While we were working on this issue, I happened to come across a short news item about a presentation that the physician-author Abraham Verghese recently gave on leadership to undergraduates at Stanford University. Apart from being a favorite writer of mine, Verghese is a prominent voice on improving patient care in medicine, a field that has obvious parallels to education. So I was intrigued.
According to the news piece, Verghese gave his student audience two main pieces of advice on becoming effective leaders. The first was to develop a strong core-values system, in part by studying role models who've made an impact in a particular field. This "internal belief system" can then guide your work and decision making, Verghese suggested, becoming more central, crucially, than "visible success."
Next, he spoke about the importance of the "servant leadership model"—an approach that, in his description, is based in large part on listening and humility:
Servant leadership is where you candidly admit what you don't know, surround yourself with people who do know, and you gather the information and take your time to come to a decision. … Leadership is not about knowing—it's about listening, getting the right information, and then making a judgement.
Coupled with well-integrated core values, he suggested, this kind of stewardship can help leaders become better attuned to systemic needs and undercurrents, and to understand that problems are often deeper or more complex than they might appear on the surface. In his own profession, it has helped him see that, despite the growing roles of technology and data, the "ministerial function of being a physician remains very important."
As someone who is adapting to a new leadership position, I found this advice inspiring. I was also struck by how well it melds with the articles in this issue of Educational Leadership. The themes of core-value discovery and servant leadership are echoed, in various contexts, throughout the issue—perhaps suggesting an emerging (if often overshadowed) consensus on what it means to be a true leader today, at least in service-oriented professions.
In the opening article, for example, award-winning former principal Baruti K. Kafele urges school leaders to cultivate strong internal belief systems by coming to a better understanding of their leadership identity, mission, purpose, and vision. Gaining clarity around personal values and strengths, he suggests, can give leaders direction and depth.
In her profile of two co-principals working to transform a diverse high school in Oakland, California, meanwhile, Shane Safir argues that the apparent waning of the "test and punish era" has created an opportunity for "listening leadership" to emerge as an alternative to more top-down or managerial approaches. By listening attentively to their school communities, Safir writes, leaders can "develop a shared, local, equity-driven agenda. We can stay firmly rooted in our own values and in the voices, hopes, and experiences of our constituents."
Other pieces highlight similar ideas in uniquely powerful ways. They delve into the need to explore underlying beliefs and assumptions to gain a better understanding of complex challenges in schools (Toll, Aguilar); examine ways to be more constructive in giving and receiving feedback (Stone and David-Lang, Zepeda and Lanoue); and outline strategies to develop leadership skills and expertise throughout schools (Fiarman, Baum and Krulwich, Beaton).
None of this suggests, however, that leaders can't or shouldn't take decisive action on their own. One of the most provocative pieces in the issue, I think, is Carol A. Smith's look at how effective leaders sometimes have to "go to the mat" on important issues—and how such moments, if used constructively, can help them better understand and articulate their motivations and core values.
With the education policy and political landscapes shifting, today is a challenging time to be a school leader. As the articles in this issue suggest, it may be also the right time to dig a little deeper into how school leaders understand their work—and how they can fully embrace the "ministerial" or relational aspects of the job.
