaving those responsibilities to principals and other administrators.
An educational leader is one who provides teachers with informed feedback, guidance, support and professional development that will help them do their jobs better. An educational leader is one who will cause the development and maintenance of an atmosphere of continued improvement, not just in those settings where performance is poor, not just in those settings where performance is good, but in all schools settings. There is always room for improvement, and striving for excellence through continuous improvement must be in the culture.
Still, educational leaders do not come in a one-size-fits-all package. The philosophy of a school superintendent must be complementary with that of the board of education and the community it serves, yet challenge it to a continuing commitment of educational excellence and relevance to the world into which the students will engage.
So, what does this discussion have to do with your work as a school board member in search of a new school leader? Regrettably, it is not as simple as rejecting external superintendent candidates to the benefit of those internal to your school district. It is more complicated than that, but not difficult.
What is needed is a systematic program designed to develop local talent. Without such a program there is no reason to expect internal candidates to be superior to external candidates.
Such a program calls for a commitment of time and energy, the very commitment made when one chooses to become a member of the school board. The commitment must be a process that will result in the selection of a superintendent with an educational philosophy consistent with the board and the community it serves. The process includes the following activities on the part of the board, best conducted under the direction of the current superintendent:
1. Review educational philosophy with openness for modifications dictated by changes in the membership of the board or other factors affecting the educational climate of the district.
2. As a subset of educational philosophy, further review and modify (as needed) the board's philosophy specific to the issues of leadership and administration.
3. Reduce this philosophy of education, leadership and administration to a written document.
4. Develop a leadership program for the systematic identification of employees with an affinity for school administration and their further expansion of leadership and administrative talents. The program should consist of experiences within the school district and higher education. University resources can be used to assist in the development of both the internal and higher education components.
5. Make this program available to school district employees with an application process.
6. Regularly monitor the program consistent with the schedule used to review the philosophy of the board of education.
Using a locally designed leadership development program combines the best elements of state-of-the-art programs along with a strong local component. Over time, it will generate a pool of potential leaders from which to call upon for future superintendents, as well as a locally developed leadership team for the full spectrum of positions required of a board of education in search of educational excellence.
Such a program is certain to fly in the face of the old adage that requires experts to live at least 50 miles from home!
References
Jim Collins, Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap ... and Others Don't," 2001
Robert K. Greenleaf, "The Servant as Leader," The Greenleaf Center for Servant Leadership, 1970
Jerry Porras and Jim Collins, Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies, Harper Collins Publishers, 1997