Reframing the reframing

Introduce the organization
(600-800)

Intro Bolman & Deal's four frames and critically analyse SCI
800-1000

Reframe the reframing within a CAL framework
800-1000

Critically reflect on the reframing process + recommendations for building leadership skills
500

  1. Provides an in-depth introduction of Bolman and Deal's four frames
  1. Insightfully analyses the organisation against each of the four frames: Structural, Human Resource, Political and Symbolic
  1. Reframes the organisation using a culturally aligned leadership framework
  1. Critical reflection on the value of the reframing process
  1. Recommendations for building own leadership skills
  1. Provides a culturally aligned framework that is focused, practical and can be applied to an organisation

7.

What improvements might be needed?

Define and explain the framework

Structural

Human Resources

Political

Symbolic

Trust
Tschannen, 318 - Trust was defined as one party’s willingness to be vulnerable to another party based on the confidence that the latter party is: benevolent; reliable; competent; honest; and open.

  • Seashore, 106 - We have chosen to emphasize “professional trust” in the competence of another as one distinct element and believe that it is important to distinguish this from a particular type of affective trust (regard for the other’s well-being) as caring.

Tscahnnen, 313 - In organizations with a high level of trust, participants are more comfortable and are able to invest their energies in contributing to organizational goals rather than self‐protection.

  • 314 - The climate of the school can be one that cultivates trust or that makes trust difficult to foster.

Bryk, 41 - Each party in a relationship maintains an understanding of his or her role's obligations and holds some expectations about the obligations of the other parties. For a school community to work well, it must achieve agreement in each role relationship in terms of the understandings held about these personal obligations and expectations of others.

Trust in Leaders

Bryk, 43 - Principals' actions play a key role in developing and sustaining relational trust. Principals establish both respect and personal regard when they acknowledge the vulnerabilities of others, actively listen to their concerns, and eschew arbitrary actions. Effective principals couple these behaviors with a compelling school vision and behavior that clearly seeks to advance the vision. This consistency between words and actions affirms their personal integrity. Then, if the principal competently manages basic day-to-day school affairs, an overall ethos conducive to the formation of trust will emerge.

Risk

Twyford, 2017 - /perceptions of risk emerge when there is an expectation to change

Twyford, 2017, 87 - (TRUST) cannot be guaranteed to exist or remain between members of a group or across different contexts

Twyford, 2017, 89 - Perceptions of risk include both cognition- and emotion-based processes mediated by individual, social, situational and contextual factors.

  • structural issues

Twyford, 2017, 89 - Although the individual may consider or anticipate both positive and negative outcomes, perceptions of risk tend to focus on the uncertainty connected to possible negative consequences and worst-case scenarios.

Bryk, - 44 - Relational trust is the connective tissue that binds individuals together to advance the education and welfare of students.

Relationships

Mool, 14 - Instrumental relationships refer to work-related relationships that are ultimately targeted at achieving school goals, such as the exchange of instructional materials or reform-related information. Expressive relationships refer to more affective-laden relationships that are not directly aimed at work-related issues and that often place the individual’s interest above that of the organization

Kristina

Daly, 7 - Highly central individuals are often considered superhubs; these actors are able to send and receive information to large segments of the network, thus potentially making the network more effective and efficient-or narrowing the range of relational resources available.

Daly, 2010, 6-7 - Central actors are those who have the most ties with other actors in the organization. These individuals usually have more access to information,.....knowledge, and communication than others in the system and therefore may have a disproportionate influence over the larger organization

  • /important role in the network for slowing the flow of info (bottleneck) or enabling cohesion by bridging two different groups

Collective efficacy
Mool et al, 2012, 251-2 - a concept that amalgamates these benefits as it expresses shared perceptions of a group’s ability to.... achieve collective goals.

Daly, 2 - This implies that successful change requires not only attending to the important formal structures, but also to the informal networks of social relations that create webs of understanding, influence, and knowledge prior to, during, and after the implementation of a change strategy.

  • 3 - Relying strictly on formal mechanisms to diffuse information and knowledge may thus leave critical practice gaps in the organization

City 2009 p40 - Why resistance can emerge - vision is uncompelling:
Organizations resist "vision'' not because of some perverse instinct on the part of people to resist change, but because the existing structures and practices provide a story line tha people understand, and the vision often fails to provide an alternative that they find equally persuasive and understandable.

Moral Purpose

Fullan 2001 p. 58 - effectiveness depends on developing internal commitment in which the ideas and intrinsic motivation of the vast majority of organizational members become activated.

Timp 2020 p. 23 - Most educators are driven by
the moral imperative of educating students

Vision/ Goals

Hohepa 2009 p40 - Leaders establish the importance of goals by communicating how they are linked to pedagogical, philosophical, and moral purposes. They gain agreement that the goals are realistic and win collective commitment to achieving them."

Garvey 2015 p89 - You set a more evolutionary vision that is about a direction you want to move in, and the stories you want people to tell about you—inside and outside the organization. The vision must be connected to the highest purpose of an organization in order to work in the complex space, because this highest purpose will attract the sorts of actions you want to promote (even when you’re not quite sure exactly what those actions are). You want to create a guiding purpose that people can believe in and feel good about.

p89 - A helpful vision connects people to their highest values and connects people to one another. In a complex organizational system, the interactions between people are the keys to the organizations success.

p91 - visions in a complex space are most effective when they are attached to the highest purpose of an organization and grounded in the values of its people.

Garvey 2015 p88 - Context: Leaders need to take a careful look at the past: at the values, history, cycles of change, and core myths and stories.

What are our guard rails? What is our strategy?
Garvey 2015 p88 - In a complex world, a vision is not a photograph of a future destination, and a strategy isn’t the map that charts the course. A complex vision is a compass that points toward a future direction, and a complex strategy is a set of safety guardrails inside which people can innovate and learn."

  • strategic direction/vision that does not stifle flexibility (adaptability)

Broaden horizons - see complexity of context
LF 2020, p. 37 - A systemic focus can be hard to achieve for people who are embedded in the system and can only see their piece of the puzzle. Leadership of change requires us to help widen people’s understanding of the challenge they are trying to address and to work in ways that engage people at as many levels of the system as possible.

Gervey 2015 95 - you have to explore and understand the system, get as many perspectives on it as possible without trusting that any set of perspectives (even if they’re diverse) will be fully representative."

Hohepa 2009 p108 - No matter how often they are articulated by leadership, goals are not clear if they are not understood by those they are intended to influence. This is particularly important when those who set the goals are not those who have to achieve them

Rob 2017 p7 - The emphasis on formal top-down processes, designed to coordinate through codified procedures that minimize the need for communication and interaction, has been supplanted by an emphasis on the importance of persistent interaction, through which shared meanings about the work evolve. The latter are viewed as particularly important in contexts of change and uncertainty.

Co-construction
Timp 2020 p. 14 - The kind of passivity and compliance generated when others make decisions for teachers about what will best help their learners is the antithesis of developing teacher agency.

  • They believe they can make a difference and take the actions to do so, rather than being
    reactive to, or passive within, a given situation. p. 15

Timp, 2020 - p25 - Many school leaders are disappointed that teachers show resistance or do not engage fully with an improvement agenda. This is predictable if they are not involved in identifying what needs to change and what support is needed to implement it.

Timp 2020 - co-construction the theory of improvement - improves understanding, buy-in

LF 2020, p. 38 - One of the first things to notice when bringing a systemic focus to our work in schools is whether or not we have engaged the key players. This will include, but not be exclusive to, the senior management team. First of all we need to work out who they might be in this context and then find ways to engage them with the work.


Developing this understanding requires sensitivity and awareness that others may work in ways that are different from what we expect.

Hohepa & Robinson, 30 - distributed leadership we also recognise how leadership may be exercised by anyone whose ideas or actions are influential in the context of specific tasks and activities.

Harris, 2008, 174 - It is a form of lateral leadership where the practice of leadership is shared amongst organisational members.
Harris, A. (2008), "Distributed leadership: according to the evidence", Journal of Educational Administration, Vol. 46 No. 2, pp. 172-188. https://doi.org/10.1108/09578230810863253

Office Politics Isn’t Something You Can Sit Out
by Kathleen Kelley Reardon
January 12, 2015
https://hbr.org/2015/01/office-politics-isnt-something-you-can-sit-out

In minimally political companies what you see is largely what you get. Standards for promotions and expectations for managing and leading are made clear. There is a sense of camaraderie. Rules are occasionally bent and favors granted, but underhanded forms of politics are avoided. This is the type of organization in which those with little understanding of or interest in politics — the purists among us — can thrive.

Moderately political organizations also operate largely on widely understood, formally sanctioned rules. Political behavior, where it does exist, is low-key or deniable. Conflicts are unusual, as there is a team player mentality.

You Can’t Sit Out Office Politics
But you can use them to your advantage.
by Niven Postma
July 14, 2021
https://hbr.org/2021/07/you-cant-sit-out-office-politics

Office politcs - They are about two things: influence and relationships, and the power these two things give you — or don’t

Transition came about through a convenient coalescence between financial opportunity and spiritual alignment

Failed to have an epiphany - is it that I am not connnecting with the theory, or am I not applying it?