Succeeding Leaders? A study of principal succession and sustainability

Succeeding Leaders? A study of principal succession and sustainability Andy Hargreaves (Boston College) Shawn Moore, Dean Fink, Carol Brayman, Robert White (OISE/UT) August 2003 Funded by the Ontario Principals Council

I Introduction Overview This report presents evidence and analysis on the nature and impact of principal succession (the departure of one principal and the arrival of another), and of principal rotation (the widespread provincial practice of rotating principals regularly, usually about every five years, between different schools) in Ontario secondary schools. The report points to principal succession and rotation as an extremely important but, in research terms, relatively neglected aspect of educational leadership particularly in terms of the impact of leadership over time on sustainable and not just short-term improvement. Succession and rotation gain heightened importance at times of rapid turnover in the principalship as is now the case in Ontario schools. In this report, we outline the objectives, design and conceptual framework of our research, then review the literature and research relevant to the study. This includes the scant literature on principal succession and rotation in particular, along with relevant literature on the career development of school principals and on the importance attached to succession planning outside education. In the core of our report, we present four cases of principal rotation and succession and their impact on principals and their schools, then follow this with an analysis of key issues that spread across all four schools. We conclude our report with recommendations for policy changes in principal development, school development and succession planning procedures. 1

The Significance of Succession One of the most significant influences on school improvement is the quality of school leadership (Leithwood et al. 1994). The leadership of a school shapes the school s character (Sergiovanni 2000), orchestrates people s efforts within it, sets a common direction, and establishes the expectations for student achievement as well as the means and the motivation to achieve them (Murphy 1994). Along with the quality of teaching and teachers, the quality of leadership is the key human factor that shapes the future of all students and the fortunes of everyone in schools (Starratt, 1993). Leadership is, in many ways, our first and last hope for successful school change. Our understanding of what leadership is and how it is achieved has been limited, though. In education, leadership has tended to be equated with the actions of administratively senior individuals particularly principals and vice-principals (Leithwood et al. 1999). Heroic leaders who turn failing schools around are the ones who stand out most strongly in media images or in the public imagination. It is transformational leaders more than transformational leadership that get the greatest attention in leadership research (Gronn, 1996). The emerging research on teacher leadership (Hannay et al., 2001; Harris, 2003; Little 1987) and student leadership (Fielding, 2001; Levin, 2000) is beginning to broaden this understanding of how educational leadership extends beyond the principals office. The important idea of distributed or distributive leadership draws attention to how leadership spreads across an organization, without at the same time denying or diminishing the importance of the principal s role within this overall distribution (Spillane et al. 2001; Crowther et al 2002). The principal s influence is important precisely because it intersects with and, at its best, galvanizes the leadership efforts of others across space. While principals often feel alone, their actions and efforts are always influencing and influenced by others. Just as principals are not isolated in space, their impact is not frozen in time either. Principals impact on their schools is greatly influenced by people they have often 2

never met those who have died, or moved on to other institutions, or not yet even arrived. These are principals predecessors and successors; the principals of the school s past, and the principals who have yet to come. Principals may be unaware of the other links in the leadership chain or they may be painfully reminded of them - Principal Skinner never did it this way or The children just adored Principal Jones but whether they are aware of it or not, principals stand on the shoulders of those who went before them and lay the foundations for those who will follow. Leadership is distributed over time as well as space. It is a long-term process, not a snapshot event. Sustainable improvement that matters and that lasts depends on understanding and managing this process of leading over time. Quick fix changes to turn around failing schools often exhaust the teachers or the principal so the improvement efforts cannot be sustained over time. The principal s success in a turnaround school may lead to his or her own rapid promotion, then regression among teachers who feel abandoned by their leader or relieved when the pressure is off. Sustainable improvement and the contribution of principals to it must be measured over many years, not just one or two. What legacy do principals leave on their departure? What capacities have they created among students, community and staff that will live beyond them? How can and should others build on what has been achieved? These questions of leadership over time, are specifically questions of leadership succession. For individual principals themselves, leadership succession challenges them to think about whom they have succeeded, what were their achievements, what business they left unfinished, and where they have fallen short. It is a challenge of deciding what to continue and what to change, of recognizing the legacies that have to be honoured and the work that has yet to be done. Leadership succession also challenges individual leaders to consider how the improvements they have guided or have yet to initiate will live on after their promotion, retirement or death. 3

For the individual leader, successful leadership succession calls forth qualities of humility and arrogance. What improvements depend uniquely on the leader s own gifts and qualities? Are there some things that no-one does better than the leader, and should they be initiated if they are unlikely to survive the leader s departure? Conversely, what can principals do to ensure that improvement endures beyond their own tenure, to develop capacity among others so they can become as gifted as their leaders and can build on their efforts? There is a dark, Frasier-like corner in the soul of most leaders that secretly wants their own brilliance never to be surpassed, that hopes their successors will be a little less excellent, a little less loved than themselves (Salzberger-Wittenberg et al., 1983). Moral leadership does not deny these feelings, but rises above them for the good of others. Coming to grips with leadership succession means moving beyond leaders darkest desires for and delusions of indispensability, in order to help build success that endures long after the individual leader has left. Few people are more aware of the impact of leadership succession than the teachers who experience processions of leaders coming through their school. For most members of the organization, a leadership succession event is often an emotionally charged one surrounded with feelings of expectation, apprehension, abandonment, loss, relief or even fear. There may be grieving for well-loved leaders who have retired or died, feelings of abandonment regarding leaders who are being promoted and moving on, or relief when teachers are finally rid of principals who are self-serving, controlling or incompetent. Incoming principals may be viewed as threats to a comfortable school culture, or as saviours of ones that are toxic. Whatever the response, leadership succession events are rarely treated with indifference they are crucial to the ongoing success of the school. In many schools, however, leadership succession is not an episodic event or an unexpected exception. It is a regular and recurring part of the life of the school. In these circumstances, teachers sometimes develop long-term responses to the repeated and 4

predictable process of succession in general, as well as to specific moments of leadership succession in particular. For these teachers, succession feels more like a procession (MacMillan 2000). They may develop cynicism towards change efforts, devise strategies to wait their principals out, exploit changes of direction for their own ends, or become determined to survive a poor principalship in the almost certain hope that a better one will soon follow. Leadership succession may be a relative mystery or a passing concern to many individual leaders, but it is a way of life to large numbers of public school teachers. Principal rotation formalizes and regularizes the occurrence of leadership succession in schools. Principal rotation is a widespread policy and practice in many Ontario school districts, usually of an unwritten nature. The origins of and reasons for principal rotation in Ontario school districts are currently unclear although the practice first seemed to emerge around the time of the impact of school effectiveness research on Ontario schools in the mid to late 1980 s. One of the findings of school effectiveness research (albeit in circumstances of voluntary promotion rather than administratively regulated transfer) was that principals appeared to reach their peak of effectiveness between five and seven years in a school (Mortimore et al 1988). This finding seemed to turn into an embedded administrative belief in many Ontario school districts, underpinning the initiation of a practice to rotate principals regularly among schools about every five years Widespread and predictable principal rotation has significant consequences for the management and impact of leadership succession: the process that marks the departure of one leader and the entry of his or her successor. Rotation can have both desirable and undesirable effects on the individual principal, or the school that principals enter and leave, and on the school district as a whole. For the district, rotation holds out the promise of being able to manage school improvement across the whole district and of developing its pool of leadership skills and capacities over time. Principals, with their 5

varied skills and styles, can be shrewdly matched to a school s improvement needs at a particular point in time. Districts may assign a wise head to settle down a school in turmoil, a change agent to jolt a school out of its complacency, a collaborative and caring principal to heal a toxic teacher culture, or a tireless and persistent reformer to lift a school out of failure. Principals can also be moved around to deepen and broaden their leadership experience with schools of different sizes, serving different students, or in varying communities. Rotation can benefit the school as well as the district succeeding a hyperactive change agent with a leader who can avoid staff burnout and consolidate the changes that have been made, or assigning a school an outstanding principal where its incumbent had become tired or ill or out of step with the school s community. Rotation can also benefit the individual, creating opportunities to develop new skills and experience new challenges, especially at later points in the career where principals might otherwise be at risk of becoming jaded or complacent (Aquila, 1989; Boesse, 1991). Principal rotation can also create problems as well as opportunities for the district, the school and the individual. Sometimes, this is because the needs of these different groups are contradictory or unavoidably in tension. Rotation that is beneficial for a principal s professional growth may be detrimental to the culture of an innovative school. Succession that turns around a failing school may push a principal to the point of burnout. A cruising school, where teachers are content, will not embrace change with a principal coasting to retirement or with a new principal who has no experience in stirring up a stagnant environment. Rotation policies that are expedient for districts in terms of managing the whole district may not be relevant to the aspirations and capacities of individual principals. Teachers in some schools may become disillusioned with frequent principal rotation that repeatedly interrupts the school s efforts to improve or that fails to respect or understand the school s historic mission. The knowledge, style and change agenda of one principal may contradict those of a predecessor, causing the teacher culture to switch off or polarize in the face of change. Similarly, while assigning a charismatic 6

principal to a failing or low performing school may benefit the new school, teachers in the school the principal has left may feel betrayed or abandoned. Principal rotation policy therefore has important consequences for the nature and effects of leadership succession over time on individuals, schools and districts. These effects are interconnected and sometimes contradictory. It is vital that the needs and interests of school districts, schools and individual leaders themselves are all properly considered and understood in any evaluation of the benefits and drawbacks of principal rotation as a way of trying to manage the process of leadership succession. These issues are especially important at a time when the rate of principal succession is accelerating, due to a massive demographic turnover in the principalship as the boomer generation of school leaders reaches retirement, and as many incumbent principals have moved their retirement date forward in the context of Ontario s educational reform. According to a survey commissioned by the Ontario Principals' Council, 1900 public schools will see their principals retire in the next three years (Williams 2001). Those currently in the role are struggling to keep up with all the changes brought about by the provincial government, making it difficult to attract new high-achieving school leaders "By 2005, 60 per cent of principals and 30 per cent of vice-principals in Ontario's school districts will have retired," (Williams, 2001). The study also uncovered a number of factors that current school leaders cite as making the role difficult or unattractive. All 946 study participants noted that the number one dissatisfier to the role is the pace and number of changes brought about by the provincial government. Coupled with this is the lack of adequate resources to implement these changes. The identification and training of high calibre replacements will become a crucial issue for school districts across the province. Unless plans are made now, even if the ranks of retired principals and vice-principals are filled by 2005, new principals will be 7

ill-equipped to handle the growing responsibilities of the role. Yet our evidence in parallel research on the impact of reform on Ontario secondary schools is that almost 90% of secondary school teachers and department heads now feel less inclined than they once did to take up opportunities for leadership (Hargreaves, 2003). In summary, the impending demographic disaster of leadership recruitment and retention in Ontario schools makes this an especially appropriate time to investigate the nature and impact of principal rotation and succession in the context of standards-based reform and rapid demographic turnover in the profession. Objectives This report presents the findings of our study of principal rotation and leadership succession in a small number of Ontario secondary schools. The study looks at the experience and impact of rotation and succession on principals as individuals and on the schools in which they worked through a series of four case studies. A further phase of this project will also examine the experience and effects of rotation and succession within the wider school district. The objectives of the study were to: examine the principal rotation/succession process in relation to the school administrator s changing role and responsibilities in times of standards-based reform, educational restructuring and rapid demographic change. document the origins, development and effects of principal rotation/succession policies in two large school districts in the current context of mandated educational reform and demographic change. elicit senior administrators assumptions about leadership effectiveness underlying principal rotation/succession policy and practice 8

identify the impact and implications of succession on individual leaders, on institutions and on school districts formulate policy recommendations regarding principal rotation/succession. prepare an article for the Ontario Principals Council magazine and produce other published outputs. Design and Analysis Our work in year one involved a re-analysis of an existing data set of principal and teacher interviews in six secondary school case studies, drawn from two ongoing research projects in two large school districts in Ontario. 1 We also completed an extensive, multi-layered review of the literature on succession theory, practice and policy within and beyond education as well as literature on the relationship between the succession process and the sustainability of organizational change and improvement. Our analysis of rotation and succession focused on individual and school levels of change. At the individual level, we used four representative case studies to trace principals' experiences of rotation as they moved from one school to another, to examine the different forms of knowledge that principals brought to and gained from the succession experience, and to see how the process of succession varied in relation to the career stage of the principal undergoing it. At the school level, we concentrated on whether rotation was planned or unplanned and whether it created continuity or discontinuity between one principal and 1 One project was funded by the Spencer Foundation -- Change over time?: A study of culture, structure, time and change in secondary schooling (Hargreaves & Goodson, 2003). A second study was jointly funded by the Ontario Ministry of Education and the Peel District Board of Education -- Secondary School Reform: The experiences and interpretations of teachers and administrators in six Ontario secondary schools (Hargreaves et al 2002). 9

the next. The implications of succession for sustainable improvement across schools over time are also discussed at this level. 10

II The Literature of Rotation and Succession 1. Leadership Succession Within Education Introduction In the 1980s, senior administrators in many school districts in Ontario initiated some form of principal rotation policy. 2 The rationale for such policy is based, in part, on "unquestioned beliefs" about how principals grow as professional administrators and the effects of principal management style on school culture (Ogawa, 1991). Superintendents justify the use of principal rotation on the grounds that it "rejuvenates" administrators who reach their peak of effectiveness after 5-7 years in a school (Rebhun, 1995; Boesse, 1991; Mortimore et al 1988). District level administrators also try to match principals' skills with the perceived needs of specific schools (Davidson & Taylor, 1999). For example, schools embarking on high-profile changes are often assigned charismatic leaders who can draw excellent people to them, create a shared vision and establish commitment and loyalty (Hargreaves and Fink, 2000; Davidson & Taylor, 1998; Fauske & Ogawa, 1983). However, Firestone (1990) and Miskel & Cosgrove (1984) claim that research evidence does not support the notion that planned principal rotation is an effective way to bring about sustainable organizational change. Miskel & Owens (1983) studied principal succession in 89 schools in a Midwestern state (37 schools with new and 52 with continuing principals) and found no evidence that organizational effectiveness was affected one way or the other. 2 Typically, this involves either a principal-initiated request for transfer or a superintendent-initiated recommendation that a principal be transferred. Although often an informal and unwritten practice, in one of the districts participating in this study principal transfer was a formal process involving the submission of a transfer request to central office. 11

While rotation policy may be perceived as a rational process of planned improvement at the district level, administrators and teachers often experience succession as perplexing, disruptive or even capricious. Moreover, traditional practices of principal rotation now operate in a climate of deepening crisis in leadership in the public education system as the result of escalating attrition and turnover rates (National Clearinghouse for Comprehensive School Reform, 2002; Association of California School Administrators, 2001; Educational Research Service, 1998). Recently in Ontario, as in the U.S., teachers' sense of continuity and security has been eroded because of growing instabilities in school leadership brought on by a large cohort of retiring principals, depletion of the leadership pool, an accelerating rate of principal succession and school districts which still administer rotation policy in a disorganized, "haphazard" or "serendipitous" way by just letting events such as promotions or retirements dictate transitions (Quinn, 2002; Fenwick, 2000; Tye, 2000; Cohen & Packer, 1994). These uncertainties also seem to have changed the way that the roles, motivations and capacities of school administrators are perceived (Weindling & Earley, 1987). We will now examine this empirical and conceptual literature on principal rotation and succession from the perspective of principals, then in terms of how teachers experience succession. Finally, our review of the educational literature points to gaps in the knowledge base about rotation and succession and the kinds of studies that are needed to address them. The Principal s Frame of Reference Principals new to their school are often preoccupied with establishing their legitimacy and authority with faculty, students, parents and staff. Some principals focus more on control rather than on curriculum matters by imposing their own vision upon the 12

school and by delegating responsibilities instead of empowering staff (Parkay, Currie & Rhodes, 1992; Merton, 1968; Van Maanen & Schein, 1979). Task-oriented principals encounter more difficulties in gaining faculty support than person-oriented principals who demonstrate concern for staff and are able to gain faculty trust sooner (Noonan and Goldman, 1995). Others may take too long to learn about their new school before they take action, in which case on-the-job training results in lost ground that may never be regained before the principal is transferred again (Davidson and Taylor, 1999). Principals new to their school encounter tensions with faculty when they do not understand the professional culture or respect the "ghosts" and "heroes" from past school history and lore (Rooney, 2000). According to Talbot (2000, p. 1), Although principal succession experiences are often seen as singular events principal assignments can be viewed as ongoing processes that involve the beliefs and expectations of the new principal, as well as the school's organizational needs and expectations. Because almost all new administrators begin their roles as a successor, it is important that prospective school leaders understand leadership succession. Not all principals are new to their schools. When staff are appointed in "acting" positions as a result of the sudden, unexpected departure of their incumbent leader, the role of principal can be totally unfamiliar to them. Such acting administrators may find themselves simply "holding the fort" with little expectation of long-term appointment or responsibility for school progress (Draper & McMichael, 2003). By comparison, school administrators who have previously been working as principals elsewhere are not at all novices devoid of insights when they enter their new school. They bring prior experience, or what Wenger (1998) calls inbound knowledge of leadership to their new setting. How does this affect their approach to their leadership? MacMillan (1993) addressed this question in a study of principal succession 13

in relation to principals career stages (new, mid-career, and senior). The study s design involved five secondary schools in Ontario chosen in two districts that had developed polices of planned principal rotation. The sample included interviews with 29 teachers in contexts where a new principal had been appointed within the last two years. Findings indicated that as principals gained succession experience they tended to focus more intently on a here-and-now approach to problem-solving and took fewer risks. One senior principal in MacMillan s study, for example, retreated from risk taking, disengaged himself from innovation and left the role of visionary to a vice-principal (see also Hargreaves & Fink 2002). The implication of this study is that the greater the principals experience with succession, the less inclined they are to assert themselves as change agents in their new school environment. Day & Bakioglu s (1996) study of principals/headteachers in England corroborates MacMillan s findings that career stages are linked to leadership attitude, style and effectiveness. They identify four career stages that are relevant to and have implications for succession planning and principal rotation. In the Initiation stage (years 1 through 4) principals tend to be idealistic, enthusiastic and accessible. This passion for their work extends into their second Development career phase (between four and eight years). During this period, principals express self-confidence, constructive self-questioning, increasing effectiveness as leaders and willingness to implement imposed reforms. The Autonomy phase follows when principals begin the shift into maintenance mode that initiates a process of gradual intellectual and emotional withdrawal. Principals reach a plateau of Disenchantment in phase four when professional development slows, tolerance levels for work stress and pressure declines and aging takes its toll on stamina and motivation. Day & Bakioglu conclude that professional reassessment and strategic support are most critical in stages three and four when principal leadership effectiveness tends to decline. 14

Reeves, Moos & Forrest (1998) conducted a transnational study of school leadership that involved interviewing twenty-nine headteachers representing the UK, Denmark and Scotland. They identified eight stages in the development of a head's career, each of which was linked to "qualitative changes in school leaders experience and orientation to practice (Reeves et al. 1997). In the first three stages: Pre-entry ("The Warm Up"), 0-6 months ("Entry") and 6 months to 1 year ("Digging the Foundations"), the leader gets his or her bearings and the school takes measure of its new leader. In stage 4 ("Taking Action", 9 months - 2 years), stage 5 ("Getting Above the Floor Level", 18 months - 3 years) and stage 6 ("The Crunch", 2-5 years) the headteacher's engagement with change is more substantial in terms of beliefs and values. The leader then enters stage 7 ("Reaching the Summit", 4-10 years) and stage 8 ("Time for a Change", 5-10+ years). In these later career stages, sustaining interest, enthusiasm and effectiveness become paramount issues (Ashley & Krug, 1998). Others have proposed similar models of career development among administrators (Hart & Weindling, 1996) and other educators (Huberman, 1993; Sikes et al., 1985). In addition to principal succession varying according to the principal s career stage, principals new to a school many also encounter any of a variety of school cultures that may be welcoming, indifferent or closed. Yet, a few researchers have identified some generalizable patterns. Stine (1998), for example, examined succession from the principal s perspective in a single school case study by collecting interview data from two district-level administrative employees, two site-level administrative employees and other school staff. Information was also collected through journal entries, observations, and documentary analysis of faculty meeting minutes, memos to staff and a strategic plan. Stine s study portrays the principal's philosophy of dialogue - how he took control, the steps that went into formulating an action plan for the school, and statements from staff members regarding the school's transformation. The author framed the principal s experience through Gabarro s (1987) five stages of leadership succession (taking hold; immersion; reshaping; consolidation; and refinement) and concluded that 15

effective principals are visionaries who accurately diagnose their school s problems, form a management team with shared expectations and initiate changes in a timely way. Stage theories can be particularly useful for understanding school administrators and others experience of succession as a historical process of change over time rather than simply a snapshot event. In addition to Gabarro, other succession stage theories have been proposed by Hart (1993) who formulates three socialization phases (encounter stage; adjustment and accommodation and stabilization), Miskel and Owen (1983) who consider pre-arrival factors, arrival factors and indicators of succession effects and Gordon and Rosen (1981) who identify three stages (pre-succession, succession and postsuccession). The value of such models is that they map out succession as a process with distinct phases and demands, rather than a singular event. The Teachers Frame of Reference Leaders always influence their teachers either by design or default. Leaders may be revered or reviled by their teachers - but rarely are they an object of mere indifference. Teachers have the power to sabotage a new principal s efforts to make deep changes to school culture. Among the many ways that teachers evaluate the effects of succession on their school, one of the most significant is how succession affects their capacity to maintain control over their work environment. Johnson & Licata (1995) examined the perceptions of 3,067 teachers of the effectiveness of successors compared to 73 prior principals and concluded that administrators new to a school need to build confidence in their leadership quickly but not autocratically at the expense of teachers professional autonomy. From a teachers perspective, MacMillan (2000) reports on additional findings from his 1993 doctoral study indicating that succession which is intended to improve 16

school climate and performance may actually be destabilizing, polarizing and regressive. According to MacMillan, the seeming impenetrability of the school culture to entering principals is often a consequence of rotation policy itself, especially when the term of rotation is short (e.g., less than three years). In such a scenario, each new principal is temporarily tolerated and accommodated without teachers agreeing to or complying with the leader s change agenda. Teachers also begin to question whether principals allegiances are to their school or to their own career advancement as they rotate through the district and there is the risk that faculty increasingly perceive principals as less like colleagues and more like middle managers of unwanted external mandates. When succession is sudden and unplanned a school can find itself in a state of organizational crisis. Cohen & Packer (1994) examined the impact of a principal s abrupt resignation after only one year of the school s participation in Missouri's Accelerated Schools Project. Data were obtained through document analysis, field notes, and interviews with 12 faculty on staff during the transition, two newcomers, and one teacher who transferred to another school. The authors suggested that entering principals must quickly learn to build on the faculty s vision and strengths by means of shared decisionmaking and teacher empowerment. The quality of the principal-teacher relationship, the principal's commitment to the instructional process and his or her concern for teacher and student development were also critical transition factors. Succession experiences and requirements may also differ according to the stages of the school s development along a path of improvement and effectiveness. Drawing on many years of experience and research in school improvement, Hopkins (2001) identifies schools as being at one of three developmental stages each of which sets different agendas and requires different actions from entering principals. Schools at the highest levels of success and development, Hopkins says, need entering principals who endorse and further extend the school s strengths, celebrating successes, networking teachers with their peers elsewhere and providing other kinds of stimulating enrichment. Schools that 17

are moderately successful, by contrast, need principals who can work with the staff to develop and clarify the school s vision, who can provide stronger professional collaboration and who can secure the necessary training and establish processes for basing teaching decisions on evidence of student performance that will push and support the staff to improve over time. In schools that are not successful and that are actively struggling, Hopkins argues that entering principals will need to be much more directive creating a sense of urgency about and responsibility for problems and failures of teaching and learning, confronting dysfunctional aspects of the teacher culture, insisting on establishing discipline and order among students, and ensuring that effective planning and other basic areas of competence are met by the school s staff. Case studies indicate that the outcomes of principal rotation can be highly unpredictable, especially when succession is involuntary. Sometimes principal succession can relieve internal problems that have built up to the point where a school administrator has lost credibility and is no longer able to manage effectively. However, principal rotation can also precipitate resistance and even rebellion by staff who feel that an injustice has been done to them and their school. Takahashi (1998), for example, describes the actions that led up to a school district reassigning a popular principal, the outcry that followed, how the school was divided, how parents, faculty, and students demanded a recall of the board members who voted to reassign the principal and how a culture of suspicion came to dominate interactions. In the end, another principal who was seen as a "healer" was able to reunite the school community by allowing herself to be "defined by the school. Hart (1993, p. 10) argues that by overemphasizing the study of leaders as single, self-conscious and self-actualizing people, one runs the risk of missing major components of the succession process. According to Hart, the key to unpacking the flow of succession events lies in understanding this socialization process. Her two case studies one from the perspective of faculty and one from the perspective of an "outsider" new 18

principal illustrate how principal succession is a process of organizational socialization of the new leader into the school culture by the staff. From this perspective, the new leader is inducted into school culture by means of socialization tactics, stages, contexts and outcomes. In her first case, faculty moved through four phases of succession: looking ahead, enchantment, disenchantment and equilibrium. Staff reacted to the retirement of their principal with detachment partly because they were not included in selecting a successor and partly because they believed that a change in principal would have little impact on the school. Nevertheless, some teachers were fearful they might lose their independence as a result of succession. Enchantment set in with the entry of the handsome new insider principal who impressed staff as friendly, engaging and interested in responding to their concerns. They came to believe that he would provide the leadership and unity for which they hoped. As time went on, enchantment turned to disenchantment, as the principal became preoccupied with what faculty considered to be trivial changes. Staff also became suspicious that the new principal was behind the transfer of a well-loved secretary and there was a growing fear of retribution if they disagreed with his opinions. Eventually, faculty isolated themselves in their classrooms from a principal they believed was simply biding his time. In a second case, Hart turned her attention to an outsider s experience of being socialized into a school culture. Dr. Howard, fresh with her doctoral degree in hand, entered her new school under a cloud of faculty suspicion that she had been brought in to clean house. She was perceived as too theory oriented and lacked the commitment and experience necessary to run a junior high school. Howard became aware of doubts about her leadership and scheduled a series of meetings with parents and teachers to discuss their views, concerns and expectations. Howard s school improvement agenda was to provide instructional leadership but she also realized that the trust and cooperation of teachers would be essential before they would consent to change existing 19

professional culture. One turning point was when teachers began to notice the warm, open and caring relationships that Howard was developing with students. In the end, although Howard made some mistakes, her understanding of the organizational socialization process and her conscious use of her self helped to melt tensions with parents, the union, and teachers. Her long term vision of improvement in teaching and learning only began to take hold because the new principal set a pace that was manageable for a school community which was initially resentful that an insider had not been appointed as the successor and was reluctant to give up the security of longestablished norms and relationships. Hart s evidence suggests that organizational socialization in terms of the pressure to integrate and conform often overpowers the influence of professional socialization in terms of the leader s prior training and experience. In particular, her second case suggests that some degree of tension between a change-oriented new leader and the embedded teacher culture is inevitable. Her cases illustrate that principal succession sometimes begins with promise and anticipation that turns to retrenchment and disillusionment while, in other contexts, it can start in an atmosphere of suspicion and resentment that later evolves into a climate of trust and openness to change. Following Hart, LeGore & Parker (1997) undertook a case study of faculty "sense-making" of the succession of an "insider" appointment of a leader from within the district. Over the course of a year, the authors collected data in one elementary school by means of formal and informal interviews with 11 teachers and staff members and the principal, observations of staff meetings and documentary reviews of administrative reports. LeGore's and Parker's evidence suggests that the "insider" new principal exhibited "outsider" traits of innovation in the areas of instructional leadership, parent involvement and student discipline. The authors concluded that the pattern of innovative principal leadership they observed did not fit with either Ogawa's (1991) succession model of "enchantment, disenchantment and accommodation" or Hart s claim that 20

insiders are less change oriented than outsiders. Clearly, the effects of insider/outsider status in leadership succession are more complex and varied than can be captured in any one case. Summary Existing educational research points to the importance of leadership succession for the district, the school and the individual leaders who undertake and undergo succession themselves. Leadership matters not just because of the acts of individual leaders in short periods of time, but because leadership exerts its effects and is also experienced as a long term process over the span of leaders careers, in relation to their predecessors and successors, and through teachers and others experience in their schools of repeated and cumulative succession events. The educational research we have reviewed points to a number of key issues in the process of leadership succession that deserve and demand further attention. These are: whether succession is planned or unplanned whether the incoming principal is an insider or outsider the experience level and career stage of the entering principal the characteristics and effectiveness of the previous principal and the levels of development of the school he or she has helped to secure how the existing teacher culture responds to succession events the cumulative effects of successive successions on the teacher culture the rate and/or acceleration of succession events the stages of the succession process 21

Despite these insights, it is clear that research evidence on leadership succession in schools is sparse. Studies are few in number; many focus only on small scale case studies of particular succession events; the majority are concerned with elementary schools and, apart from MacMillan s doctoral study, there is no research at all on succession in the form of planned rotation in Canadian contexts. In the face of these limitations, we have turned to other areas of literature and research outside education that might help shed more light on succession within it. 2. Leadership Succession Outside Education Compared to the educational field, business literature on succession planning is voluminous. Here, succession planning and succession management describe a process that helps ensure the stability of tenure of personnel (Rothwell, 2001, p. 5). Traditionally, succession planning has meant that businesses try to match individuals to statically defined positions. This approach, however, is outdated and conflicts with the rapidly changing needs of today s organizations (Eastman, 1995 p. 54). In the public sector, the National Academy of Public Administration (1997) indicates that managing succession means more than identifying a slate of replacements for particular positions. Succession management increasingly focuses on leadership templates rather than specific jobs (Government of Western Australia, 2001). This involves deliberate, systemic and sustainable efforts to project leadership requirements, identify a pool of high potential candidates, develop leadership competencies in those candidates through intentional learning experiences, and then select leaders from among the pool of potential leaders (Government of Western Australia, 2001, p. 7). 3 3 For convenience, this review will use the phrase succession planning to describe both the planning and management processes of ensuring effective leadership succession. 22

The aim of succession planning is to match an organization s present available talent to its future talent needs. Rothwell (2001, p. 7) describes the purpose of succession planning as having the right people at the right places at the right time to do the right things. He explains that succession planning is an important tool of organizational learning because it helps ensure that the lessons of organizational experience what is sometimes called institutional memory will be preserved and combined with reflection on that experience to achieve continuous improvement in work results. In this sense, good succession planning ensures the continued cultivation of leadership and intellectual talent and manages the critical knowledge assets of the organization. The Private Sector With the impending retirement of 40 to 50 per cent of the existing leaders in the private sector, business leaders have identified succession planning as an urgent problem (Curtis & Russell, 1993). Early retirements, downsizing and reorganizations have created critical shortages of middle and top leaders in the business community for the immediate future (Byham, 2001). Business observers therefore argue that organizations must embark on systemic succession planning programmes to replace the departing leaders (Liebman et al, 1996; Schall, 1997). They appear to be in considerable agreement on the key principles of effective succession planning (Eastman, 1995; Souque, 1998; Rothwell, 2001). These are: 1. The succession planning process is directly aligned with the strategic business plan (Borwick, 1993). If an organization is to succeed, it must clearly define its business strategy and communicate it so that everyone is on the same page. This requires the succession plan to fit the on-going leadership needs of the organization. The key skills and abilities an organization may need will fluctuate with changing conditions and the plan should therefore be a continuous and flexible form of rolling planning (Louis & Miles, 1990). As many of the people who devise the business plan as 23

possible should be involved in the succession plan to ensure compatibility and success (Clark & Lyness, 1991; Getty, 1993, Borwick, 1993, Hall & Foulkes, 1990). 2. The CEO champions the company s succession planning process. Top management support gives succession planning a sense of urgency and importance in getting things done and therefore is probably the most important factor in instigating a successful programme (Buckner and Slavenski, 1994). Without support from the top, succession planning is doomed to failure (Clark & Lyness, 1991). Borwick (1993) advocates a top down/bottom up/top down strategy for succession planning: initiated by the top, carried out from the bottom, with changes or approvals of the plan coming from the top. This avoids the tendency of top managers to hire clones. 3. Line management takes ownership of the succession plan so that staff support the process (Friedman, 1986). Succession planning depends heavily on the commitment, support and active involvement of line management. Many succession plans look good on paper but are more rhetoric than reality (Wallum, 1993; Foresight Survey System, 1996). They are often farmed out to human resources divisions with little involvement of line managers. The plan becomes cloaked in secrecy, and deteriorates into a once-a-year paper exercise (not unlike the annual reassignment of principals in some school districts). Without feedback on their succession plans, managers have little motivation to provide appropriate training for potential leaders. Moreover, while units within organizations may develop leaders, there is little incentive to share these leaders with other business units unless they understand how leadership development contributes to the success of the total organization (Hall & Foulkes, 1990). Succession plans must therefore be living documents (Getty, 1993) that are on-going, and that involve considerable dialogue between human resources staff and line managers. 24

4. The human resources review process is based on a well-developed competency framework. Potential and existing leaders should be judged on clear criteria rather than subjective measures (Buckner and Slavenski, 1994). Leadership competencies should be defined as indicators of the organization s central goals and values, and in relation to the challenges that will be faced over the next five years and beyond (Byham, 2001). In this way, organizations can avoid institutionalizing or cloning the incumbent leadership style and make leadership roles more open and objectively available to women and minorities (Ruderman et al, 2001). Some writers advocate defining competencies in behavioural terms for existing jobs (Burnett & Waters, 1984). Others suggest that organizations define competencies for the jobs that may evolve in the foreseeable future. Orellano (2001 p. 1) argues that, the important element is that the company has a real emphasis on learning. If that doesn t exist, I don t think you can have any kind of programme because people aren t going to stay. You re not fulfilling their personal goals. 5. Managers are held accountable for human resource reviews and for implementing their outcomes. Succession planning needs to be aligned with the organization s accountability system. Most authors recommend collecting both quantitative data (such as financial or output targets) and qualitative information (derived from performance appraisals, and summaries of past accomplishments) as well as psychological testing and assessment centres as a basis for accountability and succession planning alike (Buckner and Slavenski, 1994). Most authors advocate that both accountability and succession planning are ensured through on-going performance reviews, not annual exercises. In an age of flexible employment and looser relationships between individuals and organizations over time, effective succession plans also encourage employees to take responsibility for their own careers and development (Lee, 1981). In knowledge-based organizations, succession planners also need to collect data on teams as well as individuals (Borwick, 1993). 25

Indeed, Liebman and Bruer (1994, p.20) suggest that instead of identifying the right person for the right job at the right time, corporations are continually looking to develop strong leadership teams for strategic tasks. 6. The succession plan is fully integrated with the corporate human resources system and strategy. For example, the organization s strategic plan should connect the succession plan with the district s leadership development programmes and personnel systems (Souque, 1997; Hall & Siebert, 1991). 7. Effective succession planning puts development before selection. It is widely advised that organizations develop first and then select later. The alternative - selecting people of high potential and then developing them - can create destructive divisions between the chosen and the rejected (Schall, 1997). 8. The succession plan is tailored to the organization s unique needs, culture and history (Rothwell, 1994). The succession plan should not be a template programme or a prefabricated format imposed upon an organization. It should be defined from within the company and highly company specific (Borwick, 1993, p.2). The Public Service As the baby boom generation moves on, recruitment and development of leaders in the public service has also become a major concern (National Academy of Pubic Administration, 1997; Langford, et al, 2000; Jackson, 2000; Government of Western Australia, 2001). By 2005, for example, 70% of the senior managers in the U.S. public service will be eligible for retirement, causing unique challenges for numerous agencies in maintaining leadership continuity, institutional memory and workforce experience (Financial Executive International, 2001). Similar patterns are reported in Canada 26

(Langford et al, 2000) and Australia (Government of Western Australia, 2001). In recent years, a combination of regulatory, budgetary and collective agreement restrictions have limited the flexibility of the public sector to recruit and develop new leaders. When these factors are combined with criticism of the dedication and efficacy of the public service by politicians, corporate leaders, and the media, it is not surprising that many public servants are feeling disgruntled and marginalized (Financial Executive International, 2001). As a result, the public sector finds it increasingly difficult to compete with business for people with leadership potential. If succession planning is perceived as a major issue in the business world, the literature on succession planning in the public sector views leadership recruitment, identification and development as a crisis (National Academy of Public Administration, 1997; Financial Executive International, 2001). Schall (1997) identifies four problems in public sector efforts at succession planning: reluctance among current leaders to take up the succession challenge; assumptions that succession issues are beyond the scope of the leader s work; confusion about the nature of succession planning; difficulty of planning for succession in the face of a shifting political environment, restrictive regulations and budgetary as well as personnel constraints. Jackson (2000) suggests that the public and private sectors approach succession planning quite differently, in ways that explain the relative inability of the public sector to plan and manage succession effectively. 27

The public sector Passively lets candidates emerge Focuses on the short term Handles succession informally Seeks replacement for existing roles Selects in relation to current competencies Views succession planning as a cost The private sector Actively recruits and encourages potential leaders Takes the long view Manages succession more formally Defines future leadership skills and aptitudes Emphasizes flexibility and lifelong learning in the face of changing needs Views succession planning as an asset Implications for Rotation/Succession Planning in Education Educators have much to learn from the practices of more forward-looking businesses in aligning their succession plans with their processes of goal setting, recruitment, development and accountability. Like progressive companies, school districts can define leadership roles more flexibly in terms of what will be required in the future rather than limiting role descriptions to existing competencies (Peters, 1999; Stoll, Fink, & Earl, 2002). Involving senior policy leaders in succession planning processes is as important in school districts as in private businesses. So too is treating succession planning as an interconnected set of long term processes of career-long development for individuals, human development of leadership teams and groups, and organizational development and improvement of schools and school districts as institutions. While there is a great deal to learn about succession planning from the business community, 28

successful plans assume availability and adequate resources of people, time and money that have been all too scarce in the public sector. An effective organization needs the personnel to develop a succession plan and the time and money to recruit effectively, to provide sufficient, ongoing development opportunities, and to ensure the continuous accountability and review procedures that are necessary to make the plan work. Ironically, years of budget cuts have reduced the number of senior leaders in most Ontario school districts. Those who remain must pick up more responsibilities and spread their time and energies more widely. Consequently, few school districts at present have the resources to develop and maintain the kind of effective succession planning process that is urgently required; one that is: long term continuous embedded aligned 3. Organizational Aspects of Succession Public or private, educational or otherwise, leadership succession is an organized phenomenon and as such, possesses some generic organizational qualities. We will address two of these here the kinds of knowledge and experience that accompany succession processes and events, and the implications of whether succession events are planned or unplanned. 29

Succession Knowledge In his influential writings on Communities of Practice, Etienne Wenger (1998) explains that, Developing a practice requires the formation of a community whose members can engage with one another and thus acknowledge each other as participants. As a consequence, practice entails the negotiation of ways of being a person in that context the formation of a community of practice is also the negotiation of identities (p. 149). He contends that as we interact over time with multiple social contexts, our identities form trajectories within and across communities of practices. Identity is constant becoming and constantly through the course of our lives (p.154). Four of these trajectories are: Inbound trajectories which refer to individuals who join a community with the prospect of becoming full participants in its practice (p. 154). Their engagement may be peripheral in the beginning but in time they expect to be an insider. The appropriateness of a new principal s in-bound trajectory to a new school setting contributes to the person s failure or success. Peripheral trajectories which never lead to full participation but are significant to one s identity. Some principals can achieve short-term success and remain peripheral. Charismatic leaders remain relatively peripheral to their new school community, achieve considerable short-term change and then move on. While such leaders may add to their personal reputations as movers and shakers, their influence is usually short lived and their real legacy is often the disappointment and cynicism of those staff members who worked with their leaders to effect change, only then to feel abandoned and used. Other principals who remain peripheral and never become insiders, can find themselves permanently marginalized by staff and ineffectual as leaders. Clearly, a peripheral trajectory is 30

a limited stance for principals who need time to build the relationships to move from peripheral status to that of a genuine insider and a position of real leadership. Predictable and easily anticipated short-term rotations can contribute to principals remaining peripheral to their community of learning. Insider trajectories grow and develop over time, as one becomes a full member of a community. New events, practices and people are occasions for renegotiating one s identity. Internal appointments provide one way to consolidate insider trajectories. Continual, predictable principal rotations, however, can make the time consuming negotiations that underpin the development of insider trajectories very difficult. Some staff may be unwilling to make commitments with people who might be whisked away when the leadership switches occur. Outbound trajectories apply to those who plan or expect to move out of a community at some point. Principals who anticipate their departures and attend to their outbound trajectories by grooming a successor, or by distributing ownership of and involvement in improvement, are able to sustain many of the changes they have initiated beyond their own tenure in the school. Often, however, leaders who are departing, immediately transfer their attention to the new setting at the cost of their legacy in the existing one. The outbound knowledge they and the district need to sustain their efforts is superseded and supplanted by applying their next bundle of inbound knowledge to the pressures and challenges of their new appointment. Wenger suggests that our identities form in a kind of tension between our investment in various forms of belonging and our ability to negotiate the meanings that matter in those contexts (p. 188). Identity formation is the result of the interplay between one s identification with a community of practice and one s ability to negotiate meaning within that community. The capacity of principals to identify with their schools (and the school s staff to identify with them) and their ability to negotiate a shared sense of 31

meaning of the schools directions affects the principals trajectories and therefore their identities in relationship to their schools as communities of practice. A key concern of this study is to identify in what ways and with what consequences principals and school districts apply inbound, outbound and insider knowledge to the succession process, and to determine to what extent principals can overcome their peripheral status as a leaders. Planned and Unplanned Succession One of the initiating questions of our study asks: Does the planned or serendipitous nature of the transition affect a principal s ability to maintain or alter school directions? This suggests two dimensions for analysis first, to what extent is a transition planned or unplanned, and secondly, to what degree does the transition contribute to continuity with past directions or promote discontinuity? The plannedunplanned dimension assesses the degree to which the agents 4 who initiate and/or are responsible for the transition act on a well-developed succession plan (Getty, 1993; Souque, 1998; Rothwell, 2001). Such plans include: sufficient time to enable the participants in the transition to execute exit and entry processes, open and timely communications among the initiating agents, the participants in the transition and the school(s) personnel involved in the transition, consideration by the initiating agents of the compatibility of the educational philosophy and abilities of the new appointee and the developmental needs of the school. 4 In many American and Canadian school jurisdictions, officials of the school district, with the approval of elected school board members, are responsible for the placement of principals. Increasingly, school governors or school councils composed of locally elected or appointed community representatives are responsible for the choosing and placing of school leaders. In some educational jurisdictions such as new South Wales in Australia, Ministry of Education officials are responsible for principals placements. 32

The continuity-discontinuity continuum assesses the degree to which a new appointee to a position sustains 5 or substantively alters (either advertently or inadvertently) the philosophy, policies and practices of his or her immediate predecessor. The interrelationship of these dimensions produces four possible scenarios. Figure 1 Planning and Continuity Continuity Discontinuity Planned (purposeful) Planned Continuity Planned Discontinuity Unplanned (accidental/ unintentional) Unplanned Continuity Unplanned Discontinuity Planned continuity occurs when the assignment of a new principal to a school reflects a well thought out succession plan and is intended to sustain, successfully does sustain, and also builds further on the general directions and goals of his/her predecessor. Sustained school improvement over long periods and across multiple leaders depends on carefully planned continuity. Planned discontinuity occurs when the initiating agents assign or appoint a principal to a school based on a well-conceived plan which expects, intends and is successful in ensuring that the principal will move the school in directions that are substantively different from the principal s predecessor. A new principal assigned to 5 See Hargreaves and Fink (2002) for a detailed discussion of sustainability in educational settings. 33

turn around a failing school, to give a jolt to a cruising school (Stoll & Fink, 1996) or to implement a top-down reform agenda, would fit this category. Unplanned continuity transpires when the initiating agents thrust a principal into a school without much forethought and the principal perpetuates existing patterns of school goals and operations. Unplanned continuity can arise when principals are appointed or assigned without any clear understanding of the needs of the school, when schools are used as mere placeholders for leaders who may have lost their effectiveness or be cruising into retirement, or when deeply entrenched cultures of long-standing staff have the knowledge, experience and tenacity to outwit and outlast even the most innovative incoming principals. Unplanned discontinuity takes place when a principal is placed into a setting with very little forethought, when there is misjudgment of his or her capacities, when there is misreading of the circumstances he or she is confronting, and when these circumstances motivate him/her to lead the school in new directions. Unplanned discontinuity can also result when ineffective principals abdicate leadership in ways that disrupt previous goals and directions. Inexperience or other kinds of incapacity may mean that some principals are unable to advance or even maintain the improvements achieved by their predecessors. Unexpected and unusually demanding reform pressures may also push incoming principals aside from maintaining their school s internal improvement dynamic. In these senses, unplanned discontinuity is often paradoxical and perverse. It may be discontinuous with immediately prior improvement efforts, while re-establishing long term continuity with the less innovative and effective practices that preceded them. All these possibilities continuous and discontinuous, planned and unplanned are possible in the succession process. Continuity is not always desirable. Sometimes discontinuity is more appropriate. What matters most is that these directions are planned with the best interests of students and all those who support them in mind. All four types are explored in this study. 34

Conclusion Through examining these generic organizational realities of leadership succession, two further issues arise for study whether succession is planned or unplanned and creates continuity or discontinuity with existing practice. what kinds of inbound, outbound and insider knowledge principals and districts bring to the succession process. 4. Leadership Succession and Sustainability Theory Leadership succession raises questions about the sustainability of leadership and its effects over time. The interest in sustainability originates in the environmental field. Our review of the environmental and organizational literature on sustainability and our application of it to the educational leadership field has given rise to seven principles of sustainability of school leadership 1. Sustainable leadership creates and preserves sustaining learning. To sustain means to nourish. Sustaining learning is therefore learning that matters, that is deep and that lasts. Not anything or everything needs sustaining or maintaining. There is no point in sustaining learning that is trivial or that disappears once it has been tested. Sustainable leadership is first and foremost about leadership for learning in this deeper sense (Glickmann, 2002) leadership that fully understands the nature and process of student learning, that engages directly and regularly with learning and teaching in classrooms (Fullan, 1993; Fink & Resnick, 2001), and that promotes learning among 35

other adults in order to find continuing ways to improve the learning of students (Hargreaves 2003, Stoll, Fink & Earl 2002). Sustainable leadership captures, develops and retains deep pools of leaders of learning in all our districts and our schools. 2. Sustainable leadership secures enduring success over time. Sustainability preserves the most valuable aspects of life over time. Sustainable improvements continue year upon year, from one leader to the next. They are not fleeting changes that depend on exemplary leaders efforts and that disappear when leaders have left. Sustainable leadership does not reside in heroic or charismatic individuals. It spreads beyond individuals in chains of influence that connect the actions of leaders to the ones who preceded them and the ones who will take up their legacy (Hargreaves & Fink 2002). Sustainable leadership makes succession central to the process of continuing school improvement. 3. Sustainable leadership spreads improvement across districts. It does not merely concentrate improvements in small pockets of innovation. Sustainable leadership takes improvement beyond islands of excellence in the effort to build archipelagoes then continents of school change (Elmore, 1996). Sustainable leadership is therefore concerned with the social geography as well the social history of educational change (Hargreaves 2003; Baker & Foote, 2003). Sustainable leadership benefits all students and schools, not just a few. It does not concentrate all hope and energy in a small number of charismatic individuals and their innovative schools, who draw disproportionate support, attention and quality staffing at the expense of other schools around them (Fink, 2000; Lortie 1975; Sarason 1972; Smith et al, 1987). Sustainable leadership is sensitive to how beacon schools and their leaders can leave others in the shadows, and how privileged communities can 36

be tempted to skim the cream off the leadership pool. Particularly when leaders move mainly within their districts, each movement affects more than one school. Succession is therefore an interconnected process, weaving schools together by accident or design in webs of mutual influence. Where weaker leaders are never assigned to more privileged communities because of fears of parental backlash, mutual influence becomes social injustice. In this respect, sustainability and succession are very much tied up with issues of social justice. 4. Sustainable leadership is developed and maintained on the basis of existing and achievable resources. The resources of leadership are financial and human. Sustainable leadership is the beneficiary of investment that provides rewards which attract the best and brightest of the leadership pool; and that provides time and opportunity for leaders to network, learn from and support each other, and to coach and mentor their successors. Sustainable leadership is thrifty without being cheap. It carefully husbands its resources in developing the talents of all its educators rather than lavishing rewards on selecting and rotating a few already-proven stars. Sustainable leadership does not deny or denude mentoring and coaching support especially for new leaders. 5. Sustainable leadership sustains leaders emotional and intellectual selves. Sustainable leadership systems know how to take care of their leaders and how to get leaders to take care of themselves (Loader, 1997). Powerful as they are, educational leaders are vulnerable (Quinn, 2002; Williams 2001; Institute for Educational Leadership, 2001; Ackerman 2002; Beatty, 2003). Leadership that drains its leaders dry through multiple demands, overwork or excessive expectations is not leadership that will last. Principal rotation can motivate and inspire leaders with a succession of new challenges, or it can overwhelm 37

leaders with negative feelings of loss, incompleteness, guilt and abandonment as they leave their school communities in the midst of unfinished improvement agendas. The emotional health of leaders is a scarce environmental resource. Sustainable leadership therefore thinks not only of the short-term needs of the district, but also cares for leaders personal and professional selves (James & Connolly, 2000). 6. Sustainable leadership sustains the leadership of others. One way to leave a lasting legacy is to ensure it is developed with and shared by others. Leadership succession therefore means more than grooming principals successors. It means distributing leadership throughout the school s professional community so it can carry the torch once the principal has gone and soften the blow of principal succession (Crowther et al 2002). 7. Leadership develops environmental diversity and capacity. Fritoff Capra (1997: 289) explains that ecosystems and human communities are networks that are organizationally closed, but open to the flows of energy and resources; their structures are determined by their histories of structural changes; they are intelligent... While admitting that we cannot learn much about human values and their shortcomings from ecosystems, Capra suggests that what we can learn is how to live sustainably (p. 290). From the study of ecosystems, he states, we can determine a set of organizational principles that we can use as guidelines to build sustainable human communities (p. 290). These are: Ecological and human communities are interdependent. To understand both, one must understand relationships. This requires a shift of perceptions to look at the whole as opposed to the parts... from the parts to the whole, from objects to relationships, from content to patterns (p. 290). 38

Ecological communities are non linear and involve multiple feedback loops. Linear chains of cause and effect exist very rarely in ecosystems so that a disturbance in one part of the system spreads out in ever-widening patterns (p. 290). Ecosystems maintain the flexibility necessary to adapt to changing conditions. Ecosystems respond to contradictions and conflict by maintaining a dynamic balance between and among competing forces. Diversity means different relationships, many different approaches to the same problem. A diverse community is a resilient community, capable of adapting to changing situations (p. 295). Partnerships are an essential feature of ecosystems. The cyclical exchanges of energy and resources in an ecosystem are sustained by pervasive cooperation (p.293). Promoters of sustainability cultivate and recreate an educational environment or ecosystem that has the capacity to stimulate ongoing improvement on a broad front. They enable people to adapt to and prosper in their increasingly complex environment. Standardized scientific efficiency is the enemy of healthy and creative diversity. It produces overly simple systems that are too specialized to allow the learning and cross-fertilization that is necessary for healthy development. Standardized reform in Ontario is destroying this diversity and threatening the district s capacity to maintain improvement over time (Hargreaves 2003; Leithwood, Fullan & Watson 2003). Sustainable leadership therefore recognizes and cultivates many kinds of excellence in learning, teaching and leading and provides the networks for these different kinds of excellence to be 39

shared in cross-fertilizing processes of improvement, rather than imposing standardized leadership templates of managerial monotony on everyone. In summary, leaders develop sustainability by how they approach, commit to and protect deep learning in their schools; by how they sustain themselves and others around them to promote and support that learning; by how they are able and encouraged to sustain themselves in doing so, so that they can persist with their vision and avoid burning out; by how they try to ensure the improvements they bring about last over time, especially after they themselves have gone; and by how they promote and perpetuate ecological diversity rather than soulless standardization in teaching and learning within their schools. Environmental conditions of rapid demographic turnover and unwanted reform pressures threaten the sustainability of school leadership and reform by discouraging teachers from seeking headships and principalships (Hargreaves 2003). From the perspective of ecosystem models of social (Scott, Park & Cocklin, 2000) and institutional sustainability (Johnson & Wilson, 2000), the principalship is or should be a manageable, renewable human resource (Lovely, 1999). Regrettably, as our case studies will show, a shrinking, aging and demoralized leadership pool threatens the continuity of school improvement efforts. In this context, unplanned principal rotation in an under-supported district can leave schools in a perpetual state of ecological imbalance. This report draws on the implications of sustainability theory to help deepen our understanding of how principal rotation and succession might be managed more effectively. Four case studies of principal succession now follow. These are described separately then analysed collectively in relation to the themes emerging from this literature review. 40

III Cases of Succession We now turn to four varied case studies of principal succession. All four schools are located in southern Ontario. Two of the schools, within one urban district, are representative in structure and organization of most secondary schools. Although they serve different parts of the socioeconomic spectrum, both are faced with student populations of growing diversity alongside highly stable and increasingly aging teaching staffs. Both schools represent conventionally organized secondary schools, which, due to changing student demographics, and a pressing reform climate, face the challenge of externally driven change. The other two schools, in a second more suburban district, were each established as deliberately innovative schools one in the 1970s, the other in the 1990s to depart from the conventional grammar of secondary education (Tyack & Tobin 1994). If the leadership challenge in the first pair of schools has been to establish and maintain change in the face of a long tradition of continuity; the leadership challenge in the second pair has been to maintain continuity in the innovative drive that accompanied and underpinned each school s foundation. Our analysis begins with the more innovative cases. 1. Lord Byron High School From its origins as a district in 1969, the South District Board of Education established a reputation for encouraging and developing its leaders at all levels in the organization. Its first director stressed the need to invest in the recruitment, development and careful assignment of principals and vice principals. He initiated a policy that is still practiced, of the district directly assigning principals and vice principals to schools. This policy is still administered with a view to addressing the leadership needs of the entire district, while considering the unique leadership requirements of each school. Yet it 41

creates continuing tensions between balancing what is best for the district with what is best for individual schools, as well as what is in the best interests of the growth and development of individual principals and vice principals. Lord Byron High School opened with the expressed purpose of challenging the structures of secondary education in Ontario in the 1970s, as well as the curriculum, the teaching and student assessment methods in the province. Perhaps what was most innovative for the times was the philosophy espoused by its first principal, Ward Bond, and in large measure adopted by the original staff, whereby Our aspirations for Lord Byron are the development of a humane educational environment for students: a situation in which conduct and growth will develop from reason and mutual respect and trust. 6 Byron became the first semestered school in Ontario. 7 This restructuring of the school day enabled students to take a broader programme from a wider diversity of courses than in conventional Ontario schools. The creative and inspirational 8 Ward Bond replaced the traditional department heads (usually 20 to 22 of these positions of responsibility) with ten chairmen (they were all men until 1975). This smaller leadership team worked out policy and procedures, but the actual approval of school policy received 6 An evaluation team of prominent educators from across the province assembled by the Ministry of Education produced the Lord Byron Evaluation Report (1975). This study was the result of an agreement between the school district and the teachers union to study Lord Byron after its first five years. 7 The standard student timetable in the province of Ontario required students to be in class for eight, 40- minute periods in a day for the entire school year. Teachers taught six 40-minute periods. In a Lord Byron s semester system, each student was require to be in class for 4, 60 minute periods in a day for half of the school year, and follow the same format in the second semester. Teachers taught four, 60-minute periods in a day. 8 Andrew Roberts (2003), a historian, differentiates between inspirational leaders and charismatic leaders. Inspirational leaders draw on people s deepest commitments to make them feel they can achieve great things. Charismatic leadership is based on almost mystical qualities the followers attribute to leaders. They feel there is nothing the leader cannot achieve. When the charismatic leader departs, the leader s legacy crumbles quickly because it is based on his or her personal qualities. Inspirational leaders are far easier to succeed because they have developed a staff ethos that we can achieve significant goals for our school. In contrast, the true believers of the charismatic leader have difficulty transferring loyalty from the charismatic person to the successor and to the directions of the school (Fink, 2000). Inspirational leaders have an affinity for empowering strategies whereas charismatic leaders while appearing to use such approaches tend to be more instrumental. 42

staff approval. Staff members recalled the exhilaration, the tremendously hard work, and the public scrutiny of the thousands of visitors who came to this school of the future in its first five years. The departure of Ward Bond in 1974 was a major turning point in Byron s history. The new principal, Bruce Atherton was 34 years of age in 1974, when he was assigned by the district to Lord Byron High School. He had been a successful vice principal in a very large traditional school and he embraced his conception of the Byron philosophy enthusiastically. His greatest difficulty was that he was not Ward Bond. Inside the school there was a feeling among staff members that Atherton used the rhetoric of Byron but he did not really believe in its philosophy because he was not a Byron person. Many people on staff felt that the freedom for students to make more curriculum choices than other schools and to experience free time during the day had become license because some students abused the district. A few teachers and parents blamed the new principal, when in fact most of the problems that ensued could be traced to a dramatic increase in student enrollment - from 900 students in 1970 to over 2000 in 1976. As the size of staff increased, communications tended to be through department meetings as opposed to staff meetings. Some placed the blame at Atherton s door, others more charitably saw school size, the promotions of many of the key players, lack of districtwide support, and attacks by other professionals in the district as factors in Byron s losing its way. By 1977, when Atherton received a promotion and moved to another school district after just three years, Byron was one of the largest schools in the district. In addition to the problem of record growth in student enrolment, Atherton felt that a number of people from the original staff had difficulty transferring their loyalty from Bond to the Byron concept. As Atherton said, for some people on staff, change got personified in the originating principal rather than becoming part of the structure and culture of the school. Atherton was partly correct. Bond, as one teacher observed, was 43

indeed a hard act to follow ; however, Atherton himself contributed to the gradual deterioration of Byron. He never understood the school, and allowed innovation to become change for the sake of change. His ambition to get ahead was palpable, and many staff members felt that he used Byron to advance his career. The district also contributed to the attrition of change at Byron (Fink, 2000). It failed to anticipate Bond s departure and the difficulties of replacing such a revered leader. The district also failed to prepare a successor who understood the uniqueness of Byron - perhaps because few of the senior leaders understood how Byron differed from conventional secondary schools of the time. Beginning in 1978, the school s enrollment declined by 150 students each year until the mid 1980 s when it stabilized at approximately 1000 students. This meant that each year, the most junior teachers were declared surplus to the school. Since Byron had only known growth, this was an important psychological turning point for staff. Instead of thinking up new things to add to accommodate student needs and interests, they found themselves eliminating cherished programmes. The drop in enrollment coincided with a major turnover in staff. In 1978 only 23 of the 135 staff members had been at Byron in its first three years. Only five of the original 10 department chairs remained. In each subsequent year, more of the originals departed. The founding culture was thinning fast. Gradually, from the mid 1980s to the mid 1990s, successive Byron principals ensured Byron s survival by accepting the structures and cultural norms that characterized the other secondary schools in South and the province. By 1990, Byron had regressed to the mean. It looked and functioned like most other schools in Ontario. By the early 1990s, Byron was a typical secondary school in the South District Board and indeed in the province with an aging but dedicated group of teachers, supported by guidance, library, ESL and special education services as well as some, albeit diminishing, 44

help from the District office. The Byron staff was not on the leading edge, but in its own way it continued to try to improve courses, teaching, and support for students. Ken Sutton who became Byron s principal in 1994 was in his third principalship. He regularly taught and directed the provincial principals courses at a local university and participated at provincial levels on behalf of principals associations. The popular and ebullient Sutton focused his four-year tenure on involving staff in decisions in a way that Bond would have supported, and on maintaining the school s enrolment through accepting district programmes into the school. In 1998 at the age of 53, he decided to take advantage of an early retirement incentive initiated by the Ministry of Education and accept a teaching position with a local university. At the time of Sutton s retirement, Lord Byron was a relatively small (700 student) comprehensive high school. Under Sutton s leadership, the school had acted on a democratically developed school improvement plan and maintained the school s long tradition of being a student centered and caring school (Fink, 2000; Fink, in press). His assistant principal Janice Burnley, a former special education teacher and vice-principal in a large academic school, shared Sutton s student-oriented philosophy and willingness to engage staff in decision making. Since Sutton had given the school district plenty of advance warning, its officials were able to plan his succession carefully. By promoting Burnley to replace Sutton, they signaled their desire to continue the directions developed under Sutton. To support Burnley they assigned an inexperienced but promising new vice- principal to the school. The new assistant brought great enthusiasm as well as a broad curriculum expertise to her new role. The fact that most members of the teaching staff when interviewed talked about the leadership team confirms the success of the succession plan. As one experienced teacher stated in terms of our administration I would give them a five star rating because I think they both complement each other. I think that they really are making the best possible effort to make us part of the process. The transition went smoothly. Sutton worked co-operatively with his successor to help 45

her to negotiate her entry to her new role with staff. Burnley however, inherited two unresolved issues a decline in the school s student enrolment as a result of the aging of the community it served; and the school s historical reputation as an experimental school. As she explained, it's a school that's in a state of transition, a school with declining enrolment, and a school that just took in anybody who would have academic difficulty, that there were really no standards. That was untrue but it was a perception that had been created. In spite of its problems, Byron enjoyed considerable success. In the early-1990s Byron won the Canadian Academic Decathlon for three consecutive years. Even though it served the students of a middle to lower-middle class community, its students scores on the grade 10-literacy test were second out of 24 high schools in the South district. It had also succeeded in becoming the only school in the district to be approved to offer the International Baccelaureate. Moreover, its long tradition of staff involvement in school activities, staff collegiality, and older teachers mentoring newer teachers persisted. This success however was short lived. Budget cuts by the Ministry of Education and the District decimated the leadership organization that Burnley had inherited from Sutton. She was obliged to reduce her complement of department heads from nine leaders to four. This called for a total reorganization of the school and the way it functioned. The guidance personnel were reduced from two and one half counsellors to one, and special education support was reduced by 50 per cent. At the same time, the government required all teachers to teach one more class and in protest many refused to assume out-of-classroom responsibilities. Burnley and her assistant had to postpone or abandon many school-initiated directions begun under Sutton to deal with crises created from outside the school. For example, while the support staff and leadership roles had been dramatically reduced, the jobs these people had performed in the past did not disappear. They merely migrated to 46

the school s office to be picked up by the two administrators. As a result, the school s administrators dealt with such issues as monitoring individual student timetables and students personal problems which had previously been handled by guidance personnel. More discipline problems came their way because department heads had little time to intervene at early stages. At the time of the interviews, both leaders were merely trying to survive from day to day and manage as best they could (Fink, in press). Continuity with the previous principal s directions had been the intent of the District s officials as well as Burnley herself, but circumstances beyond her control had forced her to implement policies with which she disagreed, and adopt a managerial directive style with which she was quite uncomfortable. Continuity had turned into discontinuity under the pressure of events. While difficult, the circumstances of Burnley s succession helped her deal with tumultuous changes. She originally joined the Byron staff as a vice-principal. The plan as she stated was that I would become the principal because the principal at that time was planning to retire. So, there was at least some semblance of a succession. As she explained, I am fortunate because I was here for two years as vice-principal. I am in my third year as principal now. So, I am coming in and bringing in new curriculum, Ministry requirements about teaching, and expectations of teachers at a time, where I ve got four years of trust. I would hate to be doing that if I had just walked in cold. Our interviews revealed that most teachers considered her and her vice-principal, full participants in their community of practice. A young technical teacher declared, Our administration is great. They're right behind you all the time, (with) any information you need or something you need. 47

Cracks in this harmonious facade are showing. Although, as far as possible, the schools administrators try to involve staff in decision-making through the four school leaders, pressures of time and complexity have obliged them to be more directive and less collegial than they would want to be; for example, the Ministry has required new approaches to assessment that a number of staff members were reluctant to embrace. To achieve staff compliance in a very short time frame, both administrators were forced to function in ways that conflicted with their preferred leadership styles. As the principal stated: What we have had to impose upon them is that you will become knowledgeable in computer areas, you will work on an electronic marksmanager, and you will change your assessment and evaluation. If you're having trouble with this we're here to help you. So that is laid on. As inexperienced administrators, both felt they had no alternative but to impose government and district mandates on their teachers. As the vice-principal confessed we are trying to say no you don t have to do that. That s a hard thing to do. And it s hard because my principal is a second year principal and I am second year assistant. You are not going to balk your superintendent. So far the staff is generally sympathetic to the plight of their administrators. Although in the words of one of her most experienced teachers, outside forces have knee capped her ability to lead. A new challenge is on the horizon for the school. The school district has decided to close a neighbouring vocational school to consolidate space and transfer the 450 special education students to Lord Byron. Fortunately, for the two administrators just described, they will not have to administer this marriage of convenience they have both since been transferred to other schools. 48

2. Blue Mountain High School Just as the South District Board of Education had initiated Lord Byron High School to shake up contemporary secondary education in the 1970s, the District s leadership opened Blue Mountain High School as a lighthouse school to challenge the grammar of secondary schooling in the 1990s. Situated in a middle to upper middle class neighbourhood, the school has been open for ten years, beginning with 600 students in 1994, and rising to its present enrolment of over 1000 students. Established with an experienced and imaginative principal, Ben McMaster, a carefully selected staff (many of whom had former connections with McMaster) and with the advantage of a full year s advanced planning, the school established great technological, structural and curriculum innovations in its first five years. These included Teacher Advisory Groups in which all teachers serve as mentors to students, professional learning teams, global education camps and a global curriculum. Structurally, the school has no subject-defined departments, its staff workrooms are mixed, and school documentation declares that no subject or extra-curricular area dominates another with respect to importance. The initial leadership team comprised eight process leaders in areas like technology, or assessment and evaluation, rather than the customary group of subject department heads. In addition to their own subject area, all teachers belong to at least one process team that meets regularly. Architecturally, the school has a relaxed meeting space in the entrance area, its main hallway resembles a shopping mall, and the gymnasium and fitness center are widely used by staff and community as well as students. Blue Mountain is fully integrated for technology with every student having access to the Internet and all staff members having laptop computers and being expected to model the use of technology to students. The assessment and reporting system is computerized and achievement data are regularly collated, analyzed and shared with parents. The school is self-consciously a learning 49

organization; for example, leaders model systems thinking in staff meetings (all announcements are distributed electronically to make space for this), and teachers model such thinking in classrooms when school issues are discussed. Many of the highly dedicated and enthusiastic staff are omnivores of personal and professional learning outside school as well as within it. In many ways, Blue Mountain paralleled Lord Byron in its early years with its dynamic leadership, innovative structures and a dedicated and energetic staff. Sarason (1972) contends that the first crisis for an innovative school is when the founding principal leaves. Unlike the case of Lord Byron, Ben McMaster planned for his own successor from the outset. He anticipated his own departure by working hard to create a school structure that would perpetuate his devotion to the idea of a learning community when he eventually left the school. In his own way, McMaster s influence was as pervasive at Blue Mountain as was that of Ward Bond at Lord Byron. His imprint was everywhere in the school s philosophy, organization, design and culture. Yet he was especially alert to the threats to his work posed by the possibility of an ensuing principal importing a significantly different philosophy. He explained that I negotiated very strongly (with the district) to have my vice principal appointed principal. After four years the district did in fact move him to a larger high profile school in the district and promoted his vice-principal, Linda White. Blue Mountain s second principal, also its founding vice-principal, continued to stress the relationship theme. She and her leadership team were described by many of the staff as wonderful, supportive, spectacular and amazing people who were still teachers at heart. She was highly valued as being very caring, and as someone who recognized that family comes first. White worked hard to be open and accessible. She dedicated herself to maintaining the originating philosophy of the school. As she explained, 50

Before (McMaster) was moved to another school we talked and we talked about how we could preserve the direction that this school was moving in. We were afraid that if a new administrator came in as a principal that if he or she had a different philosophy, a different set of beliefs, then it would be quite easy to simply move things in that particular direction and we didn't want that to happen. As principal, she stated that, I'm on the same road and any detours I take will only be for a few moments in the overall scheme of things before I come back onto the main road again. Unlike the founding principal who had stressed the creation of new values, she emphasized the preservation of existing ones. As she declared: It's sometimes difficult to step back and take the time. So you know that in order to effect change you have to do all of the preparing work. You know that you have to talk a lot, provide people with opportunities to share ideas. You have to work with people on a philosophical level. You have to take the time. You have to air everything. Events appear to have superseded her intentions however. The full impact of the government s massive reform agenda descended on the school at the same time as she became the school s principal. The staff began to notice that the twin pressures of time and complexity created a perceptible change in her leadership style. As one staff member explained, It s because so much has to be done in so little time. We (used to) meet to decide as a group how best to go about a process. Well there s been no meeting. We ve just been told these classes are closed... And never in my whole career has that ever happened... There isn t that opportunity to share information... And now it s just sort of top down because there s only time for top down. 51

Other staff members perceived the way White tried to talk up change as being somewhat forced and not fully sincere - the effect of having to manufacture optimism in a policy environment that repeatedly seemed to defeat it. They recognized her dilemma but also saw its effects: I think we ve gone from an organization that was kind of a shared responsibility, at least in appearance, to a very linear one now based on, because of time. And [Linda] is fairly directive, and likes to be in control of lots of things but she s also a humanist with you on that. But I think we ve lost some of that shared responsibility because of outside direction. Budget cuts have reduced the number of members of the school s leadership team and reductions of time have interfered with disciplinary and cross-disciplinary activities. A number of the original team leaders have retired and not been replaced. In many ways, Blue Mountain had been a model of distributed leadership. But Secondary School Reform and the accompanying budget cuts have forced the principal to adopt more hierarchical decision-making structures and employ more instrumental strategies to ensure compliance. There is mounting evidence at Blue Mountain that these changes, precipitated by the external reform agenda, threaten to undermine White s ability to lead in ways that are consistent with her intentions and values. For example, the Teacher Advisor Group of mentoring for students which Blue Mountain invented, was adopted as Ministry policy and recycled back into the school with reduced timeframes that made it unworkable. The cross-departmental structures of middle-level leadership which the school helped pioneer became more widespread when budget cuts led to fewer, more allencompassing middle-level leader positions but with reduced resources, blue Mountain s innovative, distributed leadership turned into overburdened and downloaded management. Blue Mountain s curriculum was also placed under pressure with its interdisciplinary global emphasis being pushed to one side by the content burden of the new subject-based curriculum. These and other policy-driven changes have threatened the benefits of planned leadership succession and White s hard won credibility with a 52

staff that still clings to the idea of Blue Mountain being a sustainable learning community. From two schools that were model schools for their times, we now turn to schools with more traditional histories. 3. Talisman Park High School Talisman Park is a collegiate high school that opened in 1920. Situated in an affluent, well-established neighborhood, the school has approximately 1200 students, a staff of 75 and a low turnover rate. Talisman Park is one of the few non-semestered schools in the district. It sees its mission as preparing students for post secondary education over 70% of its graduates are accepted into universities and colleges. In the past ten years, its largely middle class, white, Anglo-Saxon student population has become more racially and ethnically diverse, as has been the case in the West District Board of Education more generally. Talisman Park is, in many respects, a cruising school (Stoll & Fink, 1996) - seemingly effective because of its high quality of student intake, but with many teachers who are finding it challenging to fully integrate lower socio-economic students and minorities into the academic program. From 1919 to 1987, Talisman Park had just six principals in 68 years, compared to the thirteen-year period between 1987 and 2000 when four principals followed one another in comparatively rapid succession. Frequent rotation has made it difficult for school administrators to become an integral part of the school's culture and to maintain the momentum of their leadership efforts. As a result, many staff members have become reluctant to invest their energies in new school structures and practices that they anticipate will change again in two or three years. 53

Bill Andrews, who we will meet again in the Stewart Heights case, became the school's principal in 1990. An experienced administrator, Andrews pushed Talisman Park s school community to confront issues of change in conceptual as well as pragmatic terms. He advocated an inclusive approach to planning and problem-solving and involved students in the process. As a dynamic, omnipresent and dominant leader, Andrews had his advocates, I loved Andrews! Loved him! He was my favourite. Every single day he'd say, How are we doing? Are there concerns that we need to know about it? How are the kids liking this? He would be out in the parking lot at lunch-time wandering around the school talking to kids and trying to get to know everybody. Now he didn't do all the handwritten notes... That was above and beyond the call of duty. But did get around and try and meet as many people as possible. Some staff didn't like him (felt that) he didn't give them the time of day...if (Andrews) didn't like you for one reason or another then he'd be hard to get along with. But for those of us who got along with him we thought he was fabulous. And I thought he brought a lot of changes in that were good. However, some people, especially women, found his style much less amenable, as we will see again in the case of Stewart Heights. Issues unrelated to his school leadership resulted in the district moving Andrews abruptly to the central office to assume a regional role in 1995. The sudden and unanticipated nature of the move squeezed Andrew's outbound knowledge to the sidelines, since there was no time to plan the transition. The new principal, Charmaine Watson, had little opportunity to interact with Andrews or the staff before she assumed the role of principal. Watson, a teacher at Talisman Park in years past, understood the school s history and ethos. She had progressed through the system in the traditional way from teacher to department head to vice principal in a large composite school, to principal at Talisman Park. She became the school s first female principal in its long history. The teaching 54

staff she inherited at the time of Andrew's departure was mainly white and middle class. Many staff members had long tenure in the school almost 30 per cent had been on the faculty for over 16 years, 45 per cent for 11 years, and 80 per cent for over 6 years. A small group of experienced, long serving teachers met together every morning before classes in the staff room to socialize and share opinions about such issues as Secondary School Reform and district policies. This "Coffee Circle", made up of teachers in core subjects, influenced the tone of the school. One of the school s assistant principals portrayed it as an influential sub-culture that jeopardized the administration s efforts to build morale. According to a new teacher, I do go (to the staff room) every now and then. But I find that it is just mostly gossip. People just go there to complain about the way things are run within education. I think it is important to socialize with the staff. But on a regular basis, I just don't want to hear all the crap. The Coffee Circle, along with the other micro-politically powerful department heads group, had traditionally determined what changes would occur in the school and what reforms would languish. They tended to be more supportive of innovations in their own academic subjects, but were sceptical and often cynical about larger scale reform agendas that altered the essential grammar of the school (Tyack & Tobin, 1994). Once she became the principal, Watson immediately set out to democratize the school by taking major decisions to the staff as a whole, rather than depending on the heads of department as a decision-making cabinet. This initiative challenged the micropolitical organization of the school. In this regard, Watson distributed leadership beyond the formal structures and, in the process, initiated a whole-school strategic plan that focused on improving assessment strategies for student work and engaging students in instructional technology. Watson participated in staff professional development activities and encouraged teachers to diversify their teaching to meet the changing nature and needs of the school s students. She also initiated a strategic plan that involved major 55

stakeholders in the Talisman Park community. After four years in the school, most staff members appeared to be supportive of Watson's approach, or at least willing to go along (Hargreaves et al, 2000). Teachers described Watson's leadership style as "open", "collaborative", "democratic", "very relaxed", "motherly", "nurturing", "warm" and "non intrusive". Others portrayed her as "a good listener" who "cares about people". Watson also saw herself as caring about staff, taking a stand, pulling things together, really caring about every aspect of school life, being hands on, encouraging staff to keep learning. She felt that she brought her own stamp to things so that nobody in the school is the bad guy. She saw herself as a principal/teacher by modelling and making things fine for everyone because teachers need to feel safe. While some of her strategies in her early years can be described as instrumental, she gradually empowered people and distributed leadership opportunities widely as her tenure progressed. In spite of Watson's best efforts, however, there remained a small but influential element of long-serving staff who resisted her initiatives. A male teacher who had related well to Andrews complained that At times I find that she is direct. At other times I find that I am second guessing to find out what it is that she really means. A female colleague observed, She is always so busy I feel I m infringing on her time Some of the men principals had an open door policy where we could always go in if we had to talk about something. But here it is difficult. If we need to go to speak to the principal (Watson), she will look at you as if I don t want you here right now. When Watson was absent from meetings, this criticism would occasionally surface. On these occasions, her own efforts to develop school-wide goals such as integrating computers into the curriculum sometimes became bogged down in teachers' discussions about student lateness for classes. Teachers were reluctant to share such difficulties with Watson, however, because they did not want to upset her. 56

While Watson presented a strong personal presence in the school, she was only partly successful in her attempt to instill her vision of an inclusive learning community. Even though she had the credibility of teaching at Talisman during its glory years, and was seen by most staff as a caring and capable leader, she had not yet become an insider. A few influential staff members never considered her to be part of the school s professional culture. Unfortunately, she would never get the chance to work from the inside out - to sail the school, steering from the stern rather than driving the school from the front as she had during most of her comparatively brief tenure (Hopkins, 1992). In June 1998, the West School District experienced a number of unexpected retirements among its school leaders. As a result, in July, after school had adjourned for the summer break, the district abruptly transferred Watson to a school that was experiencing serious leadership problems. The district had apparently given little thought to Watson s outbound knowledge or, indeed, to the inbound knowledge of her successor. The officials who moved her seemed more concerned to place a principal with considerable inbound knowledge into a challenging situation than to consolidate her four years of attempted reform at Talisman Park. She was in her own words devastated by the ill-timed move. Watson had little opportunity to draw her tenure to a dignified conclusion or even to say goodbye, although she attempted to attend to her outbound trajectory by arranging with the school district for the placement of Ivor Megson as the school s new principal. Megson s inbound trajectory included prior experience as assistant principal at the school and involvement in a system-sponsored school improvement program that included Talisman Park. Megson's arrival coincided with significant government initiated changes impacting upon the school with their full force. As one department head explained, the effects of externally imposed change had significantly altered teachers attitudes towards the school and the principal, 57

We have had all this other work laid on in terms of curriculum expectations, management types of expectations, behavioural kinds of expectations looking after kids and monitoring halls. People are becoming much more black and white about 'what's my job, what am I going to do; what am I going to refuse to do?' (Previously) you did things not because you had to, but because you felt it would be good for the school and for the school tone. People stopped doing that because we are not getting credit for it, it is not part of what we are being paid for. People become much more militant about that which then causes more friction because people are being asked to do things that they don't want to do or that they don't have to do. So they refuse it, which then makes Ivor look bad as a principal, because some things work on basically good will and that's been lost. While Megson's style tended to be more managerial than Watson's, he was fully cognizant of the challenges of reculturing a school with long-standing traditions, aware of the influence of union politics in the life of the school, sensitive to the impact of external change pressures on experienced teachers' morale and practice and supportive of the philosophy of parent and community involvement. It was not his inclination simply to be a sieve for government policies. Yet, the sheer force of government reform initiatives and shifting staff attitudes forced Megson to move away from the school's reculturing program that Watson and Andrews had made their priority. As power and influence began to shift back to traditionally influential groups, particularly department heads, Megson had to rely on these staff to implement the reform agenda. In this context, he tried to buffer his staff from the deluge of reforms that descended on the school. For instance, in response to the newly initiated, high-stakes, Grade 10 Literacy Test, Megson and his staff developed the short-term strategy of focusing their remedial efforts on students who had come close to meeting the provincial norms. While this short-term management approach was more likely to boost overall 58

student achievement scores and gain a higher ranking for the school, teachers had less time and energy to devote to those students most in need of intensive literacy support. 9 Principals from Talisman Park's earlier days had stayed in the school long enough to move from a peripheral trajectory to insider status. In doing so, they influenced the school s community of practice and sustained not just structural changes but attitudinal and social changes, as well. From 1987 to the present, however, the rapid rotation of principals has created a revolving door syndrome (Macmillan, 1996), which has resulted in staff members going along with reform initiatives but withholding total commitment to whole school improvement. This case therefore suggests that principals who intend to sustain improvement over the long term need sufficient time to negotiate their identity within the school s community so they can move from the periphery to become insiders. Both Andrews and Watson had involved significant numbers of teachers in the pursuit of important educational changes. Watson, for instance, engaged the discretionary commitment of all but a minority of staff and was approaching insider status at the time of her departure. What she and her predecessors and their staffs enjoyed was considerable voice in the directions the school would follow. Megson, however, inherited a situation in which he and his staff colleagues no longer had any significant, autonomous influence in determining the path of their school s development. The district and the provincial government predetermined the school's reform priorities. As a result, Megson became an implementation manager only partly by professional inclination. His broader ideals of an open, decentralized and inclusive learning community were dashed by the external forces of imposed reform, which called for implementation and short-term compliance rather than improvement and long-term commitment. The accelerating pace of principal succession only added to the pressures on leaders and teachers to fall back on traditional 9 By comparison, in her new school Watson developed a literacy across the curriculum program that did not achieve the immediate gains of Talisman Park's approach, but became the second highest scoring school in the district after a more sustained three-year period, out-pacing the much more socially advantaged Talisman Park by a considerable distance. 59

practices of decision making and implementation, reducing the likelihood that they could build the structures and cultures that would sustain improvement over time. 4. Stewart Heights High School Stewart Heights is an old and established collegiate located in what was once a tightly knit, white, largely Anglo-Saxon semi-rural community. While the small-town feel remains on Main Street, the housing boom of the 1990s has resulted in a sprawling, culturally and ethnically diverse community: a microcosm of the multicultural nature of urban southern Ontario. The school has experienced even greater demographic shifts than Talisman Park. Stewart Heights is now an urban, semestered school of approximately 1500 students and a staff of 98. A sea of portable classrooms dwarfs the original building. Two hundred students are bussed from neighbouring communities, some of which are rural. Although a majority of the staff lives in the surrounding community, it does not yet reflect the school s diverse student body. When the school district assigned Bill Andrews to the school in 1998, he assumed responsibility for a staff that was largely white and middle aged and in some ways oblivious to the changing nature of the school. For years, Stewart Heights had been a small district school serving a white, middle class suburban and rural population. Andrew s predecessor who had led the school since 1988 captured the traditional ethos of the school when he confessed that, One of the difficulties I found for my personal approach to leadership was that I didn't have a particular direction or goal for my school. I simply wanted to facilitate the relationship between teachers and students, and I thought my job was to take as much of the administrivia and annoyance and pressure from outside sources off the teachers so that they could work effectively with kids. 60

Stewart Heights was Bill Andrews third principalship. He had also spent two years in a district-wide role in the district office. A policeman s son, Bill was a tall, commanding and self-confident figure. His wide experience and extensive knowledge of the larger school district allowed him to move confidently, quickly, and energetically to shake the school out of what he viewed as its historical lethargy and to redirect staff members efforts. Two very capable assistant principals supported him. Andrews articulated firm expectations for staff performance and student behaviour and demonstrated that change was possible. For example, when guidance personnel complained that student timetables could not be completed in time for the beginning of school, Andrews personally attended to the timetables of the more than 80 affected students and modeled that their problems were, and from then on would be, soluble. His take- charge approach succeeded in moving the school to a point where it was beginning to function as a professional learning community. In some ways Andrews might be considered a charismatic leader. He aggressively addressed management and building issues making public spaces more welcoming for students and the community, and gradually mobilized the staff behind a coherent set of school goals. He was not reluctant to initiate, preside over and engage in the rough and tumble of difficult and lively staffroom debate. For example, to heighten staff awareness, he presented teachers with survey data showing that 95% of staff was satisfied with the school even though only 35% of students and 25% of parents were. This created a common problem which staff had to solve together. So too did some pointedly phrased student recommendations for improving school climate that entailed responsibility for change in teachers and not just students themselves. Andrews was responsive to staff opinions and seemed to relish being challenged and debate. However, there was no doubt who made the final decisions and who was in charge. As one experienced teacher explained, 61

He s brought a willingness to think about kids, to do things for kids and to make kids look good, as opposed to managing the status quo. And I think for a long time, this school had a good reputation... and so it just went along. In the meantime, its reputation in the community kind of went away, but nobody within this building really realized it. I think with the principal s arrival, he knew the problems, and he set out to deal with them and to make changes and I think, you know for the most part, it s been good. Andrews had his critics however. Interestingly, all of the critics in our data sample were women, implying that although each of his predecessors had been male, his own particularly gendered leadership style was responsible for some of the resistance to change that he experienced. I think he has ideas of where he wants to go and I think he s going to, but his overall style is almost an imposing kind of thing that will be this is how it will be. [He has been] insisting that there s certain things he has to do because this is his mandate from the district. He s a change agent and an instigator, but it sometimes is decreed to be done During his brief tenure, Andrews and his vice principals pushed the school a long way forward. Survey evidence showed that parent and student satisfaction levels had soared dramatically. Plants and benches began to make the school feel less like a factory and more like a community. The School Improvement Team steamed ahead in its efforts to gain staff support for improving student learning. Yet after only two years at Stewart Heights, Bill received an appointment to a position at the central district office. In addition, the District appointed one of his vice-principals as principal of another school in the district, and also moved the second vice-principal. It was into this situation that the district parachuted Jerry West, a new principal appointee. West displayed the apprehension of many first time principals (Day and Baglioku, 1996). He observed, The previous principal had had ten years experience. Now he was here only for two years. But he came in with a certain skill set... I came in with no experience so I had to develop some other skills as well as running the school. 62

West had held a number of leadership roles before becoming a principal including administrative assistant to a superintendent, and department head in a progressive and newer multi-cultural school in another municipality of the district. Throughout his career, he had shown a keen interest in innovative programmes which would improve life and learning for all students. In his previous posts he had demonstrated a readiness to work through teams to build strong staff development programmes. At the time of his appointment to Stewart Heights, West was just settling into his second vice-principal position in a large and complex school in another area of the district. Although he had been a vice-principal for five years, he had been moved in an untimely way to this second appointment because of an unexpected retirement. It had been explained to him that the move would be a good experience for him, but West had felt just bang, I got to fill the hole. West is an enthusiastic, lifelong learner who, by choice, spends much time working with people. He is very hands-on in his approach and has an open-door policy. Despite this, his strong work ethic, and five years experience as a vice-principal, he found, like many first-time principals, that the first eighteen months of his new role were daunting. As the third principal appointed to Stewart Heights in four and a half years and with two brand new vice-principals, West found himself dealing with staff who were starting to react to the revolving door principalship by simply outlasting their transient leaders. As said, We are not going to have a principal come in and tell us what to do. Following many months of visible stress, West reflected: The role of the principal is dramatically different than that of the viceprincipal. I ve moved from more operational pieces as a vice-principal to the human resources, policy and programme responsibilities of the principal. There is a whole piece of learning about where to get information from and who to rely on to make a prudent decision. It doesn t matter if you re a new teacher or a new principal when you walk in new, it s work building a reputation and building trust. After 18 months, my stomach has stopped churning. 63

Like many novice principals, West had received little formal induction to the role or to his new school. Traditionally, the school district had provided strong staff development opportunities for prospective and existing principals in his district; however, funding cutbacks meant that programmes were no longer available for new principals like Jerry West. West felt frustrated by the circumstances of his appointment. Only a few years before, he would have been able to count on his superintendent or an experienced colleague to orient and mentor him. At the time of his arrival at Stewart Heights however, because of financial constraints, the District had cut the number of superintendents so that two served twenty-six secondary schools compared to six only two years before. In addition, the few senior colleagues who had not taken advantage of early retirement were themselves on overload. Although he knew that it was important for Stewart Heights to keep progressing and had demonstrated in his past schools that he was an enthusiastic change agent, West felt he needed a year just getting to understand the school. Because the school had had such a rapid turnover of principals, he also sensed that some of the staff were was ready to outwait him and so block or ignore any changes that he proposed. As he explained, it s only been one plus years but teachers are coming to me already and asking how long am I going to be here. Unfortunately, the suddenness and rapidity of succession along with the pressing burden of urgent and overwhelming reform demands denied West the opportunity to negotiate an entry process that would enable him to build meaningful relationships with staff members. His promotion had occurred at the same time as the pressure to implement the standards agenda of the provincial government was at its peak. As he stated, sometimes the rules change, day by day by day in terms of what we can and can t do. He added that as we were making our own changes, moving forward in the direction that we believed we need to go other changes and outside pressures have been imposed on us 64

as well. So things that you want to do have to take a back seat sometimes and that can be quite frustrating. The departure of the incumbent vice-principals and their replacement by two totally inexperienced new appointees exacerbated his feelings of being overwhelmed and isolated. The early achievements of school improvement at Stewart Heights quickly began to fade. Observations at the school climate meetings chaired by West indicated that with the previous principal s departure, student-centred policies now gave way to more conventional behaviour-code initiatives. Staff responded to perceived deterioration in student behaviour, with almost frenzied discussions about how to punish students and impose control. Pressed for space, students had found themselves eating lunch in many parts of the school, leaving their garbage behind them. Staff responded by inventing more and more rules about where and when students could eat in the cafeteria, at strictly enforced times of the day. The sole and sane contribution of the one student on the School Climate Committee - that perhaps there needed to be rules about students cleaning up their mess, not about regulating where and when they ate - was quietly ignored. Rules replaced common sense, punishment replaced encouragement, and negativity replaced affirmation. West also organized Teacher Advisory Groups in the form of large assemblies to enable teachers to minimize their involvement while ensuring compliance with the letter but not the spirit of the initiative. Hierarchical structures such as the department heads group that had dominated before Andrews arrival reasserted their authority, and West went along because he needed them to ensure compliance with the Ministry s subject-based curriculum and assessment requirements. Andrews take charge style had propelled significant progress in Stewarts Heights improvement. In doing so, he irritated and sometimes alienated a faction of the staff, but the force of his leadership and personality kept pushing them along. With more time, as the school achieved its goals, these cracks could have been filled and the school could have been pulled together. But Andrews short tenure and 65

premature replacement left his mission truncated, and the cracks he had opened widened into chasms when he left. In effect, the movement towards a school-wide learning community that Andrews had initiated now fragmented into a number of micro-political units. Rapid rotation of leadership, poor succession planning and the onset of an overwhelming and under-supported reform agenda, undermined two years of considerable improvement. 66

IV Analyzing Succession What factors account for successful succession? How and when does succession support continuing improvement or truncate improvement in midcourse? In order to address these questions, we now examine what can be learned from the four cases about the key issues and questions that emerged from the literature. To recap, these are (in condensed form): whether succession is planned or unplanned and promotes continuity or discontinuity what kinds of inbound (entering), outbound (exiting) and insider knowledge the principal brings to the succession process the experience level and career stage of the entering principal the impact on succession of Secondary School Reform the characteristics and effectiveness of the previous principal and the levels of development of the school he or she has helped to secure how the existing teacher culture responds to succession events and to successive and sometimes accelerating successions the stages of the succession process the implications of succession for sustainability of improvement 67

1. Planned and Unplanned Continuity and Discontinuity In terms of educational standards and school improvement, the ideal succession scenario is where a school s leader has helped achieve impressive improvement, maintained continuity, and helped push the school even further forward on the basis of this acknowledged foundation. Blue Mountain and, in its later years, Lord Byron both tried to secure planned continuity by appointing insiders. Blue Mountain s founding principal canvassed the District to ensure that he could groom a successor who would understand and be committed to the school s distinctive mission and be able to maintain its momentum. In the main, this successor was able to do this, even in the face of overwhelming reform demands that defeated most other school s internal improvement efforts. Lord Byron s revival in the mid 1990s under Ken Sutton was also maintained to some degree by his internal nominee, Janice Burnley, whose appointment could be carefully planned because of the advanced warning Sutton gave about his early retirement. Burnley understood the school s innovative history and, with her curriculum background, was well placed to develop a coherent school response to the government s upcoming curriculum reforms. As a result, the initial transition went smoothly. Only once the reforms intensified during their implementation phase, and resources disappeared, did the planned continuity between Sutton s and Burnley s leadership start to crumble as it also did to a lesser degree at Blue Mountain. Disappointingly, these two cases were the only examples of planned continuity among the many instances of leadership transition in the four schools described here and in our database more generally. Sustained improvement and planned continuity that consolidates it seems to be a relative rarity in secondary school leadership. Even those exceptions of planned continuity in internal improvement that already exist seem to have been strongly imperiled by the onset of the external Secondary School Reform agenda. 68

Planned discontinuity is a popular strategy with school districts which want to fix a failing school, prod a cruising school into action, or help a school deal with new change demands. Bill Andrews assignment to Stewart Heights is our clearest example of planned discontinuity used, in this instance, to help a school adapt to its changing demographics. Planned discontinuity can sometimes yield rapid results. The charismatic Andrews kind of discontinuity, as a widely recognized change agent, ruffled more than a few feathers as it disrupted the existing cultures and power structures in the school. However, this kind of leadership requires time to consolidate the new culture and to heal the wounds that its disruptive style has necessarily created. Sadly, this was not the case for Andrews, whose tenure was very short. The lesson of Stewart Heights is that planned discontinuity needs to be approached as a long term process of reformation spanning many years; not as a quick fix, that can only achieve temporary compliance. All our other cases of succession represent a paradoxical mix of unplanned continuity and discontinuity: discontinuity with the achievements and improvements of a newly appointed leader s immediate predecessor, and continuity with (or regression to) the more mediocre state of affairs preceding that predecessor s tenure. In the carousel of principal rotation, successful leaders are often lifted suddenly and prematurely out of the saddle of the school they are improving, in order to mount a rescue act in a school facing a crisis or a challenge elsewhere. Much less thought seems to be given to the appointment of their less esteemed successors. At Talisman Park, Megson s brief prior tenure as a vice-principal insider did not inoculate him against the swiftness of his transition, his unpreparedness for his firsttime role, or his own rational-linear and instrumental leadership inclinations. Appointed during the onset of Secondary School Reform, he reverted to departmental line management to achieve implementation, and protected his staff against the literacy test rather than using or colonizing it to promote the achievement of all his students. 69

At Stewart Heights, another first-time principal, Jerry West was rapidly promoted in mid-term to replace his take-charge predecessor who had been catapulted into the District office, to fill a gap there. Facing a school that had experienced three principals in four-and-a-half years, and an escalating government reform agenda, West had no time to establish himself as the leader and little opportunity to acquire knowledge about the school or his new role from other sources. West s response was to make no changes in his first semester and build relationships one at a time. Though understandable within an evolutionary climate of improvement, in a time of imposed change, this response led instead to a climate of apparent inertia and drifting. Departmental power structures reasserted themselves to fill the void, and staff set about correcting student behaviour rather than continuing Andrew s commitment to whole school change. These patterns of poor planning are not just a recent phenomenon. As with many innovative schools, Lord Byron s establishment rested on the shoulders of an inspirational leader, with little thought as to who would follow him. His successor never seemed to understand the school, had his own agenda for promotion, lost many of the key leaders that Bond had developed to leadership in other schools, and marked the school s first steps down a long path of attrition of the change that Byron was meant to model. Successful planned continuity or discontinuity seem to be the scarce commodities of leadership. Judging by our cases, much more common are cases where improvement gains are eliminated and continuity is reestablished with earlier, more mediocre patterns either because succession plans have gone awry, or because there is no real planning at all. When the leadership pool is not consistently excellent, a common belief among school district administrators is that improvement goals can be achieved by moving the scarce pool of truly outstanding principals around a district, and replacing them in the schools they leave behind with the residue of less experienced or less effective leaders who will at least be able to maintain the gains that have already been made. While wider district-level data would be needed to test this belief, the evidence of our cases is that in 70

most instances, it is a fantasy and a fallacy. Principal rotation mainly seems to amount to discontinuity with recent improvement gains and to continuity with the status quo ante, propelling schools not along an upward curve of improvement but around a perpetual carousel in which all the schools move up and down with depressing regularity. The implication of this analysis is that not only is there a need for better succession planning in school districts with adequate forewarning and proper time to prepare, but there is also a compelling need for there to be a stronger and deeper leadership culture within school districts of widespread talent that will make planning, matching and rotation easier and more effective. 2. Inbound, Outbound and Insider Knowledge An important part of the leadership succession process is the connection between the inbound knowledge of the new leaders, the actual transition process, and the outbound knowledge of the departing leaders. Inbound knowledge the knowledge required to understand a school s past history, its present improvement needs and the strategies that will best move it forward comes from three sources: knowledge of the school, knowledge of the context and knowledge of the leadership role. The Secondary School Reform context was new to and, in its distinctive form, a surprise to all leaders in our study and we will discuss its implications in a later section. The implications of the remaining two forms of inbound knowledge can be understood in terms of the quadrants outlined below. 71

Figure 2 Sources of Inbound Knowledge Strong Knowledge of the School Weak Knowledge of the School Strong Knowledge of the Role Weak Knowledge of the Role Returners (Watson, Bond, McMaster) Insiders (White, Burnley, Megson) Outsiders (Andrews, Sutton) First Timers (West, Atherton) (i) Returners have strong knowledge of their school and their role. They have had prior experience of principalship which has enabled them to figure out the basics of the role, develop some confidence and learn from mistakes. They also have substantial knowledge of the school and its culture from previous periods of working there, but have established enough distance in space and time from that prior appointment not to be inhibited about leadership of people who were once close colleagues. There are no guarantees that returners will be more effective leaders than the other types career stage factors may, for example, weaken the innovative resolve of leaders in the twilight of their careers (Day & Baglioku 1996) and principals near the end of the careers who are put out to pasture in already successful schools can undermine all these schools achievements in a matter of months (Hargreaves et al 2001). However, the inbound knowledge of all three returners in our study seemed to enhance their effectiveness. 72

From experience, Charmain Watson knew how Talisman Park needed to reach out more to its changing parental community, and she had the skills as a proven leader and the knowledge of her staff to be able to reculture the school in ways that secured wider staff involvement beyond the line management of dominant departments. The founding principals of both Lord Byron and Blue Mountain were given high profile assignments because of their previous success as effective and innovative leaders. By creating their own schools with their staffs, they had the strongest knowledge of them possible. Where they are skilled and not jaded, returners seem to offer strong prospects for securing improvement within the succession process. (ii) Insiders are often a controversial choice against the new broom that outside appointments promise to bring. The promotion of insiders signals a commitment to continuity, and a loyalty to as well as belief in the achievements of the existing staff community. In our data, insider appointments worked best where a school had already achieved significant improvement with distributed leadership, widespread staff support, and the active grooming of one or more candidates who could consolidate the gains that had been made. Blue Mountain and, in its later years, Lord Byron, were both able to achieve improvement, distribute leadership and groom successors (White and Burnley) - ensuring that their insider appointments would be desirable and effective. Insider appointments may be less effective when prior improvement efforts are incomplete and collective staff commitment has not been fully secured. Megson s appointment at Talisman Park and his wish to protect his staff in the face of reform was a signal for the cynical coffee circle and the dominance of big departments to revert to type. Unwanted external reform also seems to tarnish teachers trust even in more successful insiders like White and Burnley whom, staff feel, are betraying the school s mission as they no longer carry the torch of 73

internal improvement, but turn into hierarchical middle managers of government imposed change. (iii) Outsiders with strong backgrounds in leadership, but perhaps less knowledge of their particular school to which they are being assigned, are often favoured by districts when there is desire for change. The outsiders, Andrews and Sutton, made considerable strides towards improvement in Stewart Heights and Lord Byron respectively making their schools more responsive to diversity in the first case, and rehabilitating its fading reputation in the second. Skilled and shrewdly appointed outsiders can indeed be powerful spurs to improvement. Whether these efforts can be sustained beyond their departure is more a question of outbound knowledge, to which we will turn shortly. (iv) First Timers are novice principals who are new to the school and their role. They begin their first appointment in what Wenger (1998) describes as an especially peripheral position. Although they are technically leaders, existentially they are on the margins of their schools. Bill Atherton technically understood but never really grasped the distinctive culture of Lord Byron, could not match the popularity of his founding predecessor and left within three years with accusations of self-promotion and careerism trailing in his wake. Jerry West was parachuted into Stewart Heights mid-term, with limited preparation, no advanced warning, and on the heels of a charismatic predecessor whose improvement process was incomplete. With an equally inexperienced vice-principal team and in the face of external reform imperatives, it is no surprise that he was unable to sustain the improvements that had been made. First timers may be the least appropriate successors to charismatic leaders, especially where the latters improvement missions have not been completed. Outbound knowledge is concerned not with effecting change, but with sustaining improvement. Outbound knowledge is called for where schools and their leaders have 74

made successful strides towards improvement. At its most obvious, outbound knowledge entails identifying and grooming successors sometimes from within, as in the case of Linda White and Janice Burnley at Blue Mountain and Lord Byron. More deeply, it requires leaders who, from the first day of their appointment, pay attention to how their improvements will endure beyond their departure leaders who can distribute leadership and build a community of commitment to change so it does not rest on the shoulders of one leader alone (whether this leader is themselves or their successors). This kind of outbound knowledge requires time to develop and years for the principal to become a true insider who authentically shares a common vision with all the staff. Blue Mountain s principal achieved this because he had the time and could select his staff. Watson, at Talisman Park, attempted to do so, but was transferred out prematurely and not allowed to complete her mission. The announcement of a departure is not the best time to start thinking about outbound knowledge. At this point, principals are already refocusing their priorities on the new inbound knowledge they will need in their next appointment. They are attending to where they are going, not where they have been. Charismatic appointments like Andrews are dominated by the district s inbound agendas, with no thought, in outbound terms, for how the charisma might be perpetuated. When the charismatic leader departs, the leader s legacy quickly crumbles because it is based almost solely on his or her personal qualities (Roberts, 2003; Weber, 1958). Where schools have achieved considerable improvement, reasonable tenure is required in the principalship of five years or more if improvements are to be secured and sustained, so that principals can spread responsibility for and commitment to them across the staff as the principals themselves become valued insiders. Such leaders are not charismatic but inspirational (Roberts, 2003). They develop and draw on people s deepest commitments to make them feel that great things can be achieved together. Once these loyalties are developed, they are less difficult to transfer to a different leader. Without 75

the benefit of the outbound knowledge that promotes inspirational and distributed leadership, principals are given premature reassignments, and their improvement efforts come to an abrupt end as is clear in the transitions between Bond and Atherton, Andrews and West, and Watson and Megson. Individual principals, their schools, and the districts that assign them, all need to pay much more attention to outbound knowledge issues that sustain improvement and not just inbound ones that initiate it if they want their achievements to be sustainable. 3. Career stages The nature and effectiveness of principal succession are affected by the career stages of the leaders who follow one another. In our data, this influence was greatest for principals at the start or nearing the end of their administrative careers. Novice principals did best when they were developed within and drawn internally from schools that had become strong professional learning communities under their predecessors (Blue Mountain and Lord Byron). They were more likely to fail or falter (as in the case of Megson and West) when they were parachuted in with little warning, paled in comparison to their more charismatic predecessors, and were confronted by disillusioned or cynical staffs who had been propelled into change only to be abandoned by their previous leaders in mid-flight. Principals in their second or third assignment like Andrews, Watson, McMaster and Sutton, were more likely to have a positive impact on improving their schools. Even here, though, there were signs that their impact was neither timeless nor endless. After his third principalship, Andrews was eventually promoted into the district office, as many successful principals ultimately are. McMaster was rotated from Blue Mountain to a more traditional elite collegiate, Roxborough High School, where his impact was no more innovative or transformational than research at the school had shown his predecessors to be (Leithwood et al 1999; Hargreaves 1994) an indicator that leadership in one 76

context cannot be automatically reproduced in another. Even Sutton and Watson, energetic as they had been, began to lose heart after repeated rotations and in the face of an unsupportive reform and resource environment at the turn of the century Sutton chose to retire very early at 53. Watson left the principalship earlier than planned towards the end of her next appointment due to the mounting stress of Secondary School Reform implementation, disappointment and even bitterness about the district s repeated failure in the succession process to consider her personal and emotional needs to complete her work, and the emergence of compensating sources of satisfaction in her personal life (particularly a new marriage). These career stage factors point to the need for greater support, more warning and better preparation for novice principals entering their first succession, and for more personal consideration towards more experienced principals as they run the risk of repeated succession fatigue. 4. Secondary School Reform Leadership succession does not take place within a vacuum. Who wants to lead, how many leaders leave, and how leadership is defined are all affected by educational policy and by the climate of reform. From the mid 1990s, the Ontario government passed more legislation on educational reform than throughout all its previous history (Gidney, 1999). The largely damaging effects of its biggest component, Secondary School Reform, on teachers are already well known (Hargreaves 2003; Leithwood et al 2003). Less well publicized, have been the effects of reform on principals and principal succession. In our data, SSR had three types of adverse effects on succession. First, in Blue Mountain and Lord Byron, where succession had secured sustainable improvement between one principal and the next, the succeeding principals found that SSR began to push them more in the direction of managing external mandates 77

rather than leading internal improvements. Like the women leaders in Blackmore s (1996) study of Australian top-down reform implementation in the early 1990s, Linda White and Janice Burnley found themselves turning into emotional middle managers of external change becoming more directive about decision-making implementation while also trying to talk up change and stress that we re all in this together. Staff felt their leaders now owed their first loyalties to the district or the government, not the school. In teachers eyes the widening gap between their leader s uplifting words and the deteriorating realities lent a hollowness to leaders efforts to motivate their teachers to change as these leaders sense of moral purpose appeared to desert them, and their credibility collapsed. As a result, even these rare examples of succession that preserved sustainable improvement, were undermined by Secondary School Reform. A second group adversely affected by SSR were the first-timer principals West and Megson. Inexperienced, uncertain and overwhelmed, they too opted for safety-first strategies of conventional and compliant implementation, ceding power and authority back to the big departments and overseeing their teachers withdrawal from the more ambitious, purpose-driven quests for improvement that their predecessors had started. In the third case, the most experienced and arguably successful group of principals Watson, Sutton and Andrews saw the deluge of directives coming and either pulled themselves up to the higher levels of the District (Andrews), escaped to the island of early retirement (Sutton), or began to drown under the pressure (Watson) until early retirement beckoned them too. Paradoxically, as is often the case, while the early retirement deal made between the government and the teacher unions in response to SSR was meant, in part, to remove expensive deadwood from the district, in practice, it enticed some of the most successful, skilled and marketable leaders to make an early exit Sutton into consultancy and Watson into graduate study. Altogether, on our evidence, SSR has converted an already uneven succession process into one that is consistently ineffective. 78

5. The Succession Process The work of Hart (1983), Reeves et al (1997) and others discussed in the literature review indicates that it takes from four to ten years for most principals to see their improvement efforts come to real fruition in a school. Shared cultures of staff commitment take many years to build and consolidate, and a departure of the principal during the first one or two phases of the succession will short-circuit this process and undercut the sustainability of their work. Andrews and Watson at Stewart Heights and Talisman Park exemplified their problem. The professional learning communities they had begun to establish regressed the moment they left. Although the systemic principle behind principal rotation is that it should occur in a planned and prepared way approximately every five years, in many of our cases succession was sudden and abruptly announced, as well as subject to acceleration, with the time period between successions shortening - Stewart Heights, for example, having three principals in less than five years. In these conditions, the staff of Stewart Heights and Talisman Park became like the teachers in MacMillan s (2000) study of principal rotation increasingly cynical with every passing principal, and more and more prepared to reassert their own traditional agendas and wait them out. On the evidence of this study, the suddenness, frequency and very existence of systematic principal rotation at the secondary level are all overdue for a fundamental reappraisal. 79

Conclusion Taken together, our own evidence and that of the literature provides some indications about what promotes and inhibits successful leadership succession. Successful succession, it seems, occurs when there is careful planning, adequate preparation and decent, humane management of all aspects of the succession process. Where principals are achieving results, their tenure needs to be long enough at least five years to embed their improvements and themselves firmly in the culture of their schools. Successors, who may sometimes benefit from being insiders, need to be selected carefully to continue their legacy. Successful principals can help their successors by giving careful thought to outbound knowledge not just by developing a careful exit plan, or by grooming particular people to follow in their footsteps, but even more by developing shared staff investment in improvement so that the fortunes of the school do not rest solely on their own heroic shoulders. Principals who have initiated significant improvements in a school, perhaps for the first time, need sufficient tenure (which may be considerably more than five years) to see their efforts through, as well as an experienced, shrewdly selected successor who can carry these efforts forward and who has adequate time to plan ahead in doing so. Sustainable leadership maintains improvement from one leader to the next and spreads across many leaders and schools in a district, not just one or two. What our evidence suggests instead is that principal succession today is not an episodic crisis but a chronic process. Its suddenness and frequency short-circuit most improvement efforts, and its predictable regularity creates longer-term staff cynicism about any and all attempts at change. Novice principals are parachuted into unfamiliar territory, whereas experienced principals are often airlifted out with little consultation or warning. Secondary School Reform exacerbates these difficulties by eroding the levels of support 80

for principal development and mentoring, and by removing principals autonomy to serve their school s distinctive needs for improvement in exchange for managing the standardized mandates of externally imposed reform. In effect, leadership succession has turned into an accelerating carousel of principal rotation in which the principals go round and round while the schools just go up and down. 81

V Sustainable Succession: Recommendations for Policy and Practice Our study of leadership succession and principal rotation in Ontario is provisional and requires more systematic research at the district level. Even so, our evidence suggests some implications that, we believe, should be given serious consideration by school districts and others. 1. Make all principal succession into a thoughtfully planned and ethically managed process. Except in cases of disability, death or other emergencies, all principal succession should be planned with great care and adequate warning to allow a dignified and suitably celebrated departure for the exiting principal, and proper preparation for the entering one. Principal rotations should be determined with greater transparency and less Machiavellian secrecy. The wishes of the principal and needs of the school should both be given strong consideration, and the process should be managed with maximum degree of consultation and the utmost ethical decency especially when principals cannot be granted the allocations they prefer. Proper succession planning can be more firmly ensured by making it a formal part of every school s improvement plan where leadership succession can be directly connected to school improvement and student learning needs. 2. Ensure that school district boards develop and apply a clear continuum of principal succession. Succession plans must link leadership recruitment, preparation, selection, placement or assignment, induction and on-going development in a coherent, futureoriented way. Principals need different kinds of preparation and support depending on 82

their trajectory, the context and the knowledge required at different stages of their careers. 3. Lengthen the tenure of most principalships. Schools making significant strides in improvement under new principals will regress unless their principals have sufficient time at least five years to consolidate their efforts and embed them in a culture of shared responsibility that will outlive the principal s departure. Given what we now know about sustainable improvement, the norm for principal tenure needs to shift. 4. Make the tenure of principalships less mathematically and bureaucratically predictable. When rotation has a mathematical regularity about it (within one or two years), an aging teaching force can anticipate it with ease. A norm becomes a rule. The existence of waves of succession teaches teachers that while principals move on, teachers stay, waiting their principals out in the belief that the school really belongs to them. Decreased mathematical and bureaucratic predictability creates the possibility that some successful principals may stay with their schools for much longer periods (and come to be seen by staff as owing their loyalties to the school more than the district as they do so). It also makes it less likely that staff will cocoon themselves with the belief that principals who challenge them will soon pass on. Regularized rotation is one of the greatest causes of resistance to change and it is time to review it. 83

5. Give more attention in principal succession to outbound knowledge and the distributed leadership this implies. Districts and many individuals have become overinvested in the inbound knowledge of how to solve a crisis, fix a problem, prepare for the next assignment and turn things around. Much more attention also needs to be given to the outbound knowledge of how to leave a legacy and make improvement last. This includes avoiding lifting principals out of their schools prematurely and providing decent time to plan and celebrate their departure in order to avoid the feelings of incompleteness, abandonment and even betrayal that will otherwise spill over into the next principal s tenure. In some cases, where successful improvement has become embedded in the school s culture, outbound knowledge may involve grooming and recognizing the leadership of successors within the school, who may then become candidates who are strong enough to justify an internal appointment. Most of all though, outbound knowledge calls not for charismatic leaders who are impossible one-man or one-woman acts to follow, but for inspirational leaders who can develop shared investment in change and distribute it widely across a staff so that improvement can then survive the transfer of principalship. The time to think seriously about outbound knowledge is not the day leaders hear they are leaving their principalship, but the day they start it. 6. Assign the longest principal tenures to schools which are just beginning to achieve significant success. Schools that are making progress will backslide if their principals leave too early. Keeping strong principals in increasingly successful schools ensures that improvement will stick. This also removes the temptation to indulge systemic delusions of improvement and omnipotence by moving the scarce resource of outstanding principals 84

around a district. All this does is create brief flurries of improvement that disappear once the leadership storm has moved elsewhere. Moving problem principals or mediocre ones around a district is often done to preserve a sense of fairness where no school should hog all the best principals, just like every child should get their fair share of weaker as well as stronger teachers in a school. This principle of principal rotation where most schools get a mixture of strong and less strong principals over time is often made on the grounds that improving schools can maintain their momentum with a weaker successor. This may be the case in the very strongest schools like Blue Mountain. But in other instances, the evidence of our case studies and the literature does not support it. Moving problem people around a district only hides the problems (and even then, only for a short time): it does not solve them. Contrary to popular belief, moving excellent individuals around a district does not create sustainable improvement, either. Keeping strong principals in increasingly successful schools not only sustains improvement in those schools - it eliminates the opportunity to act on the delusion that rotation, in a scarce economy of excellence, advances the district as a whole. Instead, it forces the district to find ways to develop a stronger pool of leadership talent, and to be more aggressive and creative about dealing with mediocrity and incompetence in the existing one. 7. Develop deeper pools of leadership talent. All the care in the world that is given to the succession planning process will yield few benefits unless there is a deep pool of leadership talent. Creating such a pool is always a challenge: good leadership comes neither easily nor cheap. But in Ontario now, the challenge is reaching crisis proportions. The potential leadership pool is being seriously depleted by rapid demographic turnover of retiring Baby Boomers, the push to early retirement impelled by government policy and other factors, and the drying up of 85

traditional recruitment lines as fewer and fewer teachers, in the present climate, want to become principals, vice principals or even department heads. This leadership crisis spreads far beyond Ontario and even education, but ideas and strategies are emerging about how best to respond to it so that we can find not only willing leaders, but also highly capable ones (Knapp et al., 2003). These include early identification and development of potential leaders from the very first year of teaching better mentorship and more availability of mentorship for potential principals (teacher leaders), aspiring principals and serving principals. creating small numbers of leadership development schools which are assigned the most successful leaders as a district priority, which model distributed leadership and successful improvement, and which become crucibles for producing future outstanding leaders across the district. establishing and providing funded support for peer networks across as well as within districts perhaps on a district basis where principals offer each other mutual learning and support in a safe and trusting environment. designing principal qualification courses more flexibly to be more compatible with the lives of the many younger women who will increasingly comprise the pool of potential leadership talent 8. Develop wider pools of leadership talent At the secondary school level, even in larger school districts, the carousel of principal rotation is a tiny one. Within most districts, secondary school administration is a very small world. If principal rotation is like a game of chess, there are not many pieces to play with. In this small pool of usually varying talent, sustaining school 86

improvement across a whole district is a difficult challenge. It is perhaps time to look at ways to widen this pool by recognizing different routes to secondary school principalship that may come from school district consultancy or cross-panel appointments, for example. This will need to involve active cooperation from teacher federations to support alternative promotion routes as well as those that involve department headships. A more challenging proposition still would be to widen the markets for principal recruitment (at least on a district-wide basis) and indeed for principal assignment (involving exchange agreements between districts). Moves such as this would make the secondary school principalship a more cosmopolitan and, in school district terms, less claustrophobic environment than at present. 9. Include more extensive content on leadership succession in leadership preparation and development programmes. The Ontario Principal s council promotes outstanding leadership through high quality professional services for its members such as relevant workshops, conferences and a quarterly professional magazine. In this regard, the OPC Center for Leadership offers multiple professional development opportunities for current and aspiring school leaders in Ontario. These include an assessment of skills, identification of needs, mentoring support from experienced peers, a variety of workshop sessions, training videos and learning opportunities via CD ROM and the internet. Within this professional development structure which is already in place, we recommend a number of substantive topics (based on our case study findings) that are not yet part of the Centre for Leadership programme, including: 87

understanding succession concepts, models, processes and practices distributive leadership; succession and sustainability succession from the perspective of school administrators, schools and school districts the relationship of succession to student learning and sustainable improvement 10. Let leaders lead. Our evidence here and elsewhere is that Secondary School Reform has inflicted serious damage on the secondary school principalship. It has turned leaders into managers. It has detached administrators from their staffs and their schools. Leaders have abandoned sustainable improvement in order to manage the imperatives of episodic change. Teachers are no longer attracted to leadership. Existing leaders are exhausted by it, and take their exits into promotion or early retirement as soon as they can. Staff feel betrayed by their once-loved leaders who now seem to be sacrificing their schools and their souls to the district. As more and more principals fall away, the struggle to replace them makes the carousel of principal rotation spin with accelerating desperation. In Ontario, and elsewhere, large-scale standardized reform has created more problems than it has solved (Hargreaves 2003). It has tarnished and dulled the luster of leadership. Giving more autonomy and support back to secondary schools will enable leaders to spearhead sustainable improvement again and not just manage the implementation of episodic reform. If this is not done soon, the new generation of principals will learn only how to manage, not to lead, and the opportunities for sustainable improvement may be lost forever. 88

11. Undertake research on the design and effects of principal rotation and leadership succession at the school district board level. Our study gives some hints into the patterns and processes of leadership succession and principal rotation in Ontario secondary schools. What we have learned should now be extended to and tested at the district level to determine the existing state of policies and practices of leadership succession and their effects on principals, schools, school improvement and student achievement. Sustainable improvement that benefits all students depends not only on individual leaders having the right traits and being trained in the right skills. It also depends on processes of successful succession. At present, our evidence suggests, few things succeed less than leadership succession. Succession can become more successful, though, through better planning, more attention to sustaining change as well as merely effecting it, creating deeper and broader pools of leadership talent, and giving leadership back to school leaders. The massive demographic turnover in the Ontario principalship gives us a one-time opportunity to make leadership attractive again and to ensure that succession will be more successful and sustainable. This will not only make leadership better for school leaders; it will also create more sustainable improvement for all students in our schools. 89

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