Seeking a Cure for Leadership in Our Lifetime.

This study examined how self-described "wounded school leaders" were being wounded by leadership itself. It grew out of three earlier studies that investigated the leadership crisis in U.S. schools, focusing on the similarities between the stories leaders were telling about crises in practice and those of individuals confronting medical illness. Data came from interviews with 65 superintendents, principals, and heads of independent schools who had experienced significant crises in their own leadership practice. Overall, leaders believed wounding took many forms, ranging from disappointments, problems, or disorienting dilemmas to fullblown crises. The wounding experience was driven by a fundamental underlying proposition: a leader is impelled into a state of dissonance to which he or she adapts. Byproducts of leadership work included vulnerability, fear, isolation, power, and fear of powerlessness. An important learnable moment for leaders often occurred during a wounding crisis and times of discord. Many school leaders became "other centered," carrying the weight of other people's worries, problems, and desires, then developing their own wounds precisely because they often believed they had to hide their fears and vulnerabilities from others. Leaders often believed they had to be helpers and fixers, as well as independent and strong, which thwarted them from listening to their own needs. (Contains 77 references.) (SM) Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made from the original document. 1 Seeking a Cure for Leadership in Our Lifetime Richard H. Ackerman, University of Massachusetts, Lowell Pat Maslin-Ostrowksi, Florida Atlantic University Paper presented at Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association April 2002 New Orleans PERMISSION TO REPRODUCE AND DISSEMINATE THIS MATERIAL HAS BEEN GRANTED BY 1 oikklas1;A0_51rDwski TO THE EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES INFORMATION CENTER (ERIC) Offce S o f D EEPcAtRioTMl ENsT OcF EDUCATION nt EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES INFORMATION CENTER (ERIC) This document has been reproduced as received from the person or organization originating it. Minor changes have been made to improve reproduction quality. ° Points of view or opinions stated in this document do not necessarily represent official OERI position or policy. BEST COPY AVAILABLE Our research focus over the past several years has been to understand what a self-described leadership crisis or "wounding" experience means to educational leaders and how it influences their professional as well as personal growth and development (Ackerman & Maslin-Ostrowski, In Press). This research represents an emerging line of inquiry, specifically into the interpersonal and intrapersonal realms of leadership and what this means for the role of leader. Previous studies (Ackerman & Maslin-Ostrowski, 2001; Maslin-Ostrowski & Ackerman, 1998a, 1999, 2000a) have been driven by two interrelated questions. First, how does a reasonable, well-intentioned person, who happens to be a school leader, preserve a healthy and real sense of self in the face of a host of factors challenging that self in the best scenario, and leading to a wounding crisis in the worst? Second, what perspective toward the work of leadership might fortify the impact of these challenges, and produce a mindset that leaves the person open to learn and grow from such experience? Wounding tends to occur in relation to a leader's efforts, conscious and unconscious, to cope with what we think of as endemic conditions or "givens" of leadership life. We find four givens are particularly relevant to the work of leadership and manifested in the wounding experience: vulnerability, isolation, fear, and power. An understanding of these dimensions is important to the sense that leadership is worth doing not simply for what is to be accomplished, but for the essential and sustaining aspects of the work of leadership. This latest paper, extending and building upon earlier studies (See discussion below.), serves as a capstone investigation and is guided by what seems to be an inevitable "so what" question: to what extent are self-described wounded leaders being wounded by leadership itself? Can there be something in the nature of leadership that inhibits knowledgeable, skilled, decisive, and well-intentioned people from successfully realizing the mandate to lead? Simply put, what is it about leadership that, at times, gets in the way of leadership? Although there has been a virtual revolution in medicine concerning how we think about the diseases that now afflict us, this has not been the case in educational leadership. The current state of leadership practiced in schools makes leadership seem increasingly at risk. There is widespread agreement that in the United States schools are facing a dearth of school leaders capable of providing good leadership. Constant reports on the shortage of school leaders, as well as concerns regarding the job itself, find more wounded leaders leaving or languishing in the world of schools than ever before. Retirement, the decreasing number of applicants, and inadequate leadership support and development account for some of these conditions (National Association of State Boards of Education, 1999), but not all. School leaders and those aspiring to leadership persistently cite job-related stress and time fragmentation, the growing pressure of high stakes testing and accountability, and the social problems that schools are assuming in trying to instruct students as major factors influencing their standing (National Association of Elementary School Principals, 2001). It is not surprising that many school leaders today are increasingly reluctant to assume a job as difficult as leadership has become, a concern increasingly heightened by the institutional and ultimately personal challenges that compel leaders themselves to contemplate these issues. In our view, a leader's conscious relation to the givens of leadership life -vulnerability, isolation, fear, and power -contains the seeds of wisdom and perhaps transformation in that these givens make it possible to harness their power in the service of personal change and growth. In the