The document discusses school culture and the role of leadership in shaping culture. It defines culture as the shared values, beliefs, and practices within a school. School culture is transmitted through both visible artifacts and underlying assumptions. The document outlines that effective leaders shape culture by understanding the current culture, assessing which elements support the school's mission, and reinforcing positive aspects while transforming negative ones. A positive culture has characteristics like leadership, celebration of success, honesty and participation, while a negative culture exhibits weaknesses like lack of direction and trust. The biggest influence on culture is the priorities and behaviors modeled by school leaders.
2. Aims
What is school culture ?
The impact of culture
Leadership and School Culture –your
context
Leading my School Culture
3. The challenge for leaders is to go beyond a focus on
day-to-day management concerns and crises and to
focus on the larger purpose of work and of the
institution in which the work is carried out…The
deeper and more important task is to give passionate,
relentless attention to mission and purpose, continually
seeking ways to offer the gift of significance to one's
constituents.”
-Bolman and Deal, Leading with Soul
4.
“The bottom line for leaders is
that if they do not become
conscious of the cultures in which
they are embedded, those
cultures will manage them.”
Edgar H. Schein, 2004
5. What do we mean by school
culture ?
If a teacher walked into a school , how would
they “pick up” the culture ?
Culture is the most powerful source of
leverage for bringing about change in a
school – or any organization, for that matter.
Thomas J. Sergiovanni
6. Culture – a Definition
“The collection of relatively uniform and enduring
values, beliefs, customs, traditions and practices
that are shared by an organisation’s members,
learned by the new recruits and transmitted from
one generation of employees to the next” Edgar
Schein
“The way we do things around here…”
“The collective programming of the mind”
7. A set of common understandings around which action is
organized, . . . finding expression in language whose
nuances are peculiar to the group (Becker and Geer
1960).
A set of understandings or meanings shared by a group of
people that are largely tacit among members and are
clearly relevant and distinctive to the particular group
which are also passed on to new members (Louis 1980).
A system of knowledge, of standards for perceiving,
believing, evaluating and acting . . . that serve to relate
human communities to their environmental settings (Allaire
and Firsirotu 1984).
8. What are the challenges you face in the
current climate in maintaining the
culture of your school?
What are the cultural changes that are
taking place within the school context
because of external factors?
9. Three Levels of Culture
Artifacts
Espoused Values
Underlying Assumptions
10. Level One
What you might see on your
first visit – first impressions
Level Two
Values, beliefs, “the way
things should be done”
These are “testable” in the
physical environment
Level Three
Fundamental beliefs about
school, students, etc.
Reason for being
Three Levels of Culture
11. “The way we do things around
here!”
(Bower, 1966)
norms
shared meanings
regularities artefacts
practices
ceremonies
rituals
myths & legends symbols
traditions
beliefs
understandingsattitudes
values
Assumptions
Mental models – mindsets
A
12. Physical Structures
Language
Rituals and Ceremonies
Stories and Legends
Communication Networks
History
Beliefs
Values
Assumptions
Artifacts of
Organizational
Culture
OrganizationalOrganizational
CultureCulture
Elements of Organizational
Culture
14. Shaping culture
Three processes school leaders can use to
shape
the school culture:
1. Read the culture to identify current norms and
values
2. Assess the culture to determine which elements
support the school’s purpose and mission
3. Shape the culture by reinforcing positive aspects
and working to transform negative aspects
Reference: Peterson, Kent (2002). Positive or Negative? Journal of Staff
Development, 23:3
15. Positive School Culture ?
What are the characteristics of a positive
school culture
How does it affect teaching and learning?
16. POSITIVE CULTURE
LEADERSHIP PERMEATES
SUCCESS IS CELEBRATED AND
RECOGNISED
HONESTY, OPENESS ARE EVIDENT
EXTERNAL INVOLVEMENT
PARTICIPATION IS ENCOURAGED
OPEN TO CHANGE
TAKES RISKS
SOCIALISATION21st Century Leadership21st Century Leadership
17. Negative School Culture ?
What are the characteristics of a negative
school culture
How does it affect teaching and learning?
21. Every school has skeletons
These skeletons become a
part of the culture – good or
bad
The way a community deals
with these “skeletons: speaks
volumes about its “culture” and
commitment to self-
improvement
22. Leadership
"It can be argued
that the only thing of real importance that leaders
do is create and manage cultures;
that the unique talent of leaders is their ability to
understand and work with culture;
and that it is an ultimate act of leadership to
destroy culture when it is viewed as
dysfunctional." (Schein, 2004)
23. Culture is transmitted and
embedded by…
Primary Embedding
Mechanisms
What leaders pay attention
to, measure and control
How leaders react to critical
incidents
How leaders allocate
resources
Leader’s role modelling and
coaching
How leaders allocate
rewards and status
Recruitment, selection,
promotion and exit
Secondary Reinforcement
Mechanisms
Design and Structure
Systems and Processes
Rites and Rituals
Physical space, facades and
buildings
Stories about important
events
Creation of heroes
Can become Primary over
time!
24. If a head is consistently interested in one
thing, it will become a centerpiece of
school culture. If a head is inconsistently
interested in many things, unclear in
communicating with employees, or
inconsistent in decision-making or
defining priorities, people will spend a lot
of time trying to figure out what’s going
on. The head’s inconsistency will
become a central feature of the school
culture. (Understanding School Culture,
Michael Thompson
25. Requirements for Successfully Changing
Organizational Culture
Understand the old culture first
Support employees and teams who have ideas for a
better culture and are willing to act on those ideas
Find the most effective subculture in the organization
and use it as a model
Help employees and teams do their jobs more
effectively
Use the vision of a new culture as a guide for change
Recognize that significant cultural change takes time
Live the new culture
27. TO CHANGE YOUR
SCHOOL’S CULTURE
Promote your mission, vision, values and
goals.
Bring your staff together to find best
practices.
Sustain the culture through
communication.
Persist.
Confront problems.www.schoolofeducators.com
28. My School
Pick 1 practice in your school you would
like to change or introduce and 1 that
you would like to maintain
What are the beliefs , assumptions on
which this practice is based
How will you bring about this change?
29. Symbol of Culture
Potter who shapes the
Culture
Poet who uses language to
describe the Culture
Actor who plays out the
values and vision
Healer who presides over
life transitions in the
community
The Leader is: