Leadership studies have a long tradition. O'Toole (1995), in reviewing and comparing ideas about basic philosophies of leadership, begins with the ideas of Plato and Confucius. He draws the conclusion that one model of leadership, that of the "strong leader", has dominated the thinking of society and that model has become part of our cultural conditioning. He affirms:

He argues that although society has tolerated and endorsed other forms of leadership, "when push comes to shove, the two-thousand-year-old attitude about the superiority of strongmen emerges from the collective unconscious" (p. 90). If that assessment is accurate, then it is little wonder that schools intent on implementing team leadership and moving to shared decision-making and collaborative work cultures are experiencing difficulty.

This paper is a description of one school's attempt to move away from the model of the principal as "the solo act" and "the strong leader" to one in which shared decision-making is emphasized, where teachers are expected to assume the role of leader, and formal leaders therefore to act as leaders of leaders. The findings of this study support O'Toole's conclusion that such a movement is difficult, forcing participants to challenge their old mental models of what leadership is and how it is practised. This is understandable for it challenges the cultural norms that determine the role and function of both administrators and teachers.

As Brown (1993) discovered in her study of ten secondary schools, there is a major division in schools between administrators and teachers. Classroom teachers, departments heads, guidance counsellors, special education teachers, other curriculum resource teachers, and teacher-librarians, all see themselves as teachers, not administrators. The use of the terms "leader" or "leadership" is problematic in educational research, in that teachers also tend to associate these terms with formal leaders (administrators) and administration (Brown, 1993). Therefore, teachers, regardless of their role, do not tend to identify or to describe themselves as leaders. In this paper, an attempt is being made to close the gap between these two major divisions, to examine and discuss the roles of both formal (administrators) and informal (teachers) leaders.

Red River Elementary School¹ is a kindergarten to grade six school with 450 students and a staff of 28 teachers, with one full time administrative unit which is shared between the principal and the vice principal. It is next door to Red River Junior High School, a modern building which draws approximately 470 students for grades 7 to 9 from various schools. The school is served by a district office that is responsible for a large geographical area based in the town of Red River. Recently Red River Elementary has experienced a large turnover in staffing with 60% of the staff having taught there less than three years. Students range in socio economic background from upper middle class to poor. The school is located in a town that is also the local area service center.

Red River Elementary² has made substantial gains in moving towards a collaborative work environment. The principal, Mrs. Senior, described how, ten years earlier, there were two distinct staffs, primary and elementary, who did not even talk to one another:

Mrs. Senior, who was the vice-principal for most of these ten years, worked hard with the principal at the time and several other staff members, to bring teachers together. It began with social events, such as brunches, cross-country skiing outings, and supper parties. Staff meetings became opportunities to share coffee and muffins. As soon as space became available, a classroom was renovated to make a large staff room, big enough to accommodate the whole staff. Mrs. Senior reflects:

In the previous two years, the school had been involved with multiple initiatives. The main ones were:

Stage One: New Beginnings for Leadership

The school had already experienced a failed first attempt at a formal School Improvement process a few years earlier. One teacher commented that it never really got off the ground, so a new approach was begun after a four-member Leadership Team (vice-principal and three teachers) attended a district sponsored Leadership Institute in the last week of August, just prior to school re-opening. When school began in September, an invitation was extended to other teachers to join the Team, and two volunteered. With the addition of the principal, a seven-member Leadership Team was formed in the school.

The staff decided to become part of the Team Leadership project, a continuation from the August Institute. In a staff leadership survey administered at that time, 92% of the respondents strongly agreed with the statement: "Teachers work in teams with colleagues across grade levels in our school" and 100% described their school as participatory, democratic, and collaborative. Eighty-four percent of the respondents attributed "a lot" of leadership coming from a committee composed of administrators and teachers. With such results, it was felt that the school was a likely site for successful team leadership. There was considerable evidence of the existence of a culture that would support such leadership, illustrated by this remark by one teacher immediately following the Leadership Institute:

Therefore, at the beginning of the new school year in Stage One, Red River Elementary appeared to be positioned to move towards a decentralized leadership approach and shared decision-making. The principal, who described herself as a collaborative leader, demonstrated a commitment to shared decision-making and an enlarged role for the Leadership Team. Although she had missed attending the Leadership Institute due to a prior family commitment, she was briefed by her vice-principal and independently read all the reading material from the Institute. She was willing to try new forms of leadership, including the use of a Leadership Team, and had agreed to the idea that the chair for Leadership Team meetings would rotate (a suggestion made in one of the Institute readings). The principal, vice-principal, and two of the teachers on the Team, kept journals for the first four months after the Leadership Institute. An examination of entries made by all four in the first two months reveals contrasting views between administrators and teachers, a significant finding which will be explored more deeply in this paper.

Although the principal had endorsed the Leadership Team, she was sceptical about the idea of a rotating chair. She was willing to give it a try, but she was doubtful about its potential -- in her journal she noted that it may "possibly" work, but "I think we will find that 'the Principal' will have to act as the chairperson continually out of necessity. But we'll see." Six week later , in her journal, she was sceptical about the whole concept of a Leadership Team and questioned its applicability to a school:

To add to her problems, the members of the Leadership Team had made a decision that their only committee work would be that of being a member of the Team. Mrs. Senior was forced to soon question the wisdom of that decision.

The problem was that there were numerous other school committees but all her best leaders were on the Leadership Team. She began to be plagued by self-doubt, seeing herself as less effective as a leader. She began to question the whole Team Leadership initiative:

Nor was she alone in her concerns. The vice-principal, also a member of the Leadership Team, had similar concerns:

She was also feeling overwhelmed:

However, the teachers were seeing things differently. A teacher on the Leadership Team was much more positive: "Our principal also said we will all take turns chairing our committee meetings. I really feel a sense of being an active participant in decision making." At the end of two months, when the two administrators are questioning the whole process, the same teacher observed: "Our voice truly counts in these meetings and all sides are weighed. Our principal really does sit back, listen and value our input." Another teacher on the Team who kept a journal was also positive about the whole process and had begun to assume responsibility outside her own classroom. After having attended a conference on global education on behalf of the school, she commented that school-wide leadership for this initiative would work, that leadership "will filter down from the leadership team."

By Spring, the Leadership team had worked out their roles and Team members were assuming a major leadership role in the school. The idea of a rotating chair for the Team had been dropped by the previous Christmas. There was agreement for this move. One teacher member of the Leadership Team recorded in her journal that much of the work of the Committee was driven by "directives" from outside the school, and therefore it made sense to have the principal assume the chair permanently:

Time was indeed a concern, for the school was a busy place, with a complicated committee structure coordinated through the Leadership Team. The way to have ongoing consultation with teachers and involve them in the decision-making process was seen as through committees. Separate committees were already in existence from previous years for: Primary, Elementary, Global Education, Enrichment, Extra Curricular, Student Evaluation, Public Relations/Yearbook, Social, Learning Resources/Technology, Mathematics, Science, Health, and Spelling. Each of the seven members of the Leadership Team were chairing one or more of the school's major committees. The Principal expressed satisfaction with the coordination through the Leadership Team, because she felt it provided good communication between the Team and all the Committees. However, scheduling in order to accommodate the members and also to allow the principal to attend as many different meetings as possible, became complicated. The first Monday of each month was for staff meetings, the second week was used for committee meetings, with different committees meeting on different days, allowing the principal to attend them all. The third Monday of the month was used for an extra staff meeting if needed, and the fourth Monday was for grade level meetings (as needed). The principal and vice-principal devised a committee reporting form designed to record the actions undertaken and decisions made for every committee meeting. These forms were to be passed in to the principal, who would read them all (to keep herself informed) and then file them in a section of the School Profile binder.

The Principal, aware that the members of the Team were full time teachers and received no release time to undertake extra responsibilities, thought it ought to be her role to undertake actions that were necessary but would be extra work for teachers. The result for the principal, and many of the teachers, was that almost every afternoon was blocked with after school meetings. To catch up on administrative work, the principal admitted that she was back in her office most nights: Monday to Thursday evenings until 10 or 11 p.m., except for two Tuesday nights a month which she and the vice-principal took off to attend a Women's Group, and she usually also worked a half-day on Saturday and/or Sunday, depending on the amount of work piled up. The work was such that seldom, she explained, was she the only one back after hours; often the vice-principal was, and some other teachers.

Some teachers felt that there was a change in the leadership approach in the school. One teacher commented: "There has been a move away from top-down leadership to consensual decision-making where all staff are involved." Although teachers generally felt that their voices were being heard and they were included more in the decision-making process, this was especially true for those teachers who were on the leadership team. One such teacher, when asked if she saw herself as a leader, commented:

The role of the principal was seen by a staff member as changing with the introduction of a Leadership Team:

A veteran teacher in the school commented, "There is not as much one-sided information sharing. It has been more collaborative and getting concerns from the staff."

A year later, an interview with the principal revealed that committees were still functioning and the Leadership Team, meeting twice a month, coordinated the committee activities. The principal still tried to attend all meetings, for as she explained: "I do go, I like to keep my finger on things, that's my option though. They go and take care of it. I don't feel obligated to go to all of them. I do try, but they know it's their responsibility." No new initiatives had been introduced, although the principal had undertaken to work closely with parents, attempting to establish a school council. Parents and students were involved with the school council steering committee, the discipline committee, and the global education committee. The principal explained that the Leadership Team had been trying to decide where to focus their energies. The members of the Team had developed a democratic way to choose "which initiatives to keep an eye on" (through chairing the appropriate committee).

There was no doubt but that the principal was proud of Red River Elementary. She took pride in the fact that the school tried "a lot of things because we're interested in breaking with tradition". One such example was the global education initiative which was wanted by all the staff, Mrs. Senior felt, because "We are constantly looking at such things." She concluded, "I would say we are probably the most nontraditional school" in the district.

The question of concern in this study, however, was whether or not the leadership initiative had made a difference in leadership approach and in shared decision making in the school. To obtain an answer to that question, the principal and one teacher were asked, during separate interviews, to sketch a diagram to show how leadership looked in the school. The principal's sketch revealed that collaboration and shared decision making existed, but only within the parameters of the traditional hierarchy. Although her illustration was that of an interactive web which included parents, students, teachers, and administrators, the principal's role was shown as traditional, for as she said: "I'm the ultimate decision maker, I have to be. I'm part of the team, but eventually I'm the one who has to make the decisions. The buck stops with me." She placed herself in the center of the Leadership Team's circle. She noted that the vice-principal's role was important in making decisions but it is interesting to observe how the vice-principal's role supported the traditional role of the principal:

The vice-principal had no problem with this role, for as she explained, while discussing the use of consensus in staff meetings, "Regardless of the procedure, the Principal is ultimately accountable and has final say."

Within this traditional role, Mrs. Senior explained that she consulted with the Leadership Team, that when items came across her desk, "Then I'll go to the Team and ask what they think." This, she explained, was a change in her way of consulting with teachers: "Now I bounce it off the Leadership Team but before I would bounce it off the entire staff." The new process, then, was seen by the principal as one in which there has been an extra step created between her and the staff . That extra step, she felt, caused her to be frustrated during the previous fall, when she was trying to understand and introduce the concept of a Leadership Team in the school. Prior to this, her leadership approach was to first discuss things with the vice-principal, then take it directly to the full staff. Now she consulted with both the vice-principal and the Leadership Team prior to taking matters to the full staff. Therefore, she concluded that a Leadership Team was probably not necessary nor needed. She felt she could "live with" such a Team since, as she explained, "I think they've helped me do what I normally would have done." Although she recognized a slight shift in leadership approach, she did not see that it contributed to better decision making: "I felt we were there before we ever went to a Leadership Team Approach. I really did."

Teachers, however, did not see it this way. In sharp contrast to the principal's perception, another member of the leadership team, a teacher leader, interviewed at the same time as the principal, saw leadership as more equalitarian. In his discussion of schoolwide leadership, he limited his discussion to leadership for curriculum delivery. In his sketch of leadership in the school, curriculum was placed in the centre, surrounded by a group of co-workers (principal, teacher-librarian, classroom teachers, special services teacher), all of whom delivered the curriculum to the students who were placed in an outer circle. The co-workers within the circle were closely connected, although some individuals were more closely connected to some colleagues than to others. He saw leadership being provided by "a group of equals working to deliver the curriculum" with the emphasis on the student:

This close examination of implementation at Red River Elementary reveals that team leadership is much more complicated than it first appears. One of the most serious problems for educational researchers seeking to understand the process of implmentation of such a concept is that of incompatibility in the perceptions of the degree of shared decision-making actually taking place. There is no doubt but that the principal was a key player in introducing the concept, and that she has struggled and worked hard at trying to understand it and to implement it. What is noteworthy, however, is that she was never convinced of a need to change the leadership structure in the school, nor did she seem to question her own conception of her role as principal . Describing herself as a collaborative and consultative leader from the very beginning, she did not appear to see a contradiction between that image and the other image she later paints of herself as "the ultimate decision maker". In fact, she has never really challenged the old ways of making decisions in the school. Why then did she participate in the Team Leadership Initiative? In her interviews, she provides two reasons: first, she wanted to cooperate and be involved with what is a district endorsed initiative, for she wanted her school, Red River Elementary, to be on the leading edge of innovation in the district; and second, as a professional, she wanted to the best principal she could be, and was willing to try new leadership approaches. Although she was doubtful about its use and potential, she did put a Leadership Team in place, but as she herself admitted, it was initially a source of frustration. At the end of the first year, a Leadership Team was in place and its role mainly revolved around the coordination of committees within the school. In the principal's view, it had strengthened and reinforced the old way of doing business, which was making the committees work better. However, the principal felt that nothing had really changed except that, before going to the whole staff, the Leadership Team advised her rather than her having to rely solely on the advice of the vice-principal. Mrs. Senior remains, at least in her own view and that of her vice-principal, the ultimate decision-maker.

Yet, many of the teachers see things differently. Throughout this process, in their survey responses, their journals, and their interviews, they revealed that they perceive the teachers' role in decision-making as having been enlarged. Eight of the ten teachers interviewed reiterated the same message, that they were consulted, that they did have "a great deal to say over those matters which our school controls". Of the two who expressed negative views, one teacher responded, "In some areas, all teachers are given a chance to voice their opinion; other areas not, it seems that administrators decide what gets opened up for discussion." The other, when asked if decisions are reached in a collaborative matter, simply answered, "No, top down."

What can we make of the differences in the perceptions of the administrators and teachers? Are teachers influencing the decision making process as much as they think? Is the principal really the ultimate decision maker in the school? Is she collaborative and consultative? Can she be both? What, if anything, has anything really changed in decision making in the school? There was increased teacher involvement through membership on the Leadership Team, but most teachers' input continued to be through committees, the same as it had been before the Leadership Team was formed. The teachers on the Leadership Team, because they were better informed and met with the Principal regularly, felt that they were influencing decision making in the school. Whose perceptions are accurate?

At least two different interpretations can be offered. It can be argued that rather than a decision-making role, the teachers on the Leadership Team have been coopted by the administration to assume a monitoring and administrative role, as they monitor committee activities, report back on it to the principal, and generally facilitate the committee work as chairpersons. Although everyone is working extremely hard and feeling the time pressures from all the committee and Leadership Team meetings, this would suggest that the power relationship between the administrators and the teachers have remained basically unchanged. Now, instead of one vice-principal acting as a "sounding board" between the principal and the whole staff, the Principal can use the six people on the Leadership Team for that purpose. The difference between being a "sounding board" and a genuine participant in shared decision-making is immense. The result is that the principal remains the " ultimate decision maker." But this interpretation does not appear to consistent with the survey data, in which 100% of the respondents described this school as "participatory, democratic, and collaborative."

But maybe there is another interpretation that could explain this difference in perception. Maybe Mrs. Senior believes that as "the principal", the formal leader, she ought to be "the ultimate decision maker", and is uncomfortable admitting even to herself, and certainly to outsiders (in this instance, university researchers) that she depends on others to help her make the best decisions. Maybe Mrs. Senior is, in practice, actually "collaborative and consultative" (as she claims to be) and maybe she does, in fact, rely on shared decision making with the Leadership Team and the rest of the staff to a greater degree than her responses in this study would suggest. Mrs. Senior, like many other formal leaders, may very well hold, buried deep in her unconscious mind, an unexamined, tacit view of leadership such as the model described by O'Toole and quoted in the introduction of this paper: the model of leadership as "a solo act" by the "strong leader. " Perhaps Mrs. Senior's own self-doubts about leadership are being revealed in her responses in this study. Can it be that, wanting to give the appearance of being a strong leader to outsiders, she feels compelled to draw on the notion of being the strong, solo leader, the ultimate decision maker? If this is the case, then the teachers' perceptions may indeed be more accurate, and shared decision making may indeed be stronger in the school than the first interpretation would suggest. The inconsistency between administrators' and teachers' perceptions might therefore be explained as the difference between the principal's explicit theory (in which the principal describes herself as collaborative and actually acts that way in practice) and her tacit theory (in which she sees herself as the ideal principal: the ultimate decision maker; the strong, solo leader). This explanation is more consistent with the responses in the staff survey.

There is insufficient evidence to strongly support either interpretation. What is clear is that understanding such a process requires intimate knowledge of the context: the people, the process, the culture. It reveals that implementation and change of leadership approach is a complex process, not transparent even to those involved. This single case study raises interesting questions that can guide future work. Such questions include:

• Are teachers who normally do not see themselves as leaders easily coopted into a facilitative rather than a decision-making role? Or is the facilitative role a valid form of leadership and instrumental in shared decision making? How do teachers define genuine decision-making? Do teachers have low expectations for their role in school-wide decision-making, willing to settle for less than full participation, since they do not see themselves as leaders? What does full participation in school wide decision making look like in practice? What images do teachers have of teacher leaders engaged in shared decision making?


 

• What images do principals have of shared decision making? Are principals bounded by traditional, tacit models of leadership, of leadership as a "solo act" of the "strong" leader? If so, what support do they need to challenge their traditional, tacit view of being the ultimate decision maker? Are there differences between principals' tacit and explicit theories of leadership?


 
• How do school practitioners (administrators and teachers) find the time to engage in genuine shared decision-making?

 

Conclusion

It is clear from the case study of Red River Elementary that moving towards team leadership and shared decision making is complex and extremely personal. If Red River Elementary is to engage in genuine shared decision-making, Mrs. Senior and the teachers on staff must re-examine the role of committees in decision-making, and discuss frankly the expectations of administrations and teachers surrounding leadership roles. It appears that there is a strong interest in collaboration and shared decision-making in Red River Elementary, but an uncertainty of what this looks like in practice. This case reveals that we cannot assume that those who are willing to explore the potential of team leadership will be able to make such shifts in leadership approach without effort or difficulty. It illustrates that such a leadership model will require participants to challenge their old mental models of what leadership is and how it is practised. Understandably, successful implementation of shared decisionmaking and team leadership is difficult for it challenges the cultural norms that have determined models of leadership in schools for the past century.

  REFERENCES  

Brown, J. (Jan-Feb, 1993). Leadership for School Improvement. Emergency Librarian, 20 (3), 8-20.

O'Toole, J. (1995). Leading Change. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

  NOTES  

1. Red River is a fictitious name. To protect confidentiality, names have been changed.

2. This case study was conducted over a two year period, with site visits, institute interventions, interviews, observations, and document analysis (including journal analysis).