For many years we have been thinking about how we thrive in VUCA world of volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity. This term, invented by the US Army college in the late 1980’s feels dated now and has given a way to a new acronym: a BANI world that is Brittle, Anxious, Non-linear and Incomprehensible (Cascio 2022). If we accept this characterisation then it begs an important question: how are we shaping our leadership and education organisations to respond to what’s emerging so we can meet the needs of young people?

Several years ago I led a Studio School shaped by the tech and creative sectors and that was designed to be responsive. The school looked and felt different and everyone took responsibility for creating a culture of openness, connection and belonging. While Ofsted said we were’ turning round the lives of young people’, they also questioned whether our school improvement plan milestones were specific enough. The irony was lost on them. For me this surfaces an important research question: How do school leadership and organisational design interact and what ‘kind’ of leadership might enable an education system that is more responsive to the needs of young people?

Rethinking Leadership is a collective of leaders supporting one another to learn, evolve our practice and encourage the wider system to better meet the needs of young people. This needs fresh thinking because we struggle to see ourselves when we are embedded within complex systems: we can’t see our own eyes!

If culture eats strategy for breakfast as Peter Drucker famously said, then leadership development enables gourmet chefs to source the ingredients and curate the menu. Who we are as leaders shapes what we do. If we want relevant and resilient schools we need to allow leaders to be responsive. We need to create spaces for them to grow and develop their efficacy, deeper sense of motivation and purpose and the higher order nuanced and integrative thinking that allows them to build the capacity to respond to what’s emerging with confidence. Rethinking Leadership models this by offering a space in which we enrich our thinking and enhance our practice.

Hopefully the current DfE review of leadership will recognise this. Yes, it is important to put disciplinary knowledge in place: ‘learning that’ and ‘learning how to’ may lay important foundations. However, leadership is embodied and we may only get more responsive settings, high in trust and rich in belonging, by intentionally inviting leaders into spaces where they can learn to grow into themselves as confident leaders who embody this. Ultimately, as leaders, we are creating the inner conditions for outer change: who we are shapes how we respond with perspective to the rapidly changing context around us.

This isn’t an argument for the adoption of any one leadership perspective. It does, however, suggest that the best leaders need to be more intentional in an increasingly unpredictable world. They need to read the inner signals of intuition to discern how our settings are being shaped by the forces of change. And they need to dig deep and model the integration at the levels of self, setting and wider systems, that give them direction and hold them together.

Certain broad approaches may prove useful for system leaders intent on developing themselves and others. Integrative and holistic approaches to leadership development that encourage us to bring into play the full range of our intelligences as leaders can help resource us. Developmental approaches (Kegan 1994) informed by adult developmental psychology help orientate us. And grounding our leadership development in a capabilities approach (Sen 1999) can help us see that our growth as leaders is a function of the conditions we face and create.

As we rethink the research agenda for school leadership it serves us to be mindful that we are not starting at the beginning. We know that high trust cultures of belonging, and psychological safety get the best out of people (Edmondson 2018). And that adaptive leadership enables flexible organisations that can respond to emerging needs (Laloux 2014). We also know that organisational cultures grounded in positive psychology can be perform optimally and generate wellbeing (Cooperrider 2005).

What is still emerging is an education leadership research ecosystem that explores what leaders need to grow into the complexity that their roles demand. The education system is slow to adapt, yet it must, to tackle the wicked challenges it faces. User centred design has been at the heart of product development in the tech sector for decades, yet this has largely bypassed education. Interestingly the civil service is currently exploring how user centred design might be integrated into public service delivery. The timing may be right to think afresh.

Writing this at the start of meteorological Spring feels regenerative. The seeds we sow can open up space to think more broadly about what it means to lead and support leaders to evolve themselves and the systems around them. Starting with a research agenda that seeks to explore the best of what is already happening when this is working well may help us break the deficit-based patterns of the past as we lead our way towards a more relevant and responsive education system and a more resilient future.

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References:

Cascio, J. (2022). Human Responses to a BANI World. [online] Medium. Available at: https://medium.com/@cascio/human-responses-to-a-bani-world-fb3a296e9cac.

Cooperrider, D. and Whitney, D. (2005). Appreciative Inquiry: A Positive Revolution in Change : A Positive Revolution in Change. San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler.

Edmondson, A.C. (2018). The Fearless Organization. John Wiley & Sons.

Kegan, R. (1994). In over our heads : the mental demands of modern life. Harvard University Press.

Laloux, F. (2014a). Reinventing organizations : a guide to creating organizations inspired by the next stage of human consciousness. Brussels: Nelson Parker.

Sen, A. (1999). Development as Freedom. Oxford: Oxford University Press.