John West-Burnham Professor of Educational leadership St. Mary’s University

Always in motion is the future. (Yoda) The future is a foreign country – they do things differently there. (Apologies to LP Hartley) The best way to predict the future is to create it. (Peter Drucker) We did not come to fear the future. We came here to shape it. (Barack Obama)

The emerging leadership agenda TrustLearningInnovation CourageCommunityAutonomy EntrepreneurshipCollaboration AccountabilityMoral confidence

The changing policy context Control, dependency, uniformity Partial autonomy Tight / Loose

Schools: the emerging agenda Closing the gap – high accountability More for less Rethinking the role of the LA The Self improving school system – SISS Autonomy - collaboration

Excellence and equity Low Achievement/ High Equity Russia Spain Croatia High Achievement/ High Equity Finland South Korea Canada Netherlands Low Achievement/ Low Equity Bulgaria Turkey High Achievement/ Low Equity Uk USA France Germany

Planning: the Sigmoid Curve

Securing Equity Shared values – consensual authoritarianism Focus on the individual – the vulnerable High performance = high trust Openness – deprivatising practice Professional learning – coaching and research Eliminate variation – celebrate variety Collaboration

The hardest part of sustainable leadership is the part that provokes us to think beyond our own schools and ourselves. It is the part that calls us to serve the public good of all people’s children within and beyond our community and not only the private interests of those who subscribe to our own institution. Sustainable leadership means caring for all the people our actions and choices affect... Hargreaves, A. and Fink, D. (2006): Sustainable Leadership

... In a self-improving school system, more control and responsibility passes to the local level in a spirit of mutual aid between school leaders and their colleagues, who are morally committed to imaginative and sustainable ways of achieving more ambitious and better outcomes. Hargreaves, D 2010 Creating a Self-Improving School System NCSL

There is evidence that the process of change is more resilient and improvement more sustainable when school collaborate and learn from other schools. Schools that sustain improvement are usually well networked and have a good structure of internal support. While such schools may be considered to be leading the way for others to follow, the reciprocal nature of the relationship and the opportunities for schools to innovate together means there is added value in both directions from these forms of collaboration. (Leithwood et al 2010: 238)

Collaboration 1 Route 128 is based on independent firms that internalise a wide range of productive activities. Practices of secrecy and corporate loyalty govern relations between firms and their customers, suppliers and competitors, reinforcing a regional culture that encourages stability and self-reliance. Saxenian ( 1994) Regional Advantage

Collaboration 2 Silicon Valley is a regional network-based industrial system that promotes collective learning and flexible adjustment among specialist producers of a complex of related technologies. The region’s dense social networks and open labour markets encourage experimentation and entrepreneurship. Companies compete intensely while at the same time learning from one another about changing markets and technologies through informal communication and collaborative practices...

From Organisation to Community CompetitionCollaboration HierarchyNetworks Certainty/ linearityComplexity Top down powerShared authority Low trust/controlHigh trust/consent Specialization/boundariesInterdependence Career driven Personal growth Efficiency/outcomesEnhanced value Rule boundValue driven

Circles of intimacy

Social entrepreneurship Values driven, commercial reality Mixed funding- project focus Mixed staffing/community engagement Innovative approach to social need Calculated risk Social value Collaboration not competition

Issues and implications for school leaders: Securing consent, consensus and alignment around community values. Engaging with the 80 per cent Strategic thinking – building future scenarios Focusing leadership and governance on teaching and learning Building leadership capacity Improve through collaboration Developing schools as communities rooted in trust.