Walter H. Warfield is scholar in residence at University of Illinois at Springfield and the former executive director of the Illinois Association of School Administrators.
H enry Bliss, a New York City real estate agent, holds a unique position in the history of mass transit and automobile safety. In September 1899, he became the first American to be struck and killed by a car while disembarking a trolley car. His unknowing legacy to us: “Look both ways before crossing.”
With no intent to show any disrespect for the loss of even a single human life, a lesson can be learned from the untimely demise of Mr. Bliss: being first to experience an event is not always advisable and should never be confused with leadership.
It is all but impossible to read any current education journal without coming across multiple references to the need for new, improved leadership. This mega focus on leadership may very well have diluted the impact of true leadership and most certainly has caused a downgrading for the appreciation of being a good team player.
Such abundant references to leadership will never cause it to be placed on the list of over-used words to be eliminated from the American vocabulary, but perhaps it should at least be placed temporarily on hold while we focus on the complimentary skill to leadership: the art of being a team player.
Clearly, if Mr. Bliss had used the talents of a team during his automated journey, the wider scope of multiple views of pending traffic added to his own would have yielded the knowledge of oncoming traffic and a clear strategy for safely completing his commute.
Improving skills
Critical to a highly functioning board of education is the performance of its members as a team, thus rendering a wider scope to the host of issues that come before it. This is logically achieved through the improvement of each individual board member’s team skills.
Such skills require commitments of time and energy, but begin with a decision to embrace the philosophy that improved school board performance can be achieved through improved team skills. The acquisition of these skills calls for full team participation in multiple activities, ranging from simple bonding exercises to complex simulations, and can take place in single settings or multiple-day retreats.
Creating an effective team is a challenge in every organization. Molding an effective board of education into a high-functioning team comes with a special set of circumstances and parameters. This special set should never be viewed as barriers to improvement, but rather the factors that cause boards of education to be recognized as the special public service institution that they are.
Team building can be achieved through the use of a skilled consultant. Such a consultant would likely interact with the board for a single event or for a limited number of events, during which activities and exercises would be formulated, implemented, evaluated and ultimately developed into a plan of action to transfer back into the school setting.
Many school boards are fortunate to have ready access to an in-house team building “consultant,” otherwise referred to as the superintendent of schools. The functions of team building consultant and workshop facilitator further enhance the importance of the superintendent’s skills. These functions should rank high on the list of skills required of a district superintendent by the board, and equally as high on the list of the superintendent’s professional development activities.
Using what’s available
School boards also have ready access to an organizational setting that is ripe for activities to develop the team: a school board meeting.
Two basic reasons exist to hold a board meeting, and the second is to conduct a business meeting. The first is to conduct a board-superintendent relations team building workshop. This slight of speech gesture is to make a point.
The board’s business meeting continues to be of paramount importance. This is where bills are paid and decisions are made on the full spectrum of issues that keep the school district functioning — personnel, curriculum, instruction, facilities, transportation, food services, insurance and numerous others.
This philosophical approach transitions the primary purpose of each meeting into a workshop that uses each and every item before the board as an opportunity to define and redefine the roles and responsibilities among the members of the school board and its superintendent.
Such a system is certain to bring about a locally yet professionally developed level of leadership that performs its duties with improved effectiveness and increased efficiency. It will provide the flexibility to adapt to developing issues commensurate with the local climate and district resources.
Developing a clearer understanding of the board/superintendent team starts with an understanding of roles and responsibilities. It has long been understood that the duty of a board of education is to set policy and the duty of the superintendent is to administer policy. For equally long, the experience of school board members and superintendents alike has been that this is easier said than done. As the old saying goes, “The devil is in the details.”
Continuum of leadership
A closer look shows that policy and administration exist more on a continuum. As issues come before a school board, it is incumbent to identify where on the continuum of policy and administration each issue lies.
A high-functioning board will use its meetings to dispense of each issue as policy, administration or determine where it falls on the continuum based on the levels of expertise and comfort levels of the individual team members. In order to clarify issues of policy-administration continuum, let us review two matters familiar to all Illinois boards and superintendents: infamous “snow days” and referenda.
In planning a school year, the board will regularly review and ultimately determine the parameters of temperature, wind chill, snow depth, time of day of the storm, general safety and other locally significant factors that a superintendent will use to make the decision, usually in the early morning hours, as to whether or not to conduct school for the day in times of inclement weather. From this policy and ensuing discussion of clarification among the superintendent and members of the school board, the superintendent is authorized to make decisions regarding inclement weather. No one would ever expect a school board to become actively involved in such an administrative decision for any one of a number of more than obvious reasons.
In planning the year, the board regularly engages in a longer range review of district finances during development of the annual budget. From this task, boards will decide on the adequacy of local revenue, and then determine whether or not a need exists for a referendum to gain a tax increase.
Just as a school board would never consider an early morning board meeting to decide whether or not to hold school on an inclement day, neither would it ever consider setting guidelines so that the superintendent would weigh revenue, expenditures, community temperament, and other locally important factors to unilaterally decide and announce to the public that the district needed a tax referendum. Clearly, this is a decision to be made by the full board only after due consideration through a multitude of exercises.
On a continuum between the decisions of inclement weather and school referenda lies the multitude of issues to be considered by the school board in concert with its superintendent to define and redefine the working relationship of the leadership team from within its own expertise of the issues and comfort levels of the team members.
Commit to honing skills
This proposed ongoing process of team development through continuous review, revision and refinement could never be achieved through the use of an external consultant. But it can readily be achieved by the board-superintendent team committed to acquiring the requisite skills. Transitioning a school board into a highly effective team begins with exercises designed specifically for that purpose at an official meeting also designed specifically for that purpose.
Identifying a clear set of team goals can sharpen board members’ individual skills as team members. The immediate gain will be to become a cohesive unit of individuals who can work together to complete tasks effectively and with increased efficiency. Longer-term, continuous gains include improved and increased:
• communication
• productivity
• collaboration
• problem solving
• decision making
• adaptability, and
• trust.
Additional contributory by-products and equally as helpful outcomes are:
• learning self-regulation strategies
• more enjoyable board meetings
• more highly motivated board members,
• identification of individual strengths, and
• never to be underestimated, simply getting to know each other better.
The decision to embrace this philosophical approach to continual team building is clearly well worth the effort. It will transition every school board into a time-efficient process of continual development for each board member as well as the superintendent. It also will establish a system conducive to orienting new school board members through active involvement in the team’s continual development.
Since a starting place is unnecessary with an ongoing process there will be smoother transitions to productive membership on the school board. The system also will provide a mechanism to adjust the board’s priorities and strategies consistent with the needs of students. These adjustments can be made commensurate with the temperament of community constituents.
Such a system will bring increased clarity of communication among the members of the school leadership team. It will systematically maximize the individual skills, talents and priorities each person brings to service as a board member in concert with the other members of the leadership team. It also will maximize each team member’s potential to contribute to the continued improvement of the programs and services provided to the students whose formal education has been entrusted to the board by district citizens.
Lastly, this greater use of systematic group thinking does not engage a prerequisite willingness to relinquish any personal issues brought to the office of school board member. It does, however, come with the opportunity to gain the insight of others and the opportunity to engage in systematic review of issues brought by others.
In keeping with the Bliss legacy, it provides the opportunity to engage others in the power of looking both ways before crossing.