The Artist's View:
Forms are shapes that are three-dimensional and are either geometric or free form. In two-dimensional works of art (that is, artworks that hang on a wall), artists use value on a shape to create a form. In other words when artists add value to the shape of a circle, the shape becomes a sphere and takes on the illusion of something that is three-dimensional a form. Today artists refer to light and dark areas of a work of art as modeling or shading. Very dark areas of forms tend to recede into the artwork where very light areas appear closest to the viewer. In three-dimensional art works such as sculpture, all shapes are forms because they take up space in three dimensions. True forms occupy height, width, and depth in space.
ISLLC Standard #5: A school administrator is an educational leader who promotes the success of all students by acting with integrity, fairness, and in an ethical manner.
A Leadership Perspective:
The difference in management and leadership is the
movement from shape to form, from two-dimensional perspective to a three-dimensional one. Leadership in many cases is a matter of perspective. Effective leaders find ways to recognize different
perspectives in general through effective communication and more specifically through active listening. Truly gifted communicators can discern surface messages and distinguish them from the
very important, but embedded, messages. What is the speaker saying? What is the speaker communicating? What is the speaker feeling? The answers are often wide-ranging.
The form for effective school-based management comes as effective communication. In other words, effective management requires one to be able to see individuals, events, and cultures from three dimensional perspectives. Communication has as its prerequisite trust. Without a sense of trust between two people, both in terms of content and confidentiality, there is little hope of meaningful conversation. An obvious example might be that if teachers trust their colleagues to work with them and not reveal their weak teaching areas to the general public, and certainly not to supervisors, then they might be more inclined to share deficiencies with colleagues. In so doing, teachers might be able to find help toward improving pedagogical gaps. If, on the other hand, teachers do not have the confidence in others' genuine concern for their professional development, they will certainly not engage in conversation with people about any professional areas of need. It is through active listening that principals can communicate trust and genuine interest that might lead to collegial interaction and growth.
Fortunately, active listening is a skill that can be developed. Though many people might think they are good listeners, in fact, without concentrated and frequent practice, and perhaps training, few people are effective listeners. It is only through intentional practice that one can develop into an effective listener. And the truly good listener recognizes that communication comes in verbal and nonverbal forms.
Effective leaders also recognize that through empathic writing, a sort of active listening through writing, the content of a message can begin to have depth along with breadth (Kelehear, 2002). In other words, leaders see the message from the front, from the side, from the inside. In so doing, the effective leaders recognize the multi-dimensional dynamic, the three-dimensional reality that comes with effective communication.
Research on the role of effective communication and the role it plays in successful leadership proclaims that that there can be no leadership without communication. In fact, it is communication that helps school leaders build trust and integrity in organizational cultures. Robbins & Alvy (1998) assert that today's principals are expected to be much more than simply instructional leaders. Among the multiple roles principals assume beyond instructional leadership are chief financial officer for the school building, student and teacher counselor for both professional and personal matters, and community contact for topics ranging from dress codes to the bus schedule. Embedded in all the principals' responsibilities, both the de jure and de facto assignments, is the requirement that they be clear and accurate communicators (Cousins, 1996). In fact, one might easily make the case that, above all else, effective principals must be skilled communicators (Stevan & Blumberg, 1986; Zigler, 1994; Tauer, 1996; Cousins, 1996; Reiman & Thies-Sprinthall, 1998; Reiman, 1999).
In the spirit of skilled communicator, effective school leaders are able to articulate the vision and mission of the school and school system, establish norms of behavior for both teachers and students, and communicate high expectations for teaching and learning. There can be no effective leadership, it would appear, without effective communication (Persell & Cookson, 1982; Buffie, 1989; Barth, 1990; Prestine, 1993; Blase & Blase, 1994; Stolp & Smith, 1995).
Particularly fascinating for today's principals is the possible role that technology, and in particular e-mail, might play in contributing to successful communication. With the infusion of technology into schools, computers and e-mail have become part of the daily routine for principals and teachers. In interviews with twelve principals representing elementary, middle, and high schools, it became clear that both teachers and principals relied heavily on e-mail to communicate with each other (Kelehear, 2001). One principal commented that she no longer used the intercom, but depended on e-mail to reach teachers and students. She reduced faculty meetings from once a week to once a month and disseminated all daily and weekly information by e-mail.
Several principals also found that face to face contact with some teachers seemed to diminish through the use of e-mail, if not in qualitative terms, certainly in quantitative ways. Two principals had actually removed the sign-in sheet and had teachers sign in from their rooms via e-mail. They commented that by moving the sign-in sheet they inadvertently lost contact with half of the staff. Several other principals commented that if it were not for the mail boxes in the front office, they would likely not see many of their teachers. Or, as another principal lamented, "I was talking with a teacher I had not seen in a few days when he told me that he had been absent for two days. I did not even know he was not there!"
And finally, there emerged the expectation on the part of principals and teachers alike that an immediate response to e-mail was not only preferred, rather it was expected. When teachers and principals sent messages, they became annoyed when the response was not returned quickly. When pressed by what was meant by "quickly," the teachers expected the principal to respond within three or four hours. Principals were more exacting. They anticipated a response from teachers within the hour! Several of the schools conducted faculty meetings whose agenda items focused on establishing norms and expectations regarding e-mail.
Given that e-mail has so completely become interwoven into the fabric of the school culture, it is interesting to note the reaction of staff when “the system” goes down or crashes. One principal recounted her and her staff's reaction to such an event:
Last week the system stopped working. I sought out our technology specialist in an attempt to find the source of the problem. Almost simultaneously, teachers began drifting by my office to tell of the problem and find when it might be fixed. When I discovered that the system might be down for several days, immediately my daily routine began to change. I traveled the halls listening to teachers teaching and I talked with students as they moved on to their next class. During the transition to classes, I sensed that teachers were more likely to come to their doors and visit with each other and with students than they were when the system was working. For certain, I was in the halls more frequently doing the things I think a principal should be doing.
It is far from certain whether e-mail alone has encapsulated many teachers, but it is interesting to ask if a reliance on technological communication necessarily detracts from interpersonal conversation. Let it be clear, however, that not all schools with e-mail become cloistered communities. In almost countless ways, student academic achievement is augmented through the proper application of technology. Nevertheless, there is a possibility, as seen in the example above, that e-mail might reduce the important informal contacts between principals, teachers, and students.
Several studies support active listening as an important set of skills for authentic and accurate communication, especially for people in supervisory roles (Tauer, 1996; Cousins, 1996; Reiman & Theis Sprinthall, 1998; Reiman,1999). This research applied active listening concepts to the medium of e-mail correspondence, thus creating the notion of empathic writing. Once principals recognize the pervasiveness of e-mail, they are left to grapple with establishing effective communication habits through that medium. Empathic writing might speak to this need.
Anecdotal evidence suggests that when the principals paraphrased content or feelings with empathic writing, teachers frequently responded with additional information, thus developing the original message more fully. Teachers commented that they appreciated the principals' taking their comments seriously and seeming to care about what the teachers were trying to say. Interestingly, it became immediately clear that empathic writing was rarely responded to in any substantive way if there did not already exist a significant relationship of trust and open communication between the principal and teacher. One possible conclusion of this condition is that empathic writing is rarely successful without a preexisting basis of interpersonal communication. But, where that relationship was present already, empathic writing by e-mail tended to enhance and affirm the communicative relationship. Where that empathic precondition did exist, teachers commented that the principals' willingness to respond to e-mail in an obviously meaningful way did indeed engender trust and collegiality.
Some real limitations to empathic writing by electronic communication emerged. With the loss of non-verbal signals inherent in face-to-face communication, some of the power of the principals' message was lost. More specifically, some messages sent by principals were misunderstood because the teacher was not sure of the principals' actual intent. One principal noted that many times silence or pauses communicated important, albeit subtle, messages and that component was lost in e-mail. There was just no way to display the “thoughtful pause” that might come in a genuine, caring conversation.
Another principal acknowledged some benefit to empathic writing, but was not willing to take the time, and risk, that this type of electronic engagement required. With this revelation as a backdrop, the writer stumbled upon a shocking finding. Principals were literally overwhelmed by the volume of e-mail messages that arrived daily. On the average, these fourteen principals received 63 e-mails within a 24-hour period. If the principals responded to every message utilizing empathic writing skills, there would be little time to do anything else. Two principals went on to say that they were reluctant to miss school for professional travel because they so disliked the many messages awaiting them upon their return. One principal put it very directly:
This e-mail is killing me. When I arrived in the morning there were always several messages from teachers, parents, and central office personnel waiting on my computer. I found myself arriving at work earlier and earlier each day so that I could deal with these messages before teachers and students began to arrive. Additionally, I stayed later in the day to catch up on e-mails and other business that should have been handled during the day when I was managing other e-mails. As a last resort, I began taking my laptop home to respond to e-mails and found that there was little time for me to be away from the affairs of schooling. Managing these e-mails was burning me out. I was working fourteen and fifteen-hour days.
As in many jobs today, it is interesting to note that technology aimed to helping people work more efficiently and therefore have more time for themselves has achieved the opposite effect. The principals' work is following them everywhere and they feel overwhelmed. Today, there is a severe shortage of prepared leaders to fill the leadership positions in schools across the nation. There is the real chance that the very technology that intended to make lives better is, in fact, draining the energy of principals, and thus creating an increased leadership vacuum in our schools. It would be important for further research to examine the relationship of principal resiliency to e-mail management.
In the interviews conducted in this study, another area of possible inquiry became clear. Do principals who communicate well with personnel on an interpersonal basis find it easier to engage in empathic writing than those principals who do not relate well to staff members? From these few interviews, there appeared to be a positive correlation between principals who engaged in successful active listening and those who were comfortable with empathic writing. Principals who had previous training in active listening seemed comfortable translating those skills to the writing medium. This is an area where closer study needs to be conducted before any conclusions might be drawn, however.
In reviewing material for establishing e-mail messages, a potentially disturbing trend appeared. Under the perceived urgency to respond to e-mail immediately, many teachers found their lessons being interrupted by the frequent "beep" of the computer, notifying the teacher of a new e-mail. As one teacher put it, "We have replaced the intercom interruptions with computer ones." Several teachers and principals set their computers to check for new e-mail every two or three minutes, also saying something to researchers about the school culture and technology. Have we exacerbated an already fractionated, episodic school day with the inclusion of e-mail technology in schools? It would be very important, also, to examine to what extent teachers are responding to e-mail during instructional time. Finally, how much time are principals spending responding to e-mail versus their time conducting instructional supervision?
Another area of concern for schools and technology emerged from these interviews. Several principals related that they believed that contact with central office staff was decreased because of a heavy dependence on e-mail. Instead of seeing the personnel director, or the superintendent, or the curriculum coordinator, the principals and teachers received memoranda via e-mail “almost exclusively” and the e-mail technology actually did little to remove barriers or psychological distances between central offices and schools. Several principals commented that this separation might seem just the opposite of what ought to happen with e-mail. Principals believed that the schools' morale suffered from this exclusive reliance on technological communication. Central offices often are accused of being disconnected from students and teachers. There is a need to examine this possible separation broadened by technology. Further study is underway to clarify this apparent “entrapment” of central office personnel by e-mail technology.
In conclusion, communicating by e-mail is not likely to replace qualitative, interpersonal contacts. In many ways, words without physical context can be hollow. Empathic writing, however, can have many of the same benefits that effective interpersonal communication has. It can provide another means for principals to paraphrase teachers' feelings and content and, in so doing, enhance a sense of efficacy and trust among their instructional staff. Empathic writing tells teachers that principals care in significant ways about what is going on in the teachers' lives. Teachers can never have too many messages like that from principals. It would seem prudent that principals work to communicate well and often with their staffs through both personal and technological contacts. Given that effective communication is central to the form of effective building management and given email continues to be an important technology for communication, it stands to reason that building capacity for empathic communication, either electronically or in person, is an important part of successful leadership in today's schools.
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