Background

Introduction

The Leadership Framework has developed a life of its own with the proactive and collaborative involvement of the Leadership Centre, the Department of Education and Training, the Professional Associations and the Australian Education Union, about the nature and use of leadership competencies and standards.

Research indicates that quality leadership in schools makes a difference in student achievement and assisting staff to implement change. The roles and responsibilities of school leaders are affected constantly by social and environmental issues, workplace demands, changing family structures, rapid technological change and cultural diversity. School leaders require competencies that enable them to meet the challenges posed by the dynamic contexts that currently exist.

Developing and supporting standards for leaders is an important element in influencing the community's perception of government schools by the community. There is a recognised need from within the profession to take responsibility for setting high standards, to be accountable for the maintenance of these standards and to monitor performance against such standards. The Leadership Framework may be used by the profession and the system to develop a shared understanding of the qualities required for good school leadership for the 21st century where ongoing growth and development is both desirable and valued.

The Leadership Framework represents the culmination of research completed by Professor Bill Louden and Dr Helen Wildy of Edith Cowan University and by Murdoch University, data collected in the field by the Leadership Centre, and a final draft completed by Middle Swan PS Principal, Kim Dullard, whilst on secondment to the Department. The Leadership Framework has been developed through an extensive analysis of national and international competency frameworks. The Leadership Centre has been vigilant in ensuring that the development of the Leadership Framework has involved wide consultation and has evolved and come from within the profession.

Department of Education and Training (DOE) Workforce Development funds were recently made available to refine the process to ensure that the competency component making it accessible, manageable and meaningful to administrators. To this end the Leadership Centre utilised the services of Dr Helen Wildy and Professor Bill Louden from the Institute for the Service Professions at Edith Cowan University to develop the competency component of the framework informed by seminars with key stakeholders.

What is the Leadership Framework?

The Leadership Framework is a document based on a self-reflective model. It is a tool for school leaders to use to review their role and practice to enhance their continual development, and to assist in designing professional learning plans based on individual needs. The Leadership Framework is constructed with four underpinning assumptions and is made up of two essential components.

Underpinning Assumptions

One: The Leadership Framework articulates the professional values, knowledge, attributes and skills essential for all school leaders, regardless of schooling contexts. The competencies are generic and may be applied to different contexts in which leaders may be operating.

Two: The competencies listed in the Leadership Framework have been extracted from research and represent one way of describing effective school leadership in a Western Australian context.

Three: The competencies are interrelated and the connections between them are complex and difficult to describe. A competency that relates to visionary leadership or effective management does not stand alone in the context of a school leader's role but combines with other qualities to form a suite of dimensions that holistically work together to create a basis for good leadership. The Framework does not privilege one particular attribute, characteristic or competency over another. It deconstructs the key elements of effective educational leadership and management to identify specific skills, abilities, knowledge and understandings with a view to monitoring continuous improvement.

Four: The leadership of learning and teaching in a changing societal and educational context is the conceptual basis for the construct of the Leadership Framework. The effective facilitation of developmentally appropriate knowledge, skills and values to students requires a team effort from school staff. To be the motivator, mentor, support and visionary in learning and teaching, the school leader must model the role of lead learner and lead teacher to have credibility with staff, students and parents. The school leader must constantly challenge educational plans and proposals, creating school cultures where debate and collegial networking focus on pedagogy and learning. Cultural change involves all stakeholders, and it must be recognized that school leaders also have an educative role that is wider than the school which means that school communities need to be empowered to engage in decision making about learning and teaching.

Essential Components

Competencies and standards are two halves of an essential conceptual pair. Without explicit competencies, it is unclear what variations in performance are about. Without explicit standards, it is not clear what achieving the competencies would look like. Developing the standards to fit with the competencies is a larger, much more complex task. Although ideally the two concepts ought to be presented together, the standards have yet to be developed.

What are competencies? Competencies tell us, amongst all tasks and responsibilities required of school leaders, really matters. Competencies include those attributes, values, skills, understandings and knowledge that make a difference in a leader's performance. However, the competencies are only one part of the Leadership Framework.

What are standards? The second part is the standards. Standards show how those competencies vary, what they look like in practice, in a range of contexts, from highly accomplished to adequate to just getting by. It is the standards that illustrate performance at different levels.

2002 Research and Development

So far, the Leadership Centre has developed the competency component of the Leadership Framework. The description of competencies is made up of two parts: Characteristics of School Leaders (Attributes, Values, Knowledge) and Competencies of School Leadership (Policy and Direction, Teaching and Learning, Staff, Partnerships, Resources). As outlined in the assumptions, a competency or characteristic does not stand alone in the context of a school leader's role but combines with other competencies or characteristics to create a basis for good leadership.

Consultation with the broader profession has ensured that the competencies are grounded in practitioners' work, are credible, and are recognised and owned by the profession.

The pointers below will help administrators apply the framework as a tool for self-reflection and to guide professional learning.

The Leadership Framework document contains four sections:

A diagram (downloadable here) to show the connection between the competency component and the standards component and the parts of each. This is a coloured diagram not unlike the diagram used to show the Curriculum Framework and the relationship between its parts.
Characteristics of School Leaders (green pages) where the attributes, values and knowledge underlying school leadership are introduced and explained.
Competencies of School Leadership (downloadable here) (pink pages) where the competencies are described as critical elements and indicators.
Tool for Self-Reflection (downloadable here) (blue pages) where a series of questions relating to each critical element are posed to stimulate reflection on practice.

If you would like to find out more about the Leadership Framework, or if you would like to organise an information session for your collegiate or cell group, please contact Principal Consultant of the Leadership Centre, on 9242 6897 for further information.

Competencies

Competencies tell us, amongst all tasks and responsibilities required of school leaders, really matters. Competencies include those attributes, values, skills, understandings and knowledge that make a difference in a leader's performance. However, the competencies are only one part of the Leadership Framework.

Characteristics

Attributes

Fair
Supportive
Collaborative
Decisive
Flexible
Tactful
Innovative
Persistent

Values

Learning
Care
Excellence
Equity

Knowledge

Pedagogy
Curriculum
Legislation
Policies
Change Management
Technologies
Stakeholders

Attributes

The competencies for school leadership are underpinned by the following personal attributes. The attributes relate to what leaders need to demonstrate in all decision making, discussions and actions in government schools. Research has shown that these are the key attributes for effective school leadership.

It is important to emphasise that good performance is not characterised by the exercise of any one attribute in isolation. Rather it is the way in which the attributes are exercised in combination. For example, if tactfulness is out of equilibrium with decisiveness, it could impede action being taken. Similarly, if decisiveness is out of equilibrium with persistence and collaborating, then performance could be adversely affected. Often there is a tension between attributes which needs to be balanced to achieve good performance.

Attribute	Description
Fair	Fairness is the inclination and ability to be just and impartial in handling school affairs supported by a close alignment with actions with stated policy.
Supportive	Being supportive involves showing an understanding of others perspectives and providing practical and symbolic help when necessary.
Collaborative	Collaboration describes the inclination and ability to cooperate or work with others in the accomplishment of a task.
Decisive	Decisiveness entails the ability to recognise when a decision is required immediately.
Flexible	Flexibility is characterised by a receptiveness to new ideas and change when dealing with school affairs.
Tactful	Exercising tact entails a capacity to perceive the needs, concerns and personal problems of others; skill in resolving conflicts, tact in dealing with people from different backgrounds, ability to deal effectively with people concerning emotional issues; knowing what to communicate and to whom.
Innovative	Being innovative is characterised by the ability to discover new solutions to problems or find new modes of approaching issues.
Persistent	Persistence is the inclination and ability to continue with an endeavour until goals have been accomplished.

Values

The competencies for school leadership are underpinned by the following professional values. The professional values relate to what leaders need to demonstrate in all decision making, discussions and actions in government schools.

Value	Description
Learning	School leaders have a positive approach to learning and encourage it in others. School leaders support systems of school and classroom organization which promote the development of self-directed and lifelong learning.
Care	School leaders treat all individuals with care and ensure teaching and learning strategies that embody the concepts of access, equity and inclusion are enacted within the school.
Excellence	School leaders set high standards of excellence and strive to achieve them through reflective practice and ongoing professional growth.
Equity	School leaders value the benefits associated with a diverse school community and promote a workplace that is free of discrimination, abuse or exploitation.

Knowledge

Professional knowledge relates to the body of understandings that leaders need to have to make sound decisions about educating students.

Knowledge Area	Description
Pedagogy	Effective school leaders require a knowledge of pedagogy and educational theory which enables them to present and transform the practice of staff to be responsive to the individual characteristics of learners, curricula and teaching environments.
Curriculum	Effective school leaders require a knowledge of relevant curriculum documents, including the structure and function of the Western Australian Curriculum Framework, and the ability to assess and debate critically such documents, their rationales, philosophies and perspectives.
Legislation	Effective school leaders require a knowledge of legislation, including the School Education Act 1999, the Public Sector Management Act 1994, Public Sector Standards in Human Resource Management, Equal Opportunity Act 1984 and the Financial Administration Audit Act.
Policies	Effective school leaders require a knowledge of Department of Education policies and guidelines related to education programs and services.
Change Management	Effective school leaders require a knowledge of change-management processes and practices.
Technologies	Effective school leaders require a knowledge of appropriate technologies.
Stakeholders	Effective school leaders require a knowledge of the roles of parents and other caregivers in schooling in terms of both the education of students and school operations.

Self-reflection Questions.

Critical Elements	Description	Questions
Fair	Fairness is the ability and inclination to apply principles of equal opportunity and natural justice while taking into account all contextual factors.	How do you ensure that you are just and impartial in your handling of school affairs? To what extent are your actions are aligned with stated policy? Give examples.
Supportive	Being supportive involves showing an understanding of others perspectives and providing practical and symbolic help when necessary.	Describe how you acknowledge the perspectives of others in the school community? Give an example of how you have provided practical and/or symbolic help when required.
Collaborative	Collaboration describes the inclination and ability to cooperate or work with others in the accomplishment of a task.	To what extent do you cooperate and work with others to accomplish tasks?
Decisive	Decisiveness entails the ability to recognise when a decision is required immediately.	How do you know when decisive action is required?
Flexible	Flexibility is characterised by a receptiveness to new ideas and change when dealing with school affairs.	To what extent are you receptive to new ideas? Describe how you deal with change in the school environment?
Tactful	Exercising tact entails a capacity to perceive the needs, concerns and personal problems of others; skill in resolving conflicts, tact in dealing with people from different backgrounds, ability to deal effectively with people concerning emotional issues; knowing what to communicate and to whom.	What strategies do you use to resolve conflicts in the school community? Describe how you deal with people from different backgrounds? Describe how you deal with people concerning emotional issues?
Innovative	Being innovative is characterised by the ability to discover new solutions to problems or find new modes of approaching issues.	To what extent are you able to discover new solutions to problems? Give examples.
Persistent	Persistence is the inclination and ability to continue with an endeavour until goals have been accomplished.	Describe an example of how you have overcome setbacks to continue with an endeavour until its goals were accomplished.

Standards

During 2003 the Leadership Centre in partnership with the Department of Education and Training, and Murdoch and Edith Cowan Universities developed the Leadership Framework.

This consortium has been successful in obtaining highly competitive Australian Research Council (ARC) funding, with additional financial support from the Department of Education and Training to further develop the standards component of the Leadership Framework. The Commonwealth Minister for Education, Brendan Nelson, congratulated Associate Professor Helen Wildy and the consortium in responding with an excellent proposal as it met the Commonwealth Government's identified areas of existing or emerging research strength. Professors Bill Louden and David Andrich are joint chief investigators for this ARC Linkage grant.

Many Western Australian Government aspirants and school leaders have already experienced the professional learning opportunities associated with the research and development of the competency component of the Leadership Framework. They have found these activities a rich opportunity to reflect on their practice as well as providing a valuable experience in working with colleagues.

Earlier work generated the attributes of school leaders. This new phase extended that to the development of the standards (levels of performance) of those attributes as they exist within diverse contexts.

To this end the Leadership Centre would like to offer professional development opportunities to colleagues within the field particularly those organising district and professional association meetings and conferences.

If you are in the process of planning conferences and meetings and would like to access this opportunity, please contact the Leadership Centre on 9242 6897 to schedule a presentation.