psychology, sociology, philosophy, business, accounting or public administration.
4. Try and recall specific courses or research activities that help you today in collecting,
tabulating, interpreting, reporting and distributing data to staff on student and teacher
performance.
5. Recall your doctoral program advisor/s and try and recall any words of wisdom, knowledge,
interpersonal, or communication skills that have been key to your success as a campus or district leader.
6. Recall any relevant contacts with your professors and classmates that have been of value to
your on-going professional development and to the success of your school or district.
7. What habits of scholarship is a direct result of your doctoral student experience? i.e., reading scholarly journals, seeking on-line research findings, book readings, conducting personal research, making research based presentations at state and national conferences, and publishing your
research in state and national journals.
Fourth, the researchers will analyze the data and codify information on the six doctoral programs, i.e., comparisons of admissions and program requirements, standards, curriculum, internships,
research activities, faculty mentoring, class schedules, and committee structures in terms of
faculty numbers and disciplines.
In the last step of the process, interview data gathered from the approximately 30 successful
graduates will include the use of mixed methods. First, the researcher will analyze the responses of the five graduates from each program and seek parallels in the responses about courses,
professors, activities possibly directly linked to successful practices. Next, after identifying possible links between preparation and practice in each of the six top ten programs, the
researchers will then conduct vertical and parallel analyses seeking across preparation and
practice across the six programs. If these links emerge the researcher will apply both inferential and descriptive methods to investigate significance between preparation and practice. For obvious reasons related to socialization since completing doctoral programs these preparation practice
links will perhaps be weak or missing. However, in spite of the difficulties in isolating the
variables that impact successful practice the study could provide more clues to the mystery of
leadership and how leaders can be better prepared to take charge and lead schools and school
districts to become high performing.
Who is in Charge When Leaders back down?
General George S. Patton knew that leaders in charge should never back down. Endowed with
limitless energy and even when he knew his men were extremely tired, he never let them quit.
According to military historian Edgar F. Puryear (1971) General Patton got his men to overcome
fatigue and give their all for him--“to do just a little bit more than they thought humanly possible.
He did it through his speeches in which he waved the flag, emphasizing that it was a privilege and an honor to fight and die for one’s country. He told his men what a wonderful job they were doing, but they needed to do better; and in his speeches, he convinced them that their fame would never die” (p.285). The George Patton leadership style may not apply to being in charge of a school,
school district or chairing a doctoral dissertation committee and advising graduate students, but the same premise holds--leaders can not back down when pressure mounts. Patton was referred to
as a driver rather than a leader and according to Puryear (1971), being a driver “was a technique which was fundamental and vital to his leadership success. It was a technique that brought him
great success, but it also caused problems for himself and his senior commanders” (p. 287). This dynamic drive to lead and an excessive need to achieve can be a boon or a demon for individuals in leadership roles. David McClelland (Hoy & Miskel, 2005) created the n-achievement factor and hypothesized that individuals who are high in achievement motivation have three key
characteristics: 1) they have a strong need to assume personal responsibility and tend to work
alone to get the job done they way they want it; 2) individuals who have a higher need to succeed tend to set moderately difficult goals and take intermediate levels of risk. They like the challenge of difficult tasks that may appear to others to be unattainable; 3) high achievers need performance feedback about their accomplishments even if they fail in completing the task successfully. This obsession to take on difficult tasks by themselves and seek little outside assistance has its
downside in terms of collegiality and teamwork. A driven leader can easily become known viewed
as “compulsive” or “quick tempered,” demanding perfection in others and critical of any person
who may appear to stand in the way of progress for his/her projects or for the organization. While George Patton took great care to assure that his soldiers were provided food, dry clothing, and shelter in combat, he also displayed a short fuse when any soldier failed to carry out his military duty. Puryear summed up Patton’s leadership this way, “At best he was superb; at his worst he was impossible” (p. 288).
Leadership behavior consists of a person’s general personality, demeanor, and communication
patterns in guiding others toward reaching personal and organizational goals. The balance between
“taking charge” and “empowering others” is indeed difficult to maintain over an extended period of time. A school principal may organize for and believe in teaching to the test, but staff
perceptions may view the principal as an authoritarian who refuse to discuss alternative teaching approaches. The literature reveals little empirical research evidence that answers why some
leadership styles in specific situations are triumphant successes and others are dismal failures.
Observers have pondered why some successful school leaders use a consistent leadership style in all situations and others use a more situational style. Moreover, research is silent in seeking answers about the impact of certain leadership styles across schools, school leaders, and
situations. Some promising findings are emerging about how some leaders appear to read the
school culture and adjust their leadership style to address critical racial and social issues that impact student learning (Lunenburg, 2003).
Leadership research continues to undulate between leadership as “being in charge” to “being
among the leadership team.” The literature includes leadership as a personal quality, a remnant of the “great man” theories of the 1950s when personality traits and human capabilities that gave
individuals advantage over others. Writers can not make up their collective minds about why it
has been so difficult to move from the boss on the top to the boss in the middle model of
leadership. Most writers avoid the boss on the top and write about the virtues of leadership as relational and as a moral quality. In the past five years leadership research investigates the power of love and spirituality in preparing tomorrow’s school leaders. Thus, will organizations
especially schools continue its search for higher quality when leaders back down? This author
thinks not! While effective leaders understand that cooperation cannot be forced on others, they must be persuasive and lead others to destinations beyond their imaginations and gain their
commitment to shared goals. The formal leader is vital in capturing the cooperation of others in seeking higher goals for themselves and for every student they teach and counsel. The school
principal, superintendent and professor of school leadership must posses the drive of George
Patton, the patience of Job, the persistence of Nelson Mandela, and the love of
Mother Teresa.
Keeping the Organization on a Proper Edge for Productivity in a Political Context
The four months leading up to the D-day invasion of Europe, General Dwight D. Eisenhower,
visited twenty-six divisions, twenty-four airfields, five ships of war, and many other important installations. His friends urged him to slow down and not wear himself out before the invasion.
However, General Eisenhower told them that the information he was gaining was valuable to the
war effort and would provide an edge for victory over the Nazis. In his memoirs, Eisenhower told his reasons for these extensive pre-battle visits.
Diffidence or modesty should never blind the commander to his duty or showing himself to his
men, of speaking to them, of mingling with them to the extent to physical limitation. It pays big dividends in terms of morale, and morale, given rough equality in other things, is supreme on the battlefield. (Puryear, 1971, p. 231)
Diffidence and modesty should never blind a principal, superintendent, or professor from
mingling with staff, faculty, and students to bring encouragement, needed supplies and equipment, ideas to improve instruction or student assessment, and “sharpen intellectual saws.” This high
visibility by the leader is not only a first step in creating a learning community, but it also reveals courage by the leader to become vulnerable as a member of the group. As a group member the
leader becomes a peer who may not have all of the answers, but is willing to learn from the
community members. While assuming learning community membership the principal,
superintendent, or professor does not relinquish positional power, but gains in referent power
necessary to move others toward team vision and programming.
Gaining referent power in public schools is difficult for school administrators if the school board is playing political games against the superintendent. He/she can be very successful in leading a district to higher student performance and be given supportive annual evaluations by the board
and not have his/her contract renewed. The best university preparation includes courses on
education politics and interpersonal relationships. The best superintendent performance evaluation model based on the AASA standards are of little consequence when a board decides to dismiss
their superintendent for “failure to communicate” or some other political reason. Preparing
superintendents to survive in politically driven communities continues to be a hot issue in
leadership preparation across the country. However, it is not unusual for a superintendent to create political power struggles among members of the school community. This writer served as a
consultant to a Cincinnati area suburban school district to conduct a leadership climate study. One part of the study was to ask principals, assistant principals, and assistant superintendents to complete a self report instruments to evaluate the leadership of the superintendent. Two weeks
later I called the superintendent and asked how the climate study was progressing. The
superintendent replied, “Well Dr. Hoyle, every instrument has been returned except for the one
evaluating my leadership skills. I can’t understand what happened. I asked them to complete the form and sign it at the bottom before sending it to my office.”
After a few moments of silence, I asked why he had asked his administrators to sign the
instrument. He replied, “Well, I wanted them to be honest and tell me what they really thought
about me as their superintendent.” I then suggested that he re-send it and tell them that it is not necessary to sign it. He forgot a little lesson about the use or misuse of political power in his position as superintendent. As a result of this change he had 100% return and some positive
suggestions to improve his communication strategies with them and change other central office
processes to help building principals gain access to better information sooner. General Eisenhower gained greater power by mingling with his men and sharing his fears and hopes about the invasion on D-Day. The Ohio superintendent discovered that if he wanted to gain referent political power he needed to open lines of communication, mingle, and ask for open anonymous responses from
his leadership team.
Keeping a keen edge is vital to sustain productive teams in academics or athletics. This sharp edge is created in order to meet accountability demands while striving to assure that every teacher is treated as a professional colleague. Richard Allington and Patricia Cunningham (2007) report a
study by Ames and Ames that presents strategies to keep a sharp edge for improving performance.
Selected teachers and the principal conducted sessions organized around data about student
achievement, instructional process information, and school climate. They used standardized test data to determine how well different groups of students were performing (boys versus girls,
economically advantaged versus disadvantaged, and breakdowns by ethnicity). They reviewed
other measures of teacher satisfaction, potential of students, and other information. Next the team identified the strengths and weaknesses of the curriculum, testing procedures, and translated these findings into specific goals and action plans. Shared decision making was the norm as the team
created a framework for analyzing instructional aspects of the school programs. Collegial and
collaborative efforts among faculty improved and Ames and Ames found good evidence that
shared decision-making provided the keen edge necessary to improve the school culture toward
higher student achievement and lead to improved schooling for all students. There is significant evidence that school administrators who use control strategies for curriculum and teaching
processes lose their edge for higher performance. When a school administrator relies on “teacher proof curriculum” or exhibits a patriarchal model of leadership little progress is made in terms of student’s performance and teacher morale. In administrator “controlled” schools it is very
unlikely that student performance will improve much because teachers are placed in a position of obedience and only teach what they are told to teach. They are fearful of teaching “outside the box” and become resigned to merely do the job and nothing more. Thus, to keep a keen edge
toward greater productivity, mingling with those producing the product whether they are soldiers storming the beaches on D-Day or teachers striving together to liberate children from failure.
Conclusions
There is little doubt among scholars and school administrators about the necessary strategies to create high performing schools. The steps include clear compelling beliefs, an inspirational shared vision, clear mission, goals, assessments, and targeted staff development. High performing school districts include these key ingredients plus community support systems that include high parental involvement, adequate financial support, and respect for school teachers and administrators.
However, school leaders must be prepared and mentored in the art and science of leadership,
teambuilding, communications, interpersonal relationships, curriculum and instruction, and skills in research, planning, and evaluation. These school leaders need the skills of a political scientist to wade through the political puddles of power and their harmful and helpful elements. Successful
superintendents can not only wade through these political puddles, but they create a belief that all students can learn. They lead and teach others the art and science of diagnosing every child in terms of prior learning, how to create quality teaching and testing strategies, and how to accept
“no excuses” for failing to educate every child in the system. Why do some leaders find the inner strength to act and others wait for someone or some group to solve the problem for them? These
mysteries of leadership continue to elude the most curious leadership scholars and search teams assisting school boards in finding the right person to lead in a world that continues to grow more complex and competitive. Scholars know what skills and dispositions are needed to prepare
leaders for high performing schools. The mystery is in the personalities of school leaders and their compassion for becoming a servant leader who can balance politics with a clear vision and
calculated steps to both keep the job and educate every student for a life of success?
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Solutions
Chapter 7. Challenges Facing Black American
Principals: A Conversation about Coping
This module has been peer-reviewed, accepted, and sanctioned by the National Council of the
Professors of Educational Administration (NCPEA) as a scholarly contribution to the
knowledge base in educational administration.
The success of educational administrators in United States schools is influenced by many
variables, including demographics. Currently, Latino, Asian Americans, American Indians, and
African Americans make up more than half of the student populations in California, the District of Columbia, Hawaii, Mississippi, New Mexico, New York, and Texas (U.S. Department of
Education, 2004; Gollnick & Chinn, 2005). Whites make up less than one fourth of the student population in the nation’s largest cities; while 84% of teachers are White and 75% are female. In P-12 schools, nationally, 82% of public school principals are White, 11% are Black, 5% are
Hispanic, and less than 3% are identified as Asian and Native American (Digest of Education
Statistics, 2004).
Here are some basic facts considering the aforementioned data addressing the success of school
principals (Ferrandino, 2000; Lewis, 2000; Page & Page, 1991; PR Newswire, 2003).
There is a growing and tremendous increase in the number of children of color in U.S. public
schools.
Most principals come from the teaching ranks and fewer Blacks are entering the teaching
profession.
Fewer than 2% of the nation's nearly 3 million public school teachers are Black males,
according to 1999-2000 survey results from the U.S. Education Department's National Center
for Education Statistics.
Census statistics show that 42 % of all Black boys have failed a grade at least once by the time they reach high school. And 60 % of Black males who enter high school in 9th grade do not
graduate, according to a report by the Schott Foundation for Public Education.
At the same time that the success of principals in U.S. schools is influenced by demographics,
there are other socio-economic issues to be considered. For example, by 2020, principals will lead schools where only 49% of the school-aged population will be White, 26% of all children will live in poverty, and 8% will speak a language other than English (Natriello, McDill, & Pallas, 1990; U.S. Department of Education, 2003).
Considering these demographic shifts, with fewer minority administrative leaders and more
students of color, how are these new 21st century principals going to cope? This chapter seeks to understand the challenges facing P-12 Black principals and other principals of color by asking
them what makes them successful. Did they have a mentor? Did they have a mentor who
supported them in achieving their administrative career goals? What challenges did they face in achieving their positions? Some other questions that support this study include the following:
What are the challenges for the school administrator of the post Civil Rights era, as compared to the administrator of the Jim Crow period? What are some models or practices for effective
administrators? What are some things that traditional school cultures assume work for Black
administrators but in actuality, do not? How does the Browning of America influence the P-12
administrator?
Although the study reported here obtained responses from primarily active and retired Black
American principals, the convenience sampling approach drew from available data that limited
the representation of other historically underrepresented principals. The terms “Black” and
African American are used interchangeably to reflect the overall acceptance of the terms by
people of African origin. The intent of this chapter is to provide traditionally established cultures with a better knowledge and understanding about how they can assist in fostering a nurturing
supportive environment in their school districts for the advancement of these historically
underrepresented professionals.
Background to These Issues
In 1954, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled in Brown that the practice of Separate but Equal schooling was unconstitutional. At that time, African Americans made up the largest visible minority group in the United States. And, for the most part, the Separate but Equal policy was
applied primarily to African Americans by the established culture, European Americans.
However, it also affected other historically underrepresented minorities living in the United
States. The High Court based much of its decision upon the testimony suggesting that
desegregation created a blatant inequality in schools and in the distribution of resources. It
considered that unfai