Leadership Speech

This is a speech that I gave last year on leadership. Feel free to post comments on my philosphy expressed below.




It is patently obvious that society has become increasingly complex. Never in the history of mankind have we been bombarded with so much information so quickly. Nor, in the history of mankind, have we been faced with such quick, irregular, and non-linear change. In such an environment, sophisticated leadership is more important than ever.

Today, the leader is faced with a quandary: Failure to act when everything else is changing around you can lead to the death of an organization or a movement. On the other hand, acting too quickly, without proper information, can also be lethal. As Author Robert Steinberg has said: "The essence of intelligence would seem to be in knowing when to think and act quickly, and knowing when to think and act slowly” (cited in Fullan, p. x).

So, the question is “how does one lead in what Michael Fullan has deemed “’a culture of change’”? I would argue that, too often, the leaders we emulate are “take charge” individuals who exemplify the attitude expressed by U.S. Patriot, Thomas Payne of “Lead, follow, or get out of the way.” They are leaders like Winston Churchill, who can energize a nation in times of war or Mustafa Kemal Ataturk who can lead a nation to reform through forcible means. To this end, Leadership guru Ronald Heifetz (1994) has accused us of looking for the wrong kind of leaders, especially in times of crisis:

In a crisis…we call for someone with answers, decisions, strength, and a map of the future, someone who knows where we ought to be going – in short someone who can make hard problems simple…Instead of looking for saviors, we should be calling for leadership that will challenge us to face problems for which there are not simple, painless solutions – problems that require us to learn new ways p. 21).

These kinds of superhuman, charismatic, and energetic leaders to which Heifetz refers can be more damaging than beneficial. They lead us to sporadic progress and provide us with examples which very few of us can copy. Most of us cannot be like Winston Churchill. In fact, the British people were wise enough to realize that a leader who is effective in wartime may not be effective in times of peace and recovery. Mr. Churchill was not re-elected in 1945, immediately after World War II.

Likewise, these times do not call for leaders like Kemal Ataturk, who rule by decree. Yes, if you are strong enough and intimidating enough, people will do what you say. But such leadership does not foster commitment in others – it merely achieves compliance. Compliance does not lead to real change or a real sense of responsibility among people in organizations.

No, the complexity of our time does not call for demagogues, nor does it call for superheroes. Leadership, today, depends on individuals who can help get others to confront problems that have not been solved and which don’t have easy solutions – simply because real change depends on everyone, not a single, extraordinary individual.

In my view, the able leader is one who considers the opinions of his followers. Yes, leaders must have the inner strength and self-confidence to step into the unknown and persuade others to follow. However, this bold self-assurance must be tempered with a “decent doubt” – a humility to admit to being wrong and to acknowledge that others have good ideas – perhaps even better than one’s own. Leaders are not afraid of the strengths of others. The great industrialist, Andrew Carnegie, explicated this in his epitaph: “Here lies a man who attracted better people into his service than he was himself.” In fact, it could be said that the greatest task of a leader is encouraging and recognizing the accomplishments of others and embracing dissent. Any leader who does not put dissenters in his or her inner circle is probably doomed to groupthink mentality and assured of failure.

Finally, an effective leader comprehends that he has a much greater responsibility than self-service and self-aggrandizement. An effective leader acts with moral purpose, by this I mean –acting with the intention of making a positive difference in the lives of employees, customers, and society as a whole. A leader appreciates that he must sacrifice for the good of others and that his welfare is undeniably tied to the welfare of every individual in his community or organization. A leader endorses the notion of abolitionist Frederick Douglas that, “It is better to be part of a great whole than to be the whole of a small part.”

Time: The chief enemy of educational change

Time…even Einstein had a hard time explaining what it was. Despite our inability to define time, we can measure it more accurately than just about any quantity in the universe. No, we can’t define what it is, yet we all know we do not have enough of it, we want more of it, and we are willing to pay dearly for it. I’m coming to see time as the most crucial factor in educational reform.

In talking about restructuring, Neuman (2003) states that time is the most critical commodity when providing high-quality pre-kindergarten programs. We must catch “at risk” students early enough, in a full-day and full-year circumstance, in order to “close the achievement gap.” Fashola (2004) deals with the notion of time in a different way, pointing to program effectiveness, in part, depending upon faculty development. Of course, faculty development takes time out of the school day. In addition, true school reform may well take up to ten years to fully implement, and I would add, that the faculty needs to be involved in that process for a good bit of the time. Of course, too, time is a factor in the public schools' implementation of the federal No Child Left Behind (NCLB) legislation, as the patience that may be needed by the state and national governments will likely not be there to see any real improvement.

Even before I entered my doctoral program, I never felt I had enough time in the day to get things done. Every morning, I compile a list of items I hope to get to by the end of the day, and rarely do I get three-quarters of the way through that list. Whenever I read about comprehensive school reform measures, I always think about whether or not I’d be able to implement these plans in a school which I administrate. In fact, thinking about taking on one of those reform models makes my chest tighten with anxiety. The issue is not a matter of work or effort, but rather of time. I have no idea when I would find the time to implement any comprehensive and meaningful reform unless I were stripped of most of my other duties.

Similarly, with the central importance of faculty development in school improvement, I wonder how many systems would truly be willing to embrace, not just the financial burden of faculty development, but actually releasing teachers permanently from duties and classes so that they might have the time to embark upon some type of self-improvement process. Truly, when I think about my own harried days and the frenetic pace of most of our teachers, I believe that we might see remarkable improvement in the level of instruction if we simply gave teachers three classes and let them spend the rest of the time working to improve.

My wife currently teaches on “the block.” As a foreign language teacher, she misses the immersion that she used to have over the course of the year, but she sees a great benefit in a reduced class load. In a given class, she has more time to work through issues and student questions. Moreover, her extra time during the day allows her time to be creative. I don’t know what research there is to support this, and I know that one of the criticisms of block scheduling is that most teachers are not properly trained to use the increased length of the classes. However, that seems to reinforce my point above – that school systems are not willing to give teachers time to enact meaningful change.

It does irritate me to no end, though, that the the politicians and policy-makers have so little interest in an issue as big as time. Instead, they concern themselves with issues such as curriculum, with little regard as to whether they’ve given teachers the proper amount of time to do anything about it. Now, with the high-stakes testing movement in full swing, how many systems have spent considerable time making sure that teachers don’t abandon their curriculum and simply “drill and kill” to increase test scores? Or, I guess one could ask if many schools even care if teachers abandon the curriculum, as long as performance indicators look impressive to outside observers.

In my perfect educational world, first, we would make sure the proper time is spent with children in pre-kindergarten programs. Much more money would be spent on those programs, and we certainly wouldn’t see the budget slashing that’s going on currently in Georgia Pre-K. Secondly, teachers would teach only two to three classes a day (and as a side note, classes would be held to around 15-17 kids), and the rest of the time would be devoted to collaborative planning, literature review, research, and student evaluation. Teachers and administrators would be given time away from the classroom during the school year, and year-long sabbaticals would be encouraged. Of course, all of that also takes another abstract, precious commodity: money. However, the reality is that money shouldn’t be an inhibiting factor in the wealthiest nation in the world which claims to value education.

At Walker, our teachers do not have three classes -- they have five. However, one of the best aspects of the school is the money and time devoted to faculty development. Teachers are encouraged to get out of their classrooms, and I don't know of another school which provides such lavish financial resources for faculty development. Generally, too, teachers' student load is much, much smaller than would be afforded in public school. This, I believe, does result in teachers having to spend less time grading and affords more time for planning, creativity, and reflection. I would argue that it's not merely that students get more attention in smaller classes, but the teachers have more time to develop a quality learning environment.

Regardless, I know one thing: when I get incredibly stressed, it is usually because of a lack of time. There is no doubt in my mind that the stress that time causes makes me a much less effective educator. Give me more time, and I guarantee you that I will do more for our children.


Neuman, S.B. (2003). From rhetoric to reality: The case of high-quality compensatory prekindergarten programs. Phi Delta Kappan, 85(4), 286 – 291.

Fashola, O. S. (March 2004). Being an informed consumer of quantitative educational research . Phi Delta Kappan, 88, 532-538.