Facilitating Leadership Development for Learning Networks

Facilitating leadership development for learning networks

This paper is one of four prepared for a symposium presented at the British Educational Research Association Annual Conference, University of Manchester, 16-18 September 2004
This paper is in draft form. Please do not quote without prior permission of the authors.
Michelle Anderson
NCSL
Networked Learning Group
Derwent House
University Way
Cranfield
Bedfordshire
MK43 OAZ / Niki Thomas
BoshamPrimary School
Walton Lane, Bosham, Chichester, WestSussex,
PO18 8QF
michelle /

Facilitating leadership development for learning networks

Michelle Anderson, Niki Thomas[i]

Abstract

This paper draws on primary data aboutfacilitating leadership development for learning networks. It is one of a four-paper session at BERA. The context of our discussion is drawn from the NationalCollege for School Leadership’s (NCSL) ‘Networked Learning Communities’ (NLC) programme. We propose that shared forms of leadership and facilitative approaches to learning are critical to servicing the growth and sustainability of these communities. Configuring as a network has implications for the development of leadership. Sometimes this will mean challenging long-held views, of individuals and groups, approaches and activity and re-constructing them as something different.

Introduction

“A learning community is a group of people who come together for a defined purpose to share ideas and work together in ways which maximise their own development. In an educational context, the primary purpose of most learning communities is to improve the performance of the individuals and organisations involved in the community” (Lucas et al, 2004). To this end the UK government is using different combinations of centralised and decentralised relationships to bring about educational reform (Bentley, 2004). Key to the agenda is leadership of and through networked configurations. Leadership, however, in a network does not just happen it needs to be developed. Sometimes this means making sense of new roles (e.g. co-leadership), ways of developing capacity (e.g. development and enquiry focus groups),and ideas of leadership (e.g. teachers, pupils, and teaching assistants) but in the context of a networked learning community.

Running aNetworked Learning Community is one strand of development and research of the NationalCollege for School Leadership, Networked Learning Group programme. Within NLCs individuals can be geographically dispersed but united by a common interest or compelling idea. Within the NLC programme 137 networks (representing ~6% of all schools in the UK) are involved in trying to build leadership and facilitation capacity. Networks take many different shapes with the average size being about 12 schools. Some have been initiated by voluntary sector organisations, some by local authorities, some by universities or colleges and some by interested individual schools. All require leadership that will service the growth and sustainability of the network. So, the enduring agency of ‘the leader’ to:

establish direction;

prevent stagnation;

develop people;

align internal and external demands and goals;

(e.g. Fullan, 1996; Geijsel and Sleegers, Leithwood and Jantzi, 2003; Gunter, 2001; Kotter, 1997)

takes on a new dimension when situated within a Networked Learning Community. From one of ‘individual leader agency’ to “collective agency incorporating the activities of many individuals in a school [network]” (Harris, 2004, p 14). From a practitioner’s perspective the need to have ‘leadership at all levels’ can be viewed as a practical response to the growing complexities of organisation systems and is reflected in the literature in this field (Raelin, 2003; Spillane et al, 1999). It assumes that leadership in complex situations is better when it is a shared collective act.

The underpinning idea and orientation to ‘share’ is steeped in democratic principles of equity and diversity. However, holdingthis belief for a learning community is one thing – executing it is another. “For knowledge to be developed and shared effectively, teachers are finding that the classic techniques in which they have been steeped – teaching, learning and attending meetings – are not enough. A new kind of collaboration is called for, one which can be best served by a relatively new style of working – facilitation.” (Lucas et al, 2004)

The history of facilitation is intertwined with the community participation movement, with developments in psychology, with concepts of organisational development like the learning organisation and quality circles, with the idea of knowledge management and, most recently, with the concept of social capital. A common strand throughout the development of facilitation is a belief that there are some ways of working collaboratively in groups which tend to be more effective than others.

Facilitation within a shared leadership frame promotes participation, equity and the development of trusting relationships. This is a political enterprise because facilitation and leadership are not context free. Conditions, over time, internal and external to the learning community interplay with leadership and facilitation: acting as enablers and barriers. This poses issues (although not always recognised and acted upon) for people and the development of leadership in networks. As such we will focus, particularly, on the accounts about and experiences of people engaged in leading and facilitating networked learning communities.

Within the limits of this paper we have selected three key issuesand examples to focus on because they reflect key dimensions in developing and sustaining leadership for learning networks:

• Clarity of expectations – co-leadership shifting between a networked learning role and existing organisational role;

• Location and use of knowledge – lead learners building and sharing capacity through development and enquiry focus groups;

• Opening up new opportunities – for groups and individuals (e.g. teachers / pupils / teaching assistants) and their inclusion in the leadership and facilitation of networks: beyond compliance, guilt and tokenism.

These areas pose particular challenges to developing leadership of learning networks. We conclude with a brief discussion of these issues with respect to perceived enablers and barriers to facilitating leadership development in learning networks.

Data collection

The ‘facilitating learning networks’ projectis one of many research and enquiry activities of the Networked Learning Communities programme[ii]. This project builds on other programme-wide activity focusing on a need, expressed particularly by co-leaders, to understand and feel confident in leading and facilitating a learning network. A key aim of the project is to improve our understanding of the working assumptions of leading; leadership and facilitation of NLCs.

From the programme’s data we identified sixcross-school-phase networks (one of these we used to pilot our interview schedule) from the north, midlands and south of England. They had been in operation as an NLC for at least 12 months and collectively had a spread of activity and co-leadership models of the network. The average size of each network was 16 schools[iii]. Approximately two-thirds of the 137, largely, school-to-school networks are now entering, or within, their second year of development. As such, people within the networks are in a good position to reflect critically on their first year of development as a NLC, identifying what they perceive as key challenges and successes.

We used a modified chain referral technique (Watters and Biernacki, 1989) to identify participants that would provide a ‘felt-understanding’ of the issues to be covered. This technique also supported the identification of potentially hidden populations (e.g. roles other than a headteacher that may be involved in leading) with a view that this would provide a richer picture of facilitating leadership development in networks.

In most cases data collection involved a pre-telephone interview (which served to establish a relationship between researcher and network member, screen and anticipate particular fields of inquiry) and combinations of site-based and telephone semi-structured interviews (~1.5 hours each). Twenty-one interviews were conducted with people. Each network had a minimum of three interviews representing different vantage points (e.g. an external HEI, consultant, LEA and within schools, such as, teacher; assistant headteacher; headteacher). Findings were collated and analysed using a thematic saturation technique and triangulated using other sources of information about the network from the Programme (e.g. documents from the network and other programme-wide enquiry data undertaken by Networked Learning Group Facilitators and researchers).

The project’s fieldwork is contributing to the development of, what we hope will be, a practical and helpful product for networks about facilitating learning networks. As such, we saw it as important to explore the concepts of leading and facilitating through the experiences of people from different vantage points (internal and external to the network) and roles associated with the network.

Data, related to the topic of this paper, is now identified and discussed in the following two sections.

Clarity of expectations

Co-leadership – shifting between a networked learning role and existing organisational role

“…I think as a facilitator you just help things to happen, to take place.

Where I think as a leader, you have to drive them much more.

And there are times when you do both…” (Co-leader)

Networked learning communities have, by their advocacy of the idea of co-leadership, placed a particular concept of leadership at the centre of the debate about educational leadership. “Yet if you were to go into most schools today they would not know what a co-leader was and, consequently, would not realise how different it is from other forms of leadership” (Lucas et al, 2004). From our fieldwork participants tell us that a co-leader role is pivotal to getting things moving in a network. Understanding the co-leader role and therefore the role they should play in the facilitation for other leadership development within the network is a key issue for networks.

NLCs were asked as part of their bid to identify people who would be responsible for co-leading the network. A co-leader role is an ‘interface’ or ‘boundary broker’ role. They are a key governance role within the network, along with what networks have called ‘steering groups’ or ‘management groups’ of the network (i.e. usually comprised of various combinations of headteachers and deputy / assistant headteachers from across the network and external organisational representatives from HEIs; LEAs; consultant critical friends). The role ‘co-leader’ was introduced deliberately by the NLC programme to indicate a shift from a single leader towards a shared concept of leading. Not all co-leaders of NLCs are headteachers and there are shifts in the number and range of co-leader roles evolving (e.g. Assistant Headteachers, Deputy Headteachers; LEA; and HEI). However, for most NLCs, headteachers were the co-leaders. The specifics ofwhom or how many co-leaders were left to the network to decide.

The ‘co-leaders’ provide a key contact for the external programme developers and colleagues within the schools. However, NLCs are dynamic and people move on (e.g. new people come into the role of NLC co-leader) and other forms of ‘co-leadership’ develop and replicate across the network (e.g. within sub-groups, such as, enquiry or collaborative leadership learning groups). “Underpinning effective co-leaders there seem to be a number of beliefs, including:

• that leadership is essentially a distributed activity and one which everyone – from a teaching assistant to a headteacher – has the capacity to contribute;
• that leadership involves failure and experimentation;
• that there is value in diversity;
• that building consensus is worthwhile;
• that change is desirable and that you need to be clear about what you want to change if you are to make significant improvements;
• that a degree of uncertainty is inevitable;
• that leadership is itself a developmental activity;
• that distribution and delegation are essential not optional” (Lucas et al, 2004)

Many factors areinfluencing the form and function of co-leadership of a NLC (e.g. origin of the role; knowledge and skill that people bring to the role; values and perceptions of the role by the person and others; resource-infrastructure; a history of working collaboratively etc). “At the very beginning it was all new [being a NLC] for us and we were not sure how we were going to go, how we were going to develop. We were not sure on the sort of directions that we needed”(Headteacher, Primary Strategy Consultant, male). As, such, Co-leaders tell us that their role and understanding of the role does shift over time. What’s important to note here is that participants did not intonate that a ‘shift’ was a linear progression to be construed as necessarily better or worse than what came before. Rather, our findings suggest there are shifts in, for example:

• Thinking – Who and how many should be co-leading. “A very insightful Head Teacher … saw there was no such thing as only a classroom teacher…” (Co-leader, Secondary former classroom teacher now Assistant Headteacher, male). Most started with two headteachers. Whereas many have more than two and have other people now in the role (e.g. deputy headteachers; LEA; HEI).

• Action – When they started in role of co-leader they did not have names for or realise what other roles might be needed to run a NLC. “I didn’t have a clue, couldn’t have told you what a knowledge manager was to save my life.”(Co-leader, Primary Headteacher, male); And

• Goals - A networked role can open up new goals and things to experience. “I’ve just … completed the student aspiration study. Now I would never; that would not have entered my consciousness if I hadn’t been part of the network.” (Co-leader, Primary Headteacher, female).

Thesecoalesce with changes in other circumstances or situations. For example:

NLC shift… / So…
More people aware of and committed to being a NLC. Network participants, particularly those people who occupied visible roles in network’s early start-up days (e.g. co-leaders, critical friends), spoke of their need to promote and ‘sell’ the benefits of being a network. This period of time was characterised by launch conferences; attending Networked Learning Group national events and many face-to-face meetings in the schools of potential network participants. “After six months of the network, you could ask the question in a school, ‘what’s the network done for you?’ and the answer was probably ‘what network?’ For a year they were saying ‘oh yes, the X Network Learning Community, I’m not sure’. Now it’s 18 months on and they’re all engaged in some form of network activity.” (Co-leader, headteacher, primary, female). This generating enthusiasm and commitment to being a NLC was also characterised as a time of developing a shared view of what it means to be a NLC. This is not a once-off exercise and as membership of the network changes (e.g. change of headteacher) co-leaders are re-thinking how they can manage the growth of the network while being sensitive to the need to bring-on new people who will have not experienced the same connection or access to activity used in the early days of the network. / Co-leaders do not need to do everything.
“I’d say it’s really oversight now. We’ve actually got people employed now who are sort of doing the things that I used to do in terms of the organisation, so it’s really an oversight and more strategic part I suppose. I still go to meetings and then to guide things, but we have actual staff who are running things now, which is an improved situation.” (Co-leader, Headteacher, Secondary, male). So, the intensity of a handful of people ‘doing it all’ is relieved by the ‘buy in’ and identification of other people within the network taking on various roles. This presents different conditions and challenges for the network’s governance. For example, potential fragmentation because of the increase number of roles and activity.
NLC shift… / So…
Increased networked learning activity
Networks began with a mixture of large-scale events (e.g. launches) to build awareness and the establishment of many small-scale activities (e.g. teacher enquiry groups; leadership learning groups and programmes) to ‘infiltrate’ the network. The activity does not appear to follow a particular trajectory; “…it’s so changeable, this year the Arts Fortnight that we’re having, we didn’t do that last year…so I can’t say that is an annual thing…it will be different next year.. but that is brilliant…And there’s going to be a community wide exhibition at the end…it’s going to be all the Network schools, all coming together and celebrating as a community rather than the usual individual school approach…” (NLC Research and Development co-ordinator, female). / Co-leaders cannot do everything. “…the network very quickly became too unwieldy for two people with other jobs, or five people with other jobs, or 25 peoplewith other jobs…” (Co-leader, Primary Headteacher, female). The increased activity brings with it new challenges for leaders of the network. “I’m certain there’s a lot of things out there that are happening in individual schools that were a direct offshoot of the network learning that I’m not aware of, and that’s poor communication between us all…” (Co-leader, Primary Headteacher, male). This dynamism is both liberating and challenging for the network leaders as they move from being involved and ‘doing’ all to a more distributed and delegated mode of execution.
Results from the fruition of early efforts and activity
“People are offering their services to the rest of the Network. So that’s a big shift. Because at the beginning the biggest challenge is developing the sense of ownership and once people have developed the sense of ownership, they want to do, not just take from the Network but give back to the Network. I think that’s an incredibly important shift.”(Co-leader, Secondary Assistant Headteacher, male) / Co-leaders should not do everything (i.e. focusing and re-focusing their role, goals and activity of the network). Network participants identified next steps for the network broadly linked to the categories of:

• sustainability and viability (e.g. encouraging network members to write down their research so influence teaching and learning ‘within’ and ‘without’ the network);
• capacity building (e.g. roll-out leadership programmes; prioritise four or five key projects that the network can work on together; and focus on relationships with external agencies)
• evaluation and monitoring of impact (e.g. asking the question in all activity ‘what impact is this activity having on adults and pupils in the network?)

These shifts in thinking, action and goals also interplay with discourses in history (e.g. an individual’s experience; leadership research and writing) about leaders, leading and leadership. In NLCs, while there were principles guiding the tone and approach to leadership (e.g. “I believe very strongly that we either cooperate or we compete. I do not think there is any middle ground. And so making sure that everybody cooperates is important because if one school starts to compete then it will have a knock on effect. And it will break down the [network] development.” Headteacher, Primary Strategy Consultant, male), there does not appear to be job-description of what a co-leader does and therefore what type of knowledge might be helpful (to bring or develop) in this network leadership role. Retrospectively, participants were asked to reflect on what knowledge they felt has been supportive of developing the co-leader role within the network. The following list is drawn from not only people occupying the role of co-leader but from other people in the network (e.g. critical friends, HEI, LEA, teachers and knowledge manager roles). A co-leader: