Sustaining Leadership Team Effectiveness in Education Agencies to Improve Student Achievement

Abstract

As education evolves, leadership processes change. The concept of a single senior leader, with siloed divisions often providing direction, is transforming into a team-based culture. While there is substantive research on school-site leadership, research is limited on how the central organization impacts the system. It identified individual leadership characteristics but had not adequately addressed impact of a senior leadership team. This study addresses the concept of senior leadership teams with divisions and executives working collaboratively. It identifies characteristics of effective leadership teams to explore how they can be successfully created and sustained; and it investigates the senior leader’s role in, and what factors and methods can be replicated to sustain, team effectiveness. Four organizations participated: one school district, one government agency and two for-profit organizations. Twenty-five senior leaders and team members completed a DiSC and Five Behaviors of a Cohesive Team assessment; a Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats (SWOT) analysis; and a hiring values survey. All were interviewed individually and as a group, and the structured and semi-structured instruments were chosen to explore group characteristics in such a way that the data would point to replicable information. Study elements, coupled with my expertise in team development and leadership, allowed me to critically consider data and identify three emerging themes. While aspects of these themes have been previously identified, they have not been linked as a pathway to creating and sustaining effective teams as a route to organizational excellence leading to student achievement. First, there is a strong relation between the factors of team culture, membership, and expectations and engagement as a foundation of an effective team. Second, crucial team management and engagement methods were identified as key to long-term sustainability. Third, the senior leader’s impact is significant to team success based on team leadership style and methodology. A paradigm emerged changing traditional leadership hierarchy to a new dynamic of leading from the center. The research indicates that deliberately designing teams may have greater potential for success and long-term effectiveness. Further research is encouraged to address issues relating to virtual teams and identify successful strategies in team building and implementation.