A Strengths-Based Approach to School

Leadership: How a What’s Right With Me Paradigm

Engages The School Community

Teri Marcos, Ed.D., ChairDepartment of Educational Leadership

Azusa Pacific University

Strengths Philosophy“Individuals gain more when they build on

their talents, than when they make comparable efforts to improve their areas of weakness.”

--Clifton & Harter, 2003, p. 112

Writing Challenge Write your name 5 times…

What Was the Difference? Could you write with your non-dominant

hand? With practice, could you get better at this? Could you write as WELL or as FAST or as

EASILY as with your dominant hand?

The Strengths Perspective“You start seeing people in terms of who

they are … rather than in terms of who they aren’t…”

--Chip Anderson, 2000

What Are Strengths?

Talent + Knowledge + Skills = Strength

--Clifton & Harter, 2003

Ways of seeing the world and interacting with it that enable excellence.

The Highest Achievers Spend most of their time in their

areas of strength Use their strengths to overcome

obstacles Invent ways of capitalizing on their

strengths in new situations

The Focus ChangesFROM: Problems Attendance Preparation Putting into the

student Average

TO: Possibilities Engagement Motivation Drawing out from the

student Excellence

The Global Language of Data

Data cognitively drive the current global language we speak in education.

Strengths-based training affectively rooted in the field of social work, psychiatry, and business, draw on the strengths of individuals as an effective replacement of commonly accepted deficit models which ask ‘what’s wrong with me’ to a ‘what’s right with me’ approach.

What’s Right With Me? This question offers a powerful counter to

the largely data-driven landscape of public education in America.

“Becoming more aware of one’s strengths can build excellence in future achievements, relationships, and other life experiences” (Clifton and Anderson, 2004).

What is a Strength?

In their book, StrengthsQuest, Clifton and Anderson define a strength as “the ability to provide consistent, near-perfect performance in a given activity.”

The Gallup organization’s Clifton StrengthsFinder Inventory was prescribed within this research as a personal lens through which school leaders viewed their strengths.

The Standardized Language of American School Leadership

Practice Competent American school leaders are

required to provide consistent, near-perfect performance within the six contructs of their duties, as defined by the Interstate School Leadership Licensure Consortium (ISLLC) National Standards for Educational Leadership.

These are:

ISLLC Standards1. Facilitating the development,

articulation, implementation, and stewardship of a vision of learning that is shared and supported by the school community. (Visionary Leadership).

2. Advocating, nurturing and sustaining a school culture and instructional program conducive to student learning and staff professional growth. (Professional Culture).

Cont…3. Ensuring management of the

organization, operations, and resources for a safe, efficient, and effective learning environment (Efficient Management of Operations).

4. Collaborating with families and community members, responding to diverse community interests and needs, and mobilizing community resources (Responsiveness to Community).

Cont…5. Modeling a personal code of ethics and

developing professional leadership capacity (Ethical Leadership).

6. Responding to, and influencing the larger political, social economic, legal, and cultural context (Politically and Culturally Sensitive Understanding).

Know Thyself Globally, we are experiencing exponential

growth in new knowledge, new fields of scholarly practice, and new technologies that facilitate our creation of, access to, and distribution of information.

School leaders must ‘know thyself’ (Glickman, 2004) in such a world to effectively lead others.

The Language of Identity Knowing thyself through identity is crucial

to learning and to leading. 1,500 individuals were surveyed in 1988

(by Kouzes and Posner) to determine what values (personal traits or characteristics) they admire in their superiors.

Findings – followers admired leaders who were honest, competent, forward-looking and inspiring.

The Language of Strengths The findings of Kouzes and Posner showed

that followers hold dear the relationship of the personal values of decision makers to the values of their organization.

Values are communicated in everything a school leader does, writes, and speaks. This second set of skills includes the ability to be empathetic, to listen attentively, to pay attention to another and to value others.

Strengths Strengths are naturally occurring patterns

of thought, feeling, or behavior which can be productively applied.

“Strengths are among the most real and most authentic aspects of a personhood”

(Clifton and Anderson, 2004).

34 SignatureThemesAchiever Deliberative Learner *

Activator Developer Maximizer

Adaptability ** Discipline Positivity

Analysis Empathy Relator **

Arranger Focus Responsibility

Belief Futuristic Restorative

Command Harmonizer Self-Assurance

Communicator Ideation Significance

Competitor Includer Strategic

Connectedness Individualization Winning Others Over (WOO)

Consistency Input * **= Strongest Student Themes

Context Intellection * •= Strongest Faculty ThemesSource: Dr. Laurie Schreiner, APU

Strengths and School Leadership

As school leaders identified their own top five strengths, they began to recognize the strengths of others.

MethodObjective: This research examined the perceptions of K-12

public and private school leaders on the effects their top five identified strengths had on their leadership skills within the American school setting.

Sample: 75 American school leaders were randomly selected to respond to a questionnaire regarding their perspectives on the effects of their top five identified strengths on their leadership skills within the American school learning environment.

Instrument: Three sections: Demographics, Four element Likert Scale, qualitative section to gather school leaders’ perceptions of the effects of their strengths within their leadership role at their school.

Procedure: School leaders were sampled through public mailings, and APU’s master’s degree program in educational leadership.

ReliabilityStrengthsFinder Inventory: Used with over 4 million people in 17

languages – over 100,000 college students Previous Gallup studies: 17-month test-

retest reliability across all populations ranges from .60 to .80

College student validity study: 3-month test-retest reliability among college

students ranges from .70 to .76

Three Primary Findings70% of all respondents identified Achiever and/or Learner as

their top or second strength.

1. Overall leadership capacity increased2. Building Communities of Practice was enhanced3. Increased understanding of group dynamics

Strengths: Total N % of 75 Respondents

Achiever ////////////////////////// 26 35%

Learner ////////////////////////// 26 35%

Maximizer //////////////////// 20 27%

Responsibility //////////////// 16 21%

Harmony //////////////// 16 21%

Overall Leadership Capacity Increased

99% of respondents agreed or somewhat agreed that an increase in their overall leadership capacity was positively attributed to knowing their strengths.

80% agreed or somewhat agreed that leading change, and decision making capacity (90%) were each impacted significantly through knowing their strengths.

Building Communities of Practice

93% agreed or somewhat agreed that building community was enhanced through knowing their strengths in the following areas:

1. Valuing others’ strengths (91%)2. Team building (91%)3. Valuing diversity (96%)4. Parent contact (93%)5. Increased adaptability (89%)

Group Dynamics88% of respondents identified an increase in

the understanding of group dynamics. Sub-categories within group dynamics emerged as:

1. Improved professional relationships (91%)2. Facilitation of meetings (83%)3. Student discipline (93%)4. Communication with students (96%)5. Communication with staff (99%)

Conclusions As knowledge increasingly relates to

feeling it continues to appreciably affect behavior.

In our data driven society, school leaders, teachers, and designers of curriculum and assessment need to recognize that motivation and engagement are at the heart of all learning.

This can be accomplished well through a strengths-based approach.

Recommendations A renewed vision of the importance of

balance through each of the three learning modalities of cognitive, affective, and psychomotor must be raised.

Educators need to well espouse each of the three domains of learning and leading, and do our very best to employ the use of the affective domain in teaching students.

It is recommended school leaders become empowered by knowing their strengths to pursue excellence for their organizations.

Summary Affectively, strengths-based models fit well

into the area of knowledge for training school leaders, teachers, and students.

Participants in this study said: “I know my unique strengths now”; “I use my strengths everyday, and I observe others and can identify their strengths”; “I now understand why and how I can be successful.”