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Knowledge Quest on the Web:
January/February 2001

Special full-text reprint with embedded links of the "Homepage" column
"Leading on the Wave of Change" (p. 9-10)
exclusively on the KQWeb

Leading on the Wave of Change

Debbie Abilock, Editor

In current corporate thinking, "People who make waves and spark contention are regarded as assets, not liabilities."1 Clearly this is in response to the unremitting changes that characterize the marketplace, where companies come and go with breathtaking speed. Managing in this "permanent white water of modern organizations creates . . . an environment of continual newness [and] continual learning."2 These same forces are at work in schools. In this issue Sandra Hughes-Hassell helps us understand the theoretical and practical aspects of change as they apply to the implementation challenges faced by school library media specialists. In a recent issue of Book Report, Gary Hartzell identified proactivity as a key element of leadership.3 This is reflected in Hughes-Hassell's case study of a library media specialist in Virginia who responds to the school district's adoption of whole language by learning about it, then evaluating the current library program through the lens of her learning and, finally, explicitly communicating and teaching her colleagues about the overlap between her program's goals and the principles and goals of whole language.

Leadership also is a matter of taking initiative and valuing initiative in others. Terri G. Kirk and Laura Pearle are part of the organizational structure of the American Association of School Librarians, and Eleanor B. Howe of the International Association of School Librarians was nominated to attend a leadership institute at Snowbird sponsored by Ameritech Library Services. Each of them independently submitted a manuscript to Knowledge Quest with the goal of helping you understand how professional committees, implementation efforts, and conferences can channel our individual leadership efforts into existing structures to achieve broad goals for our profession.

All the authors in this issue of Knowledge Quest are leaders. Some are what David Kennedy of Stanford has called task leaders: they have the great ideas and are analytical problem-finders and -solvers. Others are process leaders who hold groups together through facilitation, manage with humor and self-deprecation, and monitor the group's sense of purpose.4 As you read the articles by Barbara Jinkins and Lesley Farmer, look for clues to the leadership style of these outstanding collaborators.

In nonhierarchical schools with highly creative teachers, internal leaders sometimes feel as if they are "herding cats... a phrase often used in technology circles to describe the difficulty of managing the seemingly unmanageable."5 Susan L. Moyer chose to work with an outside expert, Ruth V. Small, to develop motivational strategies for teaching informational literacy to her students. Then they collaborated together on their article. Through this process Moyer will garner both support and respect from her colleagues.

There is no shortage of advice about leadership, as a quick search on the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development Web site www.ascd.org; confirms. The references range from case studies or narratives, to research, to how-to manuals on such topics as "proactive communication." In one book I found a school climate checklist and guidelines for creating focus groups.6 A resource bank for educational leaders in Jefferson County Public Schools has a nicely annotated collection of resources "to help school leaders manage and promote educational change within their buildings."7 The International Electronic Journal for Leadership in Learning www.acs.ucalgary.ca/~iejll publishes articles on substantive leadership issues that are of current concern in educational communities. In contrast, an ERIC Digest identifies the "Mistakes Educational Leaders Make"—most fall under poor human relations.8 A total of fifteen categories of mistakes were identified:

The weight placed on these mistakes may vary from one school culture to another, but except for the last bulleted item they apply equally well to all school library leaders. Leadership is not just dependent on an individual's unique qualities. "Successful leaders have learned to view their organizations' environment in a holistic way."9 They understand and model the core values of the institution. Leaders who flexibly employ both task and process styles are capable of inspiring in others both a commitment to lead and a will to continue riding the white water of a dynamic vision. For it is through others' beliefs in their own self-efficacy that aspirations to leadership are created within organizations.10

References and Notes

1. Richard Tanner Pascale, Managing on the Edge: How the Smartest Companies Use Conflict to Stay Ahead (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1990).
2. Peter B. Vaill, Learning as a Way of Being: Strategies for Survival in a World of Permanent White Water (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1996).
3. Gary Hartzell, "Being Proactive," Book Report 18, no. 5 (Mar./Apr. 2000): 14–18.
4. David Kennedy, "The Warrior and the President: Two Case Studies in Leadership" (speech at Stanford-California State Library Institute on 21st-Century Librarianship, August 6, 2000). A summary of the speech is available online at http://institute21.stanford.edu/Current_Programs/2000_Institute/Presenters/papers/summary/summ-kennedy.htm.
5. "Cat Herding," EDS Super Bowl television commercial, n.d., www.eds.com/advertising/advertising_tv_catherding.shtml. Accessed 22 Oct. 2000.
6. Anne Meek, Communicating with the Public: A Guide for School Leaders (Alexandria, Va.: Assoc. for Supervision and Curriculum Development, 1999).
7. "Leadership," Critical Issues in Educational Leadership, n.d., http://204.98.1.2/isu/critical/leader.html. Accessed 22 Oct. 2000.
8. Clete Bulach, Winston Pickett, and Diane Boothe, "Mistakes Educational Leaders Make," ERIC Digest 122, June 1998, http://eric.uoregon.edu/publications/digests/digest122.html;. Accessed 22 Oct. 2000.
9. Stephen Stolp, "Leadership for School Culture," ERIC Digest 91, June 1994; http://eric.uoregon.edu/publications/digests/digest091;. Accessed 22 Oct. 2000.
10. Albert Bandura, Self-Efficacy: The Exercise of Control (New York: W. H. Freeman, 1997).

Debbie Abilock, Editor, is the Assistant Head of The San Francisco School, San Francisco CA.

Copyright © 2001 American Association of School Librarians, a division of the American Library Association.