Dr. Ric Dressen, our superintendent has talked in the past that our role as a teacher-leader walks between the classroom and administration, but without the authority and power. Cheesebrow will work with us today to help us walk that tightrope.
He started by asking what does it sound like and feel like? Some responses:
Sound like:
From the outside, do more with less
Can you do this for me
Negotiating time and needs
Opportunities
Feels like:
Advocate
Resource
Pressure, yet exciting
Cheesbrow talked about Barry Oshry's work operating in the middle, where accountability, performance, and partnership exist. We need to be orientated up and out, a world of tearing and accountability. High accountability with no resources.
There are two conditions of the middles:
Diffuse and separate while meeting other people's agenda
The also need to integrate for their own health
The system needs "middle's" to be independent in thought and action. He said that one of the best things he did when he was in the middle in corporate, was to meet with others in the same position. He always seemed to come out of those meetings with strategies.
Everyone in an organization has 3 types of authority:
Organizational-Easy to get, but hard to lose based on title and position
Cultural-Authority and capital, relationship and story, hard to get and easy to lose
Competency-Based on knowledge and experience, hard to get and hard to lose
Ask yourself, if I push this initiative, what cultural authority will I burn up if I want to do something three months from now. Can you find someone with the cultural authority to do what you need to do!?
What is something that needs to be done in the next 30 days?
For me, that might be Bring Your Own Laptop, assisting with planning for Technology Referendum, Moving toward TIES grade book at Middle Level, and determining what a teacher's Web presence will look like at the secondary level.
With the different frameworks, Cheeseborough said that they help identify where you are at in the process and use that to help formulate decisions.
We discussed that in the middle, as soon as you get a title, your competency is now called into question. You also never have full Organizational Authority because you are not a decision maker.
In the middle, you are an integrator. You may not have pushed the button to make things happen, but you played an important role. He said that "the middle" hasn't been around organizationally that long. In schools, it is less. Cultural Authority is where you work and play. You can increase others trust and competence by your hard work. The reward is watching the system move and improve.
The district NEEDS us to do that! The presence and growth of the "middles" is critical. By middle, he doesn't mean "middle management." We help maintain the relationships.
Oshry uses a "sewer pipe analogy." Middle's need to stand in the middle but neither drink it or plug it up!
The role of producers is to resist all change, the role of admin is to manage change. The middles work in between.
If we are asked to get something done, but the only way to do that is through relationships, we need to let people in on our world and what we experience and see. We need to tell others of our world and make sense of that in a dialog as a way to make this happen. I may need to operate differently from the way the admin is telling, to get the same result. "In my world I see this. What do you see?" I know I experienced this in our 1:1 laptop learning experience!
Often Middles are charged with communicating what people see, think, want and feel.
He recommends, Clear Leadership by Dr. Gervase R. Bushe as an excellent resource on leadership. Bushe is a protege of Oshry.
He finished by reminding us of the strategic growth and change model, where choices get made and then something needs to leave the system. The middle's help provide the energy and also articulate what needs to leave.
He suggested that if we found something in his talk valuable, we should try it 3 times in the next 10 days and then report on the results and share with our colleagues.
I will take him up on it!
Hi Michael,
ReplyDeleteThank you so much for sharing the link to your blog post. I will check out Bushe's Clear Leadership. The description of those in the middle is the first time I've seen my experience so accurately captured in print. Accountability with out resources; being the go between -- not drinking the bad stuff, not stopping it up; maintaining credibility through hard work; the ease with which cultural capital is lost and the difficulty with which it is gained.... So, what did you decide to try three times?
Becky (from Team Morning)