Head Teachers: A Special Case

 

Problems of understanding the Role:

Role Confusion:

The term head teacher implies that heads are primarily teachers, but it does not have to mean that they are teachers as well as bosses. However, there is here a dilemma for many heads - choosing between being a teacher and being a manager.

Many Heads will admit to wanting to become Heads because they felt that the heads they worked under were inadequate or that they themselves could do the job just as well, (and promotion would mean more money). There is no doubt that being a Head offers much more personal freedom than being in any other position in the school, considered over all. The position also brings with it a number of opportunities that are not available to other teachers. Not many people entering a school for the first time as Head have many pangs of regret about not having a conventional school timetable.

It may well be that teaching is an important part of a Head's personal image and one they are reluctant to give up. There are plenty of opportunities for teaching if you run the school and you can pick and choose who you want to teach. But it is possible to do more than teaching because the whole curriculum comes into your hands when you take over a school and the satisfaction of the wider field will almost certainly be valued against those of the narrower ones.

Where Heads seem to miss out is in the close relationships that are often experienced by teachers in the camaraderie of the staff common room.

Heads as Manager:

There is a great deal of circumstantial evidence that Heads find it very difficult to think of themselves as managers, especially strategic managers. Managing the classroom is not the same as managing the school; it is of quite a different order and quality. There is quite inadequate preparation for headship and no coherent pattern of training development once a head is in the job. This makes Heads quite vulnerable and sometimes they react by blustering shows of over confidence.

There is a difference between 'administration' and 'management' and if the distinction is not made in practice, a great deal of personal and organizational confusions ensues. Expressed simply, the distinction is that administration is concerned with routine activities while management is concerned with strategies. Both involve working with people (personal and industrial relations) though management requires it at a much deeper level, but otherwise they present the Head with two totally different standpoints.

It is more than likely that most Heads wanted to be heads so they could become managers and not administrators. It is also more than likely that most Heads find themselves trying to be administrators and not managers.

For most Heads, the critical decision which will affect their attitude to their job and determine how they cope with it, will be deciding to be a manager and to develop the skills and attitudes that are appropriate. This being so, they will have to make critical decisions about the administration of the school which does not lead to a conflict of interests and people.

Why Heads can be Lonely:

Isolation and Headship:

The way some Heads isolate themselves from their colleagues must be one of the biggest contributing factors to stress and unhappiness that Heads encounter. Yet it is entirely of their own making because it is not a situation inherent in organization but rather a function of the management style of the heads themselves.

In every organization, it is possible to develop teams of people who provide full emotional support as well as functional support (i.e. in carrying out the various jobs of the organization). Some closeness and friendship with other members in the school is a prerequisite for survival at every level; it is not enough, as many Heads do, to go outside for support and encouragement only from other Heads.

Choosing a stance:

On the whole, Heads seem to have a low level of trust in their colleagues, partly for fear of the consequences and partly through anxiety in being so universally responsible. Trust depends on the ability to continue to accept people who fail or let you down; if you never allow anyone to fail you will never be able to trust them.

Problems Of Professional Skills

Lack of Training:

The variety of skills required of Heads in their capacity of Head is greater than would normally be required of any other manager. School heads are expected to be works manager, general manager, chairperson of the board (even when the chairperson of governors is active on the school’s behalf), advertising manager, research manager and personnel manager and goodness knows what else. The way most schools are organized means no one can fill any of these functions adequately and it is unfortunate that many Heads feel they have to do so instead of organizing their deputies and senior colleagues to fill these staff functions. In managerial terms schools do badly on staff (support) functions even if they do reasonably on line functions (i.e. teaching)

The importance of respect:

The one skill a Head can be expected to have by virtue of experience is that of teacher and facilitator and yet this is probably the one skill least used in management. A good teacher can manage the learning of a class of over thirty students and motivate them to take responsibility for their own learning. This area of skill is not essentially any different from that required to manage teaching staff. Of course, if Heads behave as a traditional teacher towards their colleagues they will be in trouble (and some heads undoubtedly are), but if they regard their best teaching and facilitator skills as the essential management skills, there should be no contradiction and no condescension.

Personally generated pressures:

The need to feel in complete control at all times is one of the stresses that many Heads generate for themselves. There really is no need to know everything that is going on and what everyone is doing, and if colleagues are trusted, there is no problem about not knowing. Some Heads do feel personally vulnerable to criticism of the school.

Often, Heads wish to control the wrong things. It is necessary to be more selective about the responsibilities undertaken, and more encouraging of colleagues to accept full responsibility for an area of activity. The details of the curriculum can be left to teachers. There should be a lot more of managing at the margins by the Head and a determination to do only what no one else can reasonably be expected to do.

Lack of Delegation:

Heads can do things in terms of work loads such as reading and signing all reports, interviewing all students who are going into the sixth form, attending all school events even if it means attending the school play six times, checking on lunch-time supervision, and a myriad of jobs that outsiders would consider trivial and not appropriate for a Head. More than anything, Heads need to look carefully at how they organise their time. For most Heads, inviting a colleague or management consultant to give advice would save a great deal of anxiety and overwork.

Coping Mechanisms for Heads:

Heads have one advantage over their school colleagues so far as coping with stress is concerned. They can more easily find a bolt hole. This alone makes it difficult to sympathise too readily with Heads when they talk of being stressed. There are any number of devices for avoiding stress and indeed for coping with stress.

One frustration that Heads may have is wanting to teach more and feeling that their professional standing with colleagues depends more on their teaching skills than their management abilities. This will be particularly so if they are unsure of themselves as managers and of their managerial skills – especially if they are not very sure what the necessary management skills are. A pressure that Heads often feel is to prove competence (in whatever you like) and the fear of not being competent is often very real to them.

When they meet together, it is not at all easy to ask for help; so Heads do not naturally find the kind of support among their peers that they need. Indeed, the reverse is often the case. Heads tend to collude with one another in not facing up to professional and personal problems and to ascribe the difficulties in running schools to other sources – poor deputies, incompetent teachers, inadequate resourcing, unrealistic demands from local authorities, and so on. Yet no one expects Heads to be perfect except themselves.

Self-Esteem:

It may well be that the large number of young people in schools is a factor in making it difficult for teachers to experience an adequate range of relationships with adults. Most of the contact that Heads have with teachers is in a relationship when someone else is being discussed; that is, it is less a relationship with the teacher than a brief ‘case conference’ over students. This means that Heads and teachers do not engage in real one-to-one adult relationships, but have their own relationships distorted by the relationship with the student.

Schools spend a lot of time dealing with pupil problems and issues that may not be matched by enough time on teacher relationships. In any case, students are often used as intermediaries in relationships between teachers; sometimes quite severe controversies are fought out with students as pawns. In many issues that are really between Heads and teachers, students are used as go-betweens or surrogates. Heads could usefully give attention to the true nature of their relationships with colleagues.

Leadership Skills

Value Conflicts:

When an individual is in charge of an organization, there is a tendency to ascribe personal values to the institutions and assume that other members hold to the same value system. The problem for schools is that while there are undoubtedly operational values, the values of people in the system may be at variance. All parents do not share the same values and some of them will be in conflict. If one adds to this the personal values of the Head and the assumption that the Head’s values are the dominant ones, there cannot but be problems. The big danger for Heads is in overvaluing their own importance just because they hold a top position. Some Heads undoubtedly have delusions of grandeur and it would seem that some of the ‘great’ Heads of the past were smitten with a high level of conceit; but in these days, the cult of ‘great men’ is not fashionable and people would rather put Heads down than over-praise them.

Heads and Leadership:

Heads are, of course, formal or nominal leaders simply by virtue of being the titular head of their institution. At one time, it was believed that leadership was a matter of an individual possessing the appropriate traits – for example, being wise, experienced, forthright, determined, strong-minded, dedicated and so on.

Leadership is in fact a function of the organization; that is, every member of the organization exercises leadership from time to time (the definition of leadership being the ability to help the members to work on the tasks that are necessary for the well-being of the school). On this basis the best a Head can do is not to get in the way of leadership initiatives of other members of the school. In fact, it would be better on balance for Heads to think of themselves essentially as followers rather than leaders. One advantage is that it relieves the felt pressure of being always in charge, always the initiator, always the one who starts things off and keeps them going. ‘Sit back and let it all happen’ would be a good motto for it is only possible to believe in it when you believe in the capabilities of your colleagues.

The nature of teams:

Leadership is the key to understanding strategic management which is essentially a team activity. The idea of a team is that people come together as equals to pool their talents, and as a consequence of their working together, the energy in the group is greater than the simple sum of the parts. To be a member of a team you must be subordinate to the team. For some Heads this is a problem because they may see a lack of status which they fear to lose if they are not clearly the person in charge.

Often when Heads attend courses with other teachers they find it difficult to accept them as equals. Everyone who has worked with mixed groups knows that some Heads have to assert themselves (certainly to identify themselves) as Heads. It is partly a way of asking not to be treated like everyone else; a defensive move to pre-empt criticism and being found wanting. Such Heads find it impossible to work as team members because they always want to be boss and they surround their membership with conditions, not being bound by the same ground rules as others – for instance, by allowing themselves intermittent membership. Yet unless everyone in the team is under the same constraints and duties there can be no team.

Many school ‘teams’ are ineffective simply because there is no equality of membership. In dynamic groups there are no predetermined leaders; leadership arises out of the work to be done.

Managerial Distancing

To work most effectively with a school, Heads must be able to distance themselves from it. A manager needs a sense of responsibility and dedication to a school as a job to be done, not as a self-indulgence. Schools pass through various stages of development which can be broadly described as stages of innovation and consolidation. The personal qualities of management required for each stage are different and therefore they require different kinds of person. A Head suitable for the innovation period will not be happy in the consolidation phase and vice versa.

Any one individual is unlikely to be suited to a given school for more than a certain period – probably about five to seven years because this is the time it takes by and large for each phase to run.

Management and Philosophy:

Thinking about oneself and the situation in which one is working is the most important managerial activity anyone can engage in. Organizational problems are the consequences of bad thinking, and the answers to organizational problems come only by restating and redefining the problems. The basic cause of stress is the effect that a single and inappropriate interpretation of a situation has upon our behaviour and feelings. A rethinking and restatement of the nature of that world changes the problem and with a continuous application of appraisal, the problem that began as intractable becomes soluble.

When individuals become stressed it is because they are locked into a single view of things which others do not share, and the more unrealistic the view the more personally oppressive it becomes. To prevent a view from becoming immutable we need to be open to feedback from others that confirms or dis-confirms our view but we cannot be open to the interpretation of other views if we are afraid of other people. Heads who set themselves apart from their colleagues do not hear the information they need and their false views lead to maverick behaviour.

Much stress can be avoided by thinking more carefully and sharing those thoughts creatively with respected, through not necessarily agreeing, colleagues.

Blaming Colleagues:

One of the frequent problems of Heads who do not give sufficient freedom and support to their colleagues is that they blame their colleagues for failures that may properly be theirs. It is not unknown for senior managers in any kind of organization to refuse to delegate properly and then to deny responsibility when something goes wrong.

Delegation is impossible without trust and the granting of freedom to perform the delegated tasks as the delegate sees fit.

There is a perpetual problem for many heads who feel that they can only delegate if there is the certainty of success. Perhaps it is a hangover from being overcautious with children, but many schools really do lack the atmosphere of trust that has to exist in organizations.

There are two issues. One is the extent of personal anxiety on the part of Heads who dare not trust their colleagues adequately, and the other is the Head’s ability to cope when let down. Of course, being let down is simultaneous with trust since there can be no trust if there is no risk; in trusting anyone we recognize the risk and assess our ability to cope if the colleague fails. Part of that coping must be the supporting of colleagues, not the reprimanding of them.

Some Heads fear to trust their colleagues with the consequences that their colleagues become less and less able to accept responsibility, thus increasing the burden of responsibility on the Head.

Ask yourself whether you really want to trust anyone else, or are you afraid of someone else becoming more knowledgeable or more powerful?

Sometimes Heads are too protective of their colleagues. Perhaps schools are too protective of their pupils and do not allow them fully the responsibilities they can handle. Certainly schools vary in the general level of risk-taking and protectiveness. Being overprotective creates a burden, too. Heads can become very paternalistic (both men and women heads) - especially towards young colleagues. Young teachers may seem little more than Xth graders, and may seem less sure of themselves.

A large school can have something of a family atmosphere about it with all the groups represented in all the adult states – married, single, divorced, gay, childless etc. If the family concept can be developed it is a positive force for emotional support. But it must be a very open and extended concept of the family, and not one in which the Head rules over as the patriarch or matriarch.

Being too protective and yet expecting too much can be a destructive experience, because no one else can be what we would like them to be. For some Heads, being protective is easier than sharing or delegating responsibility.

Relationships Outside the School:

Special Needs:

There are some areas of concern that fall to the Head almost exclusively. One is the relationship with the Education Department. The Head has a very particular relationship in these respects because of his or her legal position in the school and the view the Education Department takes of the Head as boss.

Avoid confrontation with people who are able to exercise power over you.

In organizations there are no realistic principles that are not ultimately pragmatic; that is, how to keep the school going with as little disturbance as possible. If we find ourselves constantly confronting others, we are probably wanting more from the school than it can cope with. Because schools exist for all their members and have to give some return for membership, they can only be successfully managed if they are limited to doing certain things while others are outside their dispatch.

 

A Head who is in constant conflict with the Education Department is probably going beyond what can be tolerated and can only expect some rejection and perhaps reprimand as a consequence.

Concern for Staff:

Another area of stress for a Head is the personal problems of his or her colleagues which have external implications. Occasionally teachers become involved with pupils in circumstances that require very delicate handling, but teachers have the same problems as other adults in their daily lives. Schools in practice exhibit the same social characteristics of other organizations, even if it is sometimes pretended they are more exemplary. Schools are no more highly ‘moral’ than are other kinds of organizations. Teachers do have divorce, engage in adulterous relationships, embezzle funds, steal from shops, sexually assault children and have incestuous relationships, with the same degree of incidence as society at large, so far as anyone can judge. Teachers experience the same domestic and personal tragedies as anyone else – death, injury, illness, financial disaster.

Whenever such personal problems surface, Heads have to deal with them directly, however distressing, and however well they may be prepared for the circumstance. In some ways, Heads are called upon to fulfil some of the functions of a minister of religion. They will at one time or another have to visit a bereaved spouse and perhaps several times in a career to visit grieving parents. Coming on top of the many other day-to-day pastoral concerns these events can be very distressing and very demanding. Heads require a great deal of help in the pastoral aspects of their job and this is the most neglected area of all in head-teacher training and support.

Being Yourself and Sustaining Yourself:

Personal Realism

In the end, our ability to deal with and even cope with the problems of being boss depends on the realism with which we understand ourselves. One of the first things Heads realize when they take up their first Headship is that they do not feel any different. Many Heads respond to their new job by trying to act out what they believe to be the appropriate behaviour for a Head. They role-play in terms of their private stereotype; and they physically dress the part by wearing the kinds of clothes they think Heads ought to wear. Not many Heads wear jeans even when some of their staff do!

But such role-playing is potentially stressful activity when the role does not come naturally – and even when it does there may be problems of self-deception. The fact is we cannot sustain a role based on what we believe we ought to be when our natural disposition draws in another direction.

Heads who cope well choose to ‘be themselves’ in the position, knowing that in this way they have greatest control over their behaviour and feelings. Trying to be what you are not is a recipe for disaster.

Successful managers do those things they know they do best and then find others to do the things they cannot do well.

So really, the self-image of the Head is paramount. There are, of course, no ‘correct’ ways of being a Head that can be determined from without the school. There is only the seeking of the best match between what you are and what you have to do. A realistic self-image means that you have a good idea of your strengths and weaknesses, are not over confident or too diffident, that you do not have a high opinion of your status and, more than anything else, that you do not take yourself too seriously. Unless you can, and do, laugh at yourself you will become unbearably stuffy.

Heads tend to expect too much of themselves and when they gather together they reinforce this expectation. Perhaps many Heads are over achievers; certainly some seem to seek continual justification. Some work too hard at activities external to the school; some neglect the school in their quest for confirmation by colleagues; some hide away from their incompetence by always being engaged elsewhere in or out of the school. In the end, a Head must face up to the school in terms of being only one resource person among many and set about the helping others to fulfil themselves so that the tasks of the school are equitably shared.

Pacing to avoid stress:

Everyone has to understand how we create meaning for ourselves in what we do and to acknowledge the significance timing has in our lives. For instance, some people are never late for a meeting while other are always late. We all of us have certain behaviour patterns that are predictable and characteristic. We each have certain pacings that characterize the way we do things, that are unique to us and may be at odds with other people’s. For example, some people are good at producing reports or discussion papers which they do with great facility. Others make very good verbal critiques of them while never actually writing anything down. Yet others are good at producing a second draft with second thoughts and they only do this after the first paper has been discussed. Such reactions are all part of our normal work pacing; some of us get to it at once, others at the last minute; some with great attention to detail and much research, other with broad conceptualization. Some Heads prepare for assemblies with great deliberation while others extemporize on topics they think of on the way from their study. Without clear understanding of our own pacing we will never be able to come to terms with the demands of any job we are given.

If we don’t understand how we pace ourselves we may panic too often or withdraw, simply because we have not been able to accept that our own way is legitimate so long as it works for us.

External Support:

Quite probably Heads seek the support of other Heads far too much. They are often observed in defensive groupings and when they meet together ostensibly for moral support, the effect is often one of exacerbating personal stress because Heads talk about schools and their own behaviour in highly normative ways. It is very difficult for a Head to ask for help on very personal and professional matters let alone matters of intimacy. The greatest fear of a Head (as of a teacher in the classroom) is any admission that they may not be coping. Yet large numbers of Heads do feel that they are not coping and they certainly do not receive the help they need.

By meeting with other Heads, they confirm their own way of looking at the world and become closed to other ways of seeing it. There are enormous pressures on schools to be alike. There is much talk of ‘good practice’ as if it were a universal truth and many assumptions about a ‘best’ way even when it is hinted that there may be others. The mere fact that alternatives are spoken of so cautiously indicates that there are doubts whether alternatives are quite proper. It is imperative for Heads to seek the company of managers from other professions. Management in education has been remarkable for its continued separation from other forms of management – business, commerce, industry. Perhaps Heads feel at a disadvantage that they do not speak the same language and have a fear that they are not interested enough in commercial considerations. The fact is that management ideas are universal and not only will Heads learn a lot from industry, but industry has a great deal to learn from education.

Counseling and Co-Counseling:

It is useful for Heads from time to time to undertake a course of personal therapy – limbering up for emotional fitness. Of course, teachers would benefit too by so doing, but for Heads it is most important. You cannot deal with other people’s problems unless you understand your own. Heads can be too eager to offer help because of their own hang-ups rather than out of their own emotional well being. Some Heads find that any one of the various courses of counsellor training are helpful and there is little doubt that counselling skills are the most useful of all management skills. Heads should take time out to reflect under guidance and in a learning group on their behaviour, perceptions and understandings.

Senior management requires considerable openness of mind if it is to cope with the varieties of expectation and viewpoints even among the teaching staff of the school. Some company directors employ a personal consultant with whom they can talk over all manner of problems and issues. The less the consultant knows about the business the better because one of his / her functions is to provide objectivity. Heads could usefully adopt this practice because it will be a long time before schools become organized in a truly collegial fashion. Even if Heads do not wish to be isolated, their staff may insist that they are.

Taken from: Teaching Without Stress, H. Gray & A. Freeman

 

A LEADER IS ….

A recent study was completed by the Franklin Covey Center for Research. The Center evaluated more than 37,000 responses to this question from people in organizations across the U.S. These responses were all received during 1997 and 1998. Most types of organizations were included as well as most levels of administration. Following is a summary of their responses. The categories were created by content analyzing all the responses. The percentages simply represent the percent of responses to each category. A Leader is One Who :

Effectively Communicates ..…………. 22.1%

Exhibits Integrity ……………………. 19.2%

Enjoys Teams …………….…………. 14.8%

Is Visionary ………………. …………. 10.2%

Makes Decisions ………….………….. 7.2%

Demonstrates Caring ……..…………. 5.6%

Always Models …………... …………. 5.5%

Shows dedication ………… …………. 5.3%

Effectively Motivates ……. …………. 3.8%

Exhibits Expertness ……… …………. 3.5%

Is Courageous …………….…………. 3.0%

It is always much easier to describe the desired characteristics of an ideal leader than to actually be one – especially if you are trying to be something you are really not down deep.

Great leaders are always who they really are. And that is exactly why they are great – they have become the best of who they are, but not different from it.

Material selected by: The Department of Human Resource Development, Bombay Cambridge Gurukul