Resilient School Leaders: Strategies for Turning Adversity into Achievement

186 Pages·2005·0.86 MB·English

by  Jerry L. Patterson

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Patterson, Jerry L., 1944-
Resilient school leaders : strategies for turning adversity into achievement / Jerry L.
Patterson and Paul Kelleher.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 1-4166-0267-4 (alk. paper)
1. School management and organization. 2. Educational leadership. I. Kelleher,
Paul, 1943- II. Title.
LB2805.P33184 2005
371.2—dc22
2005023983
12 11 10 09 08 07 06 05 12 11 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
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Introduction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . v
1. A Deeper Meaning of Resilience. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
2. Optimism in the Face of the Storm . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
3. Optimism and Pessimism in Action. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
4. Be Clear About What Matters Most . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
5. Act on the Courage of Your Convictions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
6. Personal Efficacy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
7. How Leaders Sustain and Strengthen Personal Efficacy. . . . . . . 83
8. The Meaning and Importance of Personal Energy. . . . . . . . . . 104
9. How Leaders Sustain and Increase Energy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116
10. From Personal Resilience to Team Resilience. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133
11. Bringing It All Together: The Six Strengths
of Resilient Leaders . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146
Appendix: The Education Leaders We Interviewed . . . . . . . . . . . . 159
Bibliography. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 166
Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 170
About the Authors. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 174
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Introduction
This book strives to respond to the basic question “How can leaders
move ahead in the face of adversity?” We define leaders broadly to
include those who occupy positions of formal authority and those
who informally lead others because of their expertise, credibility, and
relationships. The book is written for leaders who have faced adversi-
ty in the past, wrestle with adversity right now, or anticipate adversi-
ty in the future. Chances are, this book is written for you. Its founda-
tion rests on our firm belief, substantiated throughout the book by
current research and best practices, that you can move ahead despite
the storms in your life. Our focus is on you as leader, storms in your
life, and strategies to help you navigate the storms to safe harbor.
Metaphor of Storms
The typical image of adversity seems to be almost exclusively a nega-
tive one. We have found from our own experience that many leaders
don’t want to acknowledge adversity in their lives because they
believe it conveys a sign of weakness in leadership. For example, soon
after the book Bouncing Back (Patterson, Patterson, & Collins, 2002)
was published, some criticized its title. As one superintendent con-
fessed, “I was reluctant to have people seeing me reading a book about
bouncing back. Bouncing back means that I have been knocked to the
ground. Good superintendents don’t acknowledge they have been
sucker-punched by adversity, knocked down, and then scrambled to
bounce back.” We think the metaphor of storms aptly captures the
spirit behind the word adversity. Just as storms in nature always end
and the sun always comes out again, adversity in our lives always
ebbs, and we can emerge stronger from it.
v
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vi Resilient School Leaders
Storms symbolically represent significant and unplanned disrup-
tions to expectations for how life will unfold. Storms can range from
the warm, soft rain of a spring day to the wind-driven, needle-sharp
sleet of a winter gale. Storms can be as relatively innocuous as a weak,
low-pressure area passing through with clouds and drizzle or as strong
and dangerous as a hurricane or tornado. Contexts—such as season
and geography—can make all the difference with storms. The moisture
of a soaking rain in spring in the south can produce a life-threatening
blizzard or ice storm in winter in the north. Similar storms can produce
different outcomes.
The storms of school life are also exceedingly varied in kind and
intensity. They can range from the inconvenience and frustration
caused when inclement weather cancels outdoor activity at an ele-
mentary school, to angry public controversies over grading policies,
to the devastating disruption caused when a student dies. The varied
contexts of school storms will also produce different outcomes. A
school with a stable, respected leader and a trusted faculty will weather
a public controversy much more successfully than a school that has a
history of an adversarial relationship with its community.
Storms of nature and storms of school life share predictable
unpredictability. Although we know that storms inevitably will occur,
we don’t know, even with the best forecasts, exactly when they will
hit or with what intensity. And we cannot be sure what the contextu-
al factors will be—the temperature, the wind conditions, or the school
climate—when the storms strike. Your challenge as school leader is to
weather the storm and apply your skills to strengthen your resilience
after the storm has subsided.
Research Base for the Book
We drew from a diverse research base in preparing to write this book,
looking outside the field of education to the disciplines of individual
psychology, sociology of organizations, and organizational develop-
ment, as well as philosophy and the wisdom of experience. One source
of practical experience included our own careers in education, collec-
tively serving more than 70 years in a variety of roles that include
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Introduction vii
teacher, principal, central office administrator, superintendent, and
university teacher.
Another primary source of practical wisdom and experience
were educational leaders like you. We identified 25 people who rep-
resent reflective writers in the area of leadership as well as reflective
practitioners who are educational leaders in the field. Listed here are
the leaders we interviewed (see the appendix for more extensive
biographies):
Roland Barth Peter Block Ben Canada
Gene Carter Carol Choye Loucrecia Collins
Vince Ferrandino Charles Fowler Michael Fullan
Herman Gaither Maria Goodloe Linda Hanson
Paul Houston Larry Lezotte Jim Loehr
Josephine Moffett Rubén Olivárez Gerrita Postlewait
Phillip Schlechty Chuck Schwahn Tom Sergiovanni
Lynne Shain Dennis Sparks Alicia Thomas
Dan Wertz
We are indebted to these individuals, who graciously extended
the time, reflection, and insights to make the interviews special. With
more than 700 years of collective experience, their perspectives
enriched our research base, and their comments are included exten-
sively throughout the book.
This book is a journey toward resilience in the face of life’s storms.
It is founded on principles of optimism, hope, and efficacy. We
believe in optimism—your ability to maintain a positive outlook
about the future, despite the adversities that inevitably will occur. We
believe in hope—your passion to fight through the storms for what is
right, just, and reasonable, irrespective of the outcomes. We believe in
the power of efficacy—your confidence in your own capabilities. Our
hope for this book is that you will gain keen insights, proven strate-
gies, and a heightened sense of efficacy to help you navigate the
storms and emerge from them stronger than before.
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1
A Deeper Meaning
of Resilience
Resilience is a convenient label to describe things that bounce back.
Newspaper headlines declared the winners of the 2004 World Series, the
Boston Red Sox, a “resilient” team. A manufacturer chose “Resilience”
as the brand name for its pantyhose. The trait of resilience has, in fact,
been used to describe a range of human performance, from Lance Arm-
strong’s battle with cancer to New York City’s courage following 9/11.
But resilience is more than a trendy topic. Resilience is a multidimen-
sional, research-based construct that offers a powerful set of tools to
help school leaders grow stronger from adversity. Our intent in this
book is to take you on a journey to strengthen your understanding and
leadership skills in the area of resilience.
A Brief History of Resilience
Resilience finds its home in the field of psychology. For many years, the
psychologists’ view was a negative one. Shortly after World War II, the
National Institutes of Health began to fund large grants to research psy-
chologists, provided that their line of inquiry was mental disorders. “Psy-
chologists became dedicated chroniclers of mental illness, exploring the
many varieties and developing convoluted categories and subcategories
of disorders with increasing zeal” (Reivich & Shatte, 2002, p. 57).
The problem-focused medical model spilled over into other domains
of psychology. Researchers described resilience in terms of the coping
factors needed to survive an array of risk factors, including family dys-
function, disease, illness, and chronic poverty. Researchers employed
a deficits model, studying how people narrowed the gap between
their deficits due to adversity and what they needed to function in
survival mode.
1