Friday, September 25, 2009

Jossey-Bass mentions that trustworthy leaders are at the heart of successful schools. Trustworthy leadership gets everyone on the same team, pulling in the same direction. The five facets of trust, the five functions of leadership and the various stakeholders work together to bring about change in schools. When examining change in schools morally based leadership is an adequate framework to utilize. According to Jossey-Bass, morally based leadership taps into what is important to people and what motivates them. In order for change to come, stakeholders must share in the commitment. When examining what is important to people and what motivates them, one is analyzing the forces which drive change. I believe it is only natural that people are moved by what is important to them. The trustworthy leadership matrix could be used to analyze data. For example, the model could be used to analyze teachers’ perceptions of their principals’ competence as it relates to developing and carrying out a shared vision. It is my belief that teachers who rate their principals as having low or no competence will not trust the principal to establish and carryout a workable vision for the institution. Should teachers have no confidence in the vision they will be less willing to go along with it or accept it as valid. This will perhaps result in conflict and chaos. In this example, one of the 5 facets of trust influences the teachers’ (one of the 5 constituents of schools) ideas and feelings as it relates to the principal’s vision (5 function of leadership). In another example, should the principal rate the reliability of her/his teachers as low when considering their commitment to the overall vision then that may result in a hands on approach of leadership. With mistrust a principal may feel a need to direct and micro-manage every decision. The result is inefficiency in the system.

2 comments:

  1. Yolanda –
    I agree with your thoughts on morally based leadership. The tie of morally based leadership to what motivates people is a great thought. It gives you that buy-in that so important in doing anything. A survey instrument given to the leader and then to the leader’s constituencies would be a great tool to measure trust for all parties. Both leader and constituencies could get a sense of what the other thinks is happening regarding trust. The ability to compare constituency perception to what the leader is transmitting is an invaluable tool for the leader. The leader can then get a sense of what is working and what is not.

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  2. Ed - I agree, feedback is essential to change. If a person doesn't know that he/she is doing something wrong, they will likely continue with the behavior.

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