1. education
2. school

Your values, your students, your school:
A map to guide your quest for
a whole-school model of leadership
Dr Philip SA Cummins
About Dr Phil
Dr Philip SA Cummins
Teaching and working in and with schools since 1988
Managing Director: CIRCLE – The Centre for
Innovation, Research, Creativity and Leadership in
Education, Australia
phil@circle.org.au
www.circle.org.au
Today’s Agenda
Prelude: What do we mean by good leadership? How does a
school move from teaching leadership to students to
practising leadership as a community?
1.  What inspires students to want to serve others?
2.  What is about leadership that students respond to? How
and when do students learn best about being leaders?
3.  What lessons can and should students take from their
quest for leadership?
4.  What works in school student leadership programs? How
can success with student leadership catalyse success with
values education?
Prelude:
What do we mean by good leadership?
How does a school move from teaching
leadership to students to practising
leadership as a community?
Contemporary Leadership
Authentic Leadership
Leadership and Values
Leadership and Change
Prelude: Leadership 101
Leadership is about the art of motivating, directing
and influencing people so that they work together
willingly to achieve the goals of the team or the
broader organisation to which the team belongs.
•  Leaders build relationships within teams.
•  Leaders help teams to define identities.
•  Leaders help teams to achieve tasks.
Authentic school leadership
•  Geoff Southworth, School Leadership: What we know and what it
means for schools, their leaders and policy, CSE, 2009 – UK research
establishes success on the basis of performance in 4 core tasks and
4 key personal traits:
Core leadership tasks
•  Building vision and setting
directions
•  Understanding and developing
people
•  Redesigning the organisation
•  Managing the teaching and
learning program
Key personal traits
•  Open-mindedness and
willingness to learn from others
•  Flexible (not dogmatic) thinker
•  Strong moral compass within a
system of core values including
persistence and resilience
•  Optimism and a positive
disposition
What does the world expect of us?
It isn’t that top leaders are less skilled or less experienced
than leaders of the past. Nor are the teams they lead. The
challenge is the change in roles of both leader and team
member, roles that have been reshaped in the cauldron of
intense competition and relentless change ...
Today ... it’s all about scope, speed and customer intimacy.
Leadership teams must consistently ensure that clients’ needs
are met, and do it right now.
Ruth Wageman, Debra A Nunes,
James A Burruss & J Richard Hackman
Senior Leadership Teams
The school leader’s expertise
Leaders must be experts in the evaluation of data, and the
data that has been assembled across research worldwide
indicates that activators are more successful than facilitators.
The strategies with the greatest effect size on learning
include reciprocal teaching, feedback, teaching students selfverbalisation, meta-cognition, direct instruction, mastering
learning, goal-setting, effective testing, and behavioural
organisation.
- John Hattie, Visible Learning, 2009
The school leader’s learning journey
A process of becoming better instructional leaders
through the right processes for development of our capacity,
that is, initial training, induction and continuing
professional development, including mentoring and cluster
professional development support structures.
- Philip SA Cummins, Autonomous schools in Australia: Not
‘if’ but ‘how’, CSE, February 2012
What is a contemporary mandate to lead?
Leadership based on bureaucratic authority seeks compliance by
relying on hierarchical roles, rules, and systems expectations.
Leadership based on personal authority seeks compliance by applying
motivation theories that meet psychological needs, and by engaging in
other human relations practices.
By contrast, leadership based on moral authority relies on ideas,
values, and commitment. It seeks to develop a shared followership in
the school – a followership that compels parents and principals, teachers
and students to respond from within.
- TJ Sergiovanni, Leadership for the schoolhouse,
How is it different? Why is it important?
Prelude: Leadership 201
Leadership begins with identifying and understanding
our values.
We construct our identities as individuals and as
members of our community by negotiating the
relevance of our values in our daily lives.
We should try to answer some penetrating questions:
•  Who am I?
•  Where do I fit in?
•  How might I serve others?
Vauxhall, London
July 2011
Are we leading for change?
A leader… has to engage people in confronting the
challenge, adjusting their values, changing perspectives, and
learning new habits.
- RA Heifetz & DL Laurie, The work of leadership
Are we ready for change?
Without an appropriate vision, a transformation effort can easily dissolve
into a list of confusing, incompatible, and time-consuming projects that go
in the wrong direction or nowhere at all ...
Accepting a vision of the future can be a challenging intellectual and
emotional task ...
In an organisation with 100 employees, at least two dozen must go far
beyond the normal call of duty to produce significant change ...
Anchoring a set of practices in a culture is difficult enough when those
approaches are consistent with the core of the culture. When they aren’t,
the challenge can be much greater ...
- JP Kotter, Leading Change, 1996
Are we preparing our students for change?
Best practice schooling creates opportunities for individuals based on
their natural strengths and aptitudes. It has a culture that accepts and works
with young people so that their skills are acknowledged and they have the
disposition and skill to deal with the world as it is ...
Change needs to be central to all that young people experience in
school because through it young people will develop resiliency, adaptability
and personal flexibility to become not only people who can cope with
change but also agents of it ...
Schools need to deliberately create a culture of change where young
people can feel not only part of it, but also contribute to it.
- D Warner, Schooling for the knowledge era, 2006
Do we allow our students to grow?
Wisdom and values cannot be communicated like knowledge
or facts. Educational experience can point young people in
the desired direction but a free response is an essential part
of any authentic personal change.
M Crawford & G Rossiter
Reasons for living, education and young people’s search for
meaning, identity and spirituality
Our Shared Mission
Students should:
•  Become expert independent learners
•  Be passionately engaged in challenging,
substantive and rewarding work in
interdependent collaboration with their
peers, teachers, families and communities
•  Rehearse for a life of meaningful
contribution, learning and service to others
Prelude: Leadership 301
A model of or approach to leadership works best in a school
when it applies to everyone.
All members of a community should be capable of exercising
leadership in different contexts.
The more leadership is encouraged, the more it flourishes.
If you want to define and align your school values and
your culture of leadership, then the best way to do this is
to teach leadership to your students and involve everyone
in the process.
1. What inspires students to want
to serve others? What conceptual
models help capture this intent?
Values
Capability
Motivation
The Quest
Believing:
A Framework of Values
Authenticity: For real Servant leadership: serving
others first
Service: For others Excellent leadership at all levels in your school Sustainability: For life Transformation
: For change Authentic leadership:
acknowledging truth
Transformational
leadership: enabling change
Sustainable leadership:
nurturing the team and
protecting resources
Doing:
The CIRCLE Leadership Capability Framework
Leadership in ac:on Understanding and managing change Resolving conflict Leadership style Leadership through values & rela:onships, authen:city, transforma:on, sustainability, service Problem-­‐solving and decision-­‐
making Team culture Discipline Communica:on skills Vision Motivational Pedagogy:
Engagement and Students
A guiding narrative for students and their worlds:
1.  Me: Control, ownership, authenticity, sincerity, commitment, excellence,
being self-centred not selfish
2.  One of us: Labels, independence, stereotypes, mates, loyalty, the individual
and the group
3.  Leader: Leadership, responsibility, power, role models, relationships, getting
the job done
4.  Fitting in: Structure, predictability and randomness, order, rank, discipline
5.  Just right: Pragmatism, theoretical, speculative, ideals, fairness, justice 6.  Choose: Value, risk, rationale, judgment, impulse, evaluate
7.  Buzz: Passion, motivation, purpose, direction, fun and boredom, satisfaction
8.  Inspire: Creativity, imagination, spirituality, the muses, play, emotion
9.  Think, say, feel: Verbal/non-verbal, physical, musical, artistic, anger
10.  Brave: Confidence, respect, pride, strength, vulnerability, victory and defeat
Who am I?
PERSONAL
DIMENSION
Where do I fit in?
How can I best
serve others?
INSIDE
ME
HEART
From Now …
… To Then
HEAD
US
OUTSIDE
POLITICAL
DIMENSION
Story:
The
Quest
Achievement:
Leadership in
action,
leadership style
Reputation:
Team culture,
Discipline
Initiatives:
Understanding
& managing
change,
Problem-solving
& decisionmaking
Whole-school
leadership:
For others,
for change,
for life, for
real
Relationships:
Team culture,
Conflict
resolution
Communications:
Communication,
Vision
Integration:
The CIRCLE
Leadership
Model
Lesson 1: Articulate and infect
We know good leadership instinctively – we feel
it in ourselves.
If we write it down and tell people about it, it
makes it easier to infect others with it.
Conceptual models focused on belief, action,
motivational pedagogy, story and integration
can help create a contextualised and shared
vocabulary and visual map.
2. What is about leadership that
students respond to? How and when do
students learn best about being
leaders?
Individual and group
Deep wisdom
Lived experience
Real experience
The individual and the group
•  The lone warrior: No student is the same as
another
•  The pack: Students and their mates hunt
together
•  Rites of passage: Shared, similar
experiences
Deep wisdom
•  Must lead from the core of their being –
requires deep knowledge of self, others, vision,
intention and means
•  Must recognise that values, knowledge and
capability are usually inseparable in a student
– often cannot be articulated
•  Must engage with received wisdom –
importance of teaching theory
•  Must be guided by those who know and have
been there before – importance of dedicated
staff as role models
Lived experience
•  Must learn by leading – learning is as much
doing as knowing
•  Must test in own world – importance of
contextualised practice and rehearsal
•  Must have parameters – importance of safe
learning through controlled risk-taking and
experiementation
Real experience
•  Must be authentic – importance of having a
real job to do with a genuine moral
imperative, purpose
•  Must be accessible – importance of
tangible tasks chunked through goalsetting, planning and review
•  Must exist in the moment – importance of
immediacy, relevance and action-orientation
Lesson 2: Train and do
Students respond to being led well.
They learn best through an informed
leadership experience where they are both
taught theory (“doing leadership”) and also
can learn it by putting it into practice (“being
a leader”).
3. What lessons can and should students
take from their quest for leadership?
Values
Servant heart
Vision
Capacity
At the start of the journey …
•  You are most likely in the initial stages of your leadership
•  Your intentions and execution both need to improve from here
onwards
•  You will make mistakes along the way
•  Your leadership must be focused on doing the hard things
•  Your leadership must be focused on helping other people
•  Your leadership must help people change to become the people they
need to be
•  Your leadership must be sustainable and achievable
•  Your leadership needs integrity – even though it’s hard and it makes
you vulnerable
•  If you are not prepared to do this, don’t do the job
•  You should be prepared to do this – because you can
Who am I?
PERSONAL
DIMENSION
Where do I fit in?
How can I best
serve others?
INSIDE
ME
HEART
From Now …
… To Then
HEAD
US
OUTSIDE
POLITICAL
DIMENSION
The
Quest
The Quest
•  A map: Values and frameworks as points of
reference
•  A compass: A servant heart
•  A plan: A vision for who they and their
world might become
•  A pack on their back and a body
hardened for the task: Character, skills,
capability and knowledge that they can do it
Lesson 3: Character and capability
Students learn to fulfill their essential roles
for adulthood through their experiences of
leading and being led.
Leadership education promotes character
education and civic capability.
4. What works in school student
leadership programs? How can
success with student leadership
catalyse success with values
education?
Structure
Integration and integrity
Messaging
Teach through your own leadership
Structure
•  A whole-school approach that is planned
and coordinated without being controlling
•  Explicit teaching of leadership by leaders
to students in context
•  Staged for age, knowledge and focus:
–  Who am I?
–  Where do I fit in?
–  How can I best serve others?
Structure
•  Assumption that all can and will lead at
some stage in their lives but that at any
given point:
–  All can lead by example
–  Some can influence and motivate inside their
immediate peer group
–  Some can influence and motivate across
different peer groups
–  Some can sustain formal positions of leadership
Integrated and integrity
•  Planning and structure provide coherency
•  Integration buys you time and makes for
rich experiences
•  A deep conceptual core, supported by the
vocabulary of your own school, ensures
integrity
Messaging
•  Write down your vocabulary
•  Work out how to present it to your school
community by coordinating and crafting
your message
•  Teach and reinforce the vocabulary and
processes of leadership
Leadership by osmosis is a poor primary
strategy for cultural transmission
Teach leadership through
your own leadership
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
Infect with your vision
Delegate
Supervise
Provide feedback
Celebrate milestones
Lesson 4: A whole-school program
One-hit wonders look good on the surface but do
little for long-term leadership success.
Whole-school programs take time and effort – but
they genuinely transform culture.
Be bold, be ambitious and be prepared – your
students will learn much from this approach also!
Four ideas to take away
•  Articulate and infect: We know good leadership instinctively – we feel
it in ourselves. If we write it down and tell people about it, it makes it
easier to infect others with it. Conceptual models help create a
contextualised and shared vocabulary and visual map.
•  Train and do: Students respond to being led well. They learn best
through an informed leadership experience where they are both
taught theory (“doing leadership”) and also can learn by putting it into
practice (“being a leader”).
•  Character and capability: Students learn to fulfill their essential roles
for manhood through their experiences of leading and being led.
Leadership education promotes character education and civic
capability.
•  A whole-school program: Take the time to build a whole-school
program. Be bold, be ambitious and be prepared – your students will
learn much from this approach also!
Remember that when you leave this earth, you can take
with you nothing that you have received…only what you
have given: a full heart enriched by honest service, love,
sacrifice, and courage.
Francis of Assisi
Dr Phil Cummins
phil@circle.org.au
www.circle.org.au